Contents Covers- 1. Crucial Hour Of Freedom Struggle, 2. Breaking Up Hindu Morale, 3. Abetting Muslim Separation,4. Partition Of Bengal, 5. Sowing Seeds Of `Two Nation Theory`, 6. A Nation Bestirred,7. Congress: On The Slope Of Appeasement, 8. Khilafat Movement: `A Himalayan Error`, 9. Tragic Fruits Of Khilafat, 10. Conversions, Riots Galore, 11. Soaring Muslim Demands, 12. Communal Award, 13. Gangster Style Rewards The League, 14. Compromises On Nation`S Symbols, 15. Plan For Balkanisation, 16. Boost To Jinnah By Congress, 17. India On Volcano, Britain On Wway Out, 18. League`S `Direct Action`, 19. Deadlock Complete, 20. Leaders` Minds Prepared For Partition, 21. `Amen` To Partition, 22. Fraud Played On Bharat, 23. The Holocaust, 24. Challenge Of States Integration, 25. Was Partition Unavoidable?, 26. The Poisonous Seeds, 27. For The Dream To Come True

A new and illuminating portrait of one of the greatest figures of the twentieth century. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has been the subject of over a dozen well-regarded biographies, yet key aspects of the man still prove elusive. In this book, Rajmohan Gandhi, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and an acclaimed biographer and scholar, attempts to understand the phenomenon that was Gandhi. This he does by examining in detail dominant and varied themes of Gandhi's life"his unsuccessful bid to keep India united, his attitude towards caste and untouchability; his relationship with those whose empire he challenged; his controversial experiments with chastity; his views on God, truth and non-violence; and his selection of heirs to lead a new-born nation. For a generation growing up on images of a simplified Father of the Nation and apostle of non-violence frozen in statues or reduced to a few predictable strokes of an artist's pen, this biography offers a rewarding insight into the man, his victories and his defeats.

The participation of the South, especially Tamilnadu, in the Freedom Movement and allied protests under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi has not been much documented. The 'Salt satyagraha' shook the conscience of the British rulers that it led to the Round Table Conference in the capital of the British Empire. The fact that Tamilnadu played a significant role in this unique kind of protest led by Rajaji has now been brought out in the form of a fictionalized narrative by the eminent writer Vidya Subramaniam. Although ''idealism' as against 'realism' has now become unfashionable in the field of letters, I hold the author in great respect for her daring to portray her characters in conformity with her own convictions. The 'period aspect' of the novel has come off beautifully in the atmospheric description and dialogues between the characters. This novel is a befitting tribute to those who participated in the freedom struggle.

First published in 1968, The Bourbon Tragedy marks the fall of the ancient French monarchy on August 10, 1792. The Bourbon Royal Family was imprisoned in the tower of the Temple, a dark, medieval dungeon. The following January Louis XVI was taken out, tried and guillotined, and later Marie Antoinette too. Their two children, the Dauphin, a boy of eight, and his fourteen-year-old sister, were shut up alone. Eventually, in 1795, the girl was released to her mother’s Austrian relatives in exchange for eight French prisoners. She survived to ride at her uncle’s side at the Bourbon Restoration which followed the defeat of Napoleon. The boy’s fate is a mystery. Officially Louis Charles died on June 8, 1795, but it was later claimed by a series of Pretenders to the French throne that the boy who died in the Temple was not the Dauphin, but a dumb boy, dying of scrofula, who had been substituted for him. They may have been right: the little phantom King may have been rescued and, in this case, what happened to him? Was one of these claimants truly the Dauphin? Rupert Furneaux discusses this intriguing problem in a book which tells the intimate, tragic story of the captivity and fate of the whole Bourbon family in the French Revolution. This book will be of interest to students of French history, war history, literature, philosophy as well as to any casual reader interested in the mysteries of history.

Shyam Benegal is the best known and most prolific contemporary film-maker from India's arthouse or 'New Cinema' tradition. This work traces a career with its beginnings in political cinema and a realist aesthetic. Sangeeta Datta demonstrates how the struggles of women and the dispossessed and marginalised in Indian society have found an eloquent expression in films as diverse as Nishant, Bhumika, Mandi, Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda and Kalyug. The book also traces Benegal's work with his protégés and collaborators including many of the biggest names in Indian Cinema - Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Karishma Kapoor and A.R. Rahman.

A stunning first novel, set during the violent 1947 partition of India, about uprooted children and their journeys to safety As India is rent into two nations, communal violence breaks out on both sides of the new border and streaming hordes of refugees flee from blood and chaos. At an overrun train station, Shankar and Keshav, twin Hindu boys, lose sight of their mother and join the human mass to go in search of her. A young Sikh girl, Simran Kaur, has run away from her father, who would rather poison his daughter than see her defiled. And Ibrahim Masud, an elderly Muslim doctor driven from the town of his birth, limps toward the new Muslim state of Pakistan, rediscovering on the way his role as a healer. As the displaced face a variety of horrors, this unlikely quartet comes together, defying every rule of self-preservation to forge a future of hope. A dramatic, luminous story of families and nations broken and formed, Partitions introduces an extraordinary novelist who writes with the force and lyricism of poetry.