Book++

I have always been enamored by history and reading Indian Summer felt like watching a Bollywood adaptation of Indian History. "इस में थोड़ी कॉमेडी है, tragedy भी है, एक्शन है, रोमांस भी है, और थोड़ी history भी है" A little tolerant Indian society and we would have had a blockbuster!

Jokes apart, I found the book really interesting. The book tracks the lives of Gandhi, Nehru, Mountbatten and Jinnah against the backdrop of Indian Independence, Pakistan's creation and the Partition holocaust. The author spends significant time on Edwina Mountbatten and her role in Nehru's life. The controversial photo on the cover page in the later editions probably reflect the marketing team's effort to popularize the book by focusing on the Nehru-Edwina angle. This, I felt was rather unfortunate as the book offers very interesting insights, events and incidences that did not get enough attention. Like the incident at 2nd Round Table conference, that brought Jinnah out of his retirement, or Nehru's skirmishes with unruly crowds, or Patel's use of "साम, दाम, दंड, भेद" approach to integrate princely states into the Indian Republic. The task of integration was probably as important as achieving independence itself and I don't think many people appreciate this enough. The author has done rigorous research and some facts might be a little uncomfortable for some of us to handle. Like Gandhi's emergence in congress might have resulted in a bitter Jinnah which might have led to Pakistan, or the horrific partition killings. We all take pride in the fact that today India is way ahead of Pakistan, in spite of being born together, but we forget that India was fortunate to have Nehru's vision for 17 years after independence. Pakistan had just 1 year of an ailing Jinnah. Jinnah, for all his shortcomings was a top lawyer during those times and the book points that Motilal Nehru - Jinnah combination could have given Indian Independence much earlier than 1947, had it not been for Gandhi's entry into the political scene. Gandhi's emergence pushed both Motilal and Jinnah into sidelines and Gandhi's idealistic form of Indian independence might have delayed India's independence. The after-effects of the events, actions or even words of these people are felt even today and would be felt for many centuries to come. Such is the impact of these men!

History, that we are taught is one sided. People are completely 'white' or completely 'black'. The truth, in most cases is always in shades of grey.