Indian Summer - The Secret History of the End of an Empire, A Review
Photo courtesy: Amazon.co.uk Indians hold passionate views about the leaders of their anti-colonial struggle. Most are reverential and the foremost figure in the liberation movement pantheon, Mohandas Gandhi, commands the kind of devotion that is generally reserved for a divinely ordained prophet. The fulsome titles “Father of the Nation” and “Mahatma” or Great Soul speak to the unquestioning veneration of a man who is considered a saintly paragon of virtue. Mohammad Ali Jinnah is similarly glorified in Pakistan (which was also part of erstwhile British India), although with relatively less melodrama. He is known as “Qaid-e Azam” or the Great Leader. Extolling the founding fathers of their countries, however, does not incline people of either country to live by the principles that they fought and stood for. Pakistan is worlds apart from the secular republic that the Qaid-e Azam imagined. Intolerance towards minorities, violence against women and a sham democracy characterise present-da...