October 15th, 1997 The State visit of Elizabeth II started as a most curious spectacle. Both Robin Cook, her foreign secretary, and she herself were seen with both feet stuck firmly in their mouths. The Indian Prime Minister as a good host could not bear the embarrassment of his honoured guests. He took a deep… Continue reading When rapists become well-wishers
October 1st, 1997 2 October 1997 is Gandhi Jayanti — Gandhiji’s birthday and Itihaasjoins its readers, the people of India and the world in offering homage to one of the greatest of men who walked the earth during the course of recorded human history. With the prizes for capturing political power running into billions and… Continue reading Bapu Liberated Women from Purdah
September 24th, 1997 The picture shows an incident which occurred one hundred and forty years ago, on September 21, 1857, at Humayun’s Tomb, Dillee. As the effects of this outrage against India have yet to wear off, perhaps it would be sensible to dwell on it in some detail. First the picture and its context.… Continue reading British perfidy is without parallel
September 17th, 1997 Lumumba, Mobutu, Zaire, Congo, Katanga. These names and places were headline material in the heady Fifties. Do they, individually or severally, mean anything today? Today, few know or care about these people or places. This is a pity as the Mobutu experience, horrible and sick though it may be, shows the games… Continue reading 50s: Agony and extacy gone awry
September 10th, 1997 The tragic and sudden deaths of Princess Diana, Emad ( Dodi) al Fayed and the driver of the ill-fated Mercedes, Henri Paul have had an overwhelming effect upon the media in the USA, the UK and the Western world generally. Huge chunks of Time on TV and many square miles of Space… Continue reading Death is never a great leveller
September 6th, 1997 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s death at the age of 49 is a matter of sadness, a great tragedy. He was a true artist, inheritor and practitioner of a vanishing musical heritage: the qawwali. This musical form of the Sufi mystic tradition has been sung for many centuries and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan… Continue reading The ghazal and the Qawwali — in rememberance of Nusrat Fateh Ali
September 3rd, 1997 September 3 is a date of consequence in human history. On this day, in 1939, fifty eighty years ago, Adolf Hitler of Germany invaded Poland in open defiance of Britain and France, the superpowers of that time. A conflagration was sparked off and it was to cover the globe and last until… Continue reading The war had its saving graces
August 20th, 1997 As we enter the second half of the first century of India’s Independence it is time to take stock. What has been achieved? And, more importantly, what should be the priority in the decade 1997-2007? What problem needs to be addressed most urgently? Perhaps the total absence of idealism requires immediate and… Continue reading The legend of the origin of marriage in India
