Witness to an era: India 1920 to the present day - Hardcover
Witness to an Era: India, 1920 to the Present Day [hardcover] Moraes, Frank [Apr 12, 1973]
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- PublisherWeidenfeld and Nicolson
- Publication date1973
- ISBN 10 0297765167
- ISBN 13 9780297765165
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
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Witness to an Era
Published by
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London
(1973)
ISBN 10: 0297765167
ISBN 13: 9780297765165
Used
Hardcover
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Book Description Hard Cover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. BOOK: Corners, Spine Bumped; Light Shelf Rub to Boards; Edges Lightly Soiled; Slight Yellowing Due to Age. DUST JACKET: Lightly Chipped; Slight Yellowing Due to Age; In Archival Quality Jacket Cover. SYNOPSIS: As a journalist on The Times of India, one of the sub-continent's most powerful newspapers, and later editor both of The Times and the Indian Express, Frank Moraes has had a special vantage point from which to view India's history over fifty years. He grew to manhood as Gandhi made his first political impact after the First World War, studied in England and met Gandhi, Hinnah and Menon during the Round Table Conferences of the early 1930's, and back in India after 1936, interviewed and got to know the leaders of the Congress, the Muslim League and the British administration. His continued contacts with this comparatively small elite gave him a unique opportunity for insight not only into the political processes at work before and after independence, but into the personalities of those who were shaping the future. His book is both a record of these years, and a personal commentary on them. Would independence have come earlier without the Mahatma's insistence on non-violence - and how consistently non-violent was he? Did his Hindu idealism prevent him from defeating untouchability because he did not attack the caste system itself? Did Nehru's socialism weaken India's post-war economy, blind him to the threat of totalitarianism and commit him to an international non-alignment, paralysing to India's foreign policy? Did his failure to encourage an alternative young leadership in the Congress condemn India to a gradual erosion of democracy? And above all, was partition, which the author sees as a tragedy for which the sub-continent is still suffering, inevitable? Were only the British, Jinnah and the League to blame, or also the Congress itself? Moraes keeps coming back to these questions as he looks on India today, still living out the contradictions of its recent past. Frank Moraes, son of an Indian official in the days of the British raj, was born in Bombay in 1907, graduated in history and economics at Bombay university and later took a degree at Oxford. He is also a barrister-at-law of Lincoln's Inn. In his youth he saw a great deal of district life in India travelling with his parents. Shortly after his return from England in 1934 he entered journalism following a brief spell as a lawyer. He worked first on The Times of India, Bombay, becoming its editor in 1950. During the second world war he was a war correspondent in Burma and China. After the conflict he joined The Times of Ceylon, serving as its editor for two years. In 1957 he became editor-in-chief of the Indian Express which has the largest overall circulation of newspapers in the English language in India. He served as a member of the Indian Cultural delegation to China in 1952 and was appointed sheriff of Bombay for 1961-62. His books include Report on Mao's China, Jawaharlal Nehru, Yonder one World, The Revolt in Tibet, India Today and The Importance of Being Black. CONTENTS: Foreword; PART I TWILIGHT OF EMPIRE 1907-39 1 Looking Back 2 At Home and Abroad 3 First Encounters: Gandhi, Jinnah, Menon 4 Stranger in My Own Country 5 The Roots of Partition 6 Pressures from the Left; PART II NO TURNING BACK 1939-47 7 Shadow of Pakistan 8 Congress, Communists and the War 9 "Quit India" 10 War Correspondent 11 In Delhi and Chungking 12 How Freedom Came 13 Looking Back on the Raj; PART III THE BANYAN TREE 1947-64 14 Death of Gandhi 15 The Mahatma's Heir 16 Ceylon, Australasia, Burma 17 Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam 18 China and Pakistan 19 The Banyan Tree; PART IV AFTER NEHRU 1964-71 20 The Meek Hindu 21 Woman Prime Minister 22 Rediscovering India: Travels in Africa, Japan and Europe 23 Brown, Black, Yellow, White 24 Nomad's View; Index. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Seller Inventory # 001149
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