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“I have not lately read a finer book than this—on any subject at all. . . . A masterpiece.” —Simon Winchester, New Statesman The photographs of three young men had stood in his grandmother’s house for as long as he could remember, beheld but never fully noticed. They had all fought in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. Indians had never figured in his idea of the war, nor the war in his idea of India. One of them, Bobby, even looked a bit like him, but Raghu Karnad had not noticed until he was the same age as they were in their photo frames. Then he learned about the Parsi boy from the sleepy south Indian coast, so eager to follow his brothers-in-law into the colonial forces and onto the front line. Manek, dashing and confident, was a pilot with India’s fledgling air force; gentle Ganny became an army doctor in the arid North-West Frontier. Bobby’s pursuit would carry him as far as the deserts of Iraq and the green hell of the Burma battlefront. The years 1939–45 might be the most revered, deplored, and replayed in modern history. Yet India’s extraordinary role has been concealed, from itself and from the world. In riveting prose, Karnad retrieves the story of a single family—a story of love, rebellion, loyalty, and uncertainty—and with it, the greater revelation that is India’s Second World War. Farthest Field narrates the lost epic of India’s war, in which the largest volunteer army in history fought for the British Empire, even as its countrymen fought to be free of it. It carries us from Madras to Peshawar, Egypt to Burma—unfolding the saga of a young family amazed by their swiftly changing world and swept up in its violence.
'This book tells us that we all have two deaths: when we die and when we are forgotten. But there is also a possibility of two births, the second being recreated in an extraordinary book. This is one of those rare and extraordinary books which bring people alive again. It has been written with imagination and is engrossing to read' Michael Holroyd The photographs of three young men had stood in his grandmother's house for as long as he could remember, 'beheld but not noticed, as angels are in a frieze of mortal strugglers'. They had all fought in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. Indians had never figured in his idea of the war, nor the war in his idea of India. One of them, Bobby, even looked a bit like him, but Raghu Karnad had not noticed until he was the same age as they were in their photo-frames. Then he learned about the Parsi boy from the sleepy south Indian coast, so eager to follow his brothers-in-law into the colonial forces and onto the front line. Manek, dashing and confident, was a pilot with India's fledgling air force; gentle Ganny became an army doctor in the arid North-West Frontier. Bobby's pursuit would carry him as far as the deserts of Iraq and the green hell of the Burma battlefront. The years 1939-45 might be the most revered, deplored and replayed in modern history. Yet India's extraordinary role has been concealed, from itself and from the world. In riveting prose, Karnad retrieves the story of a single family - a story of love, rebellion, loyalty and uncertainty - and with it, the greater revelation that is India's Second World War. Farthest Field narrates the lost epic of India's war, in which the largest volunteer army in history fought for the British Empire, even as its countrymen fought to be free of it. It carries us from Madras to Peshawar, Egypt to Burma - unfolding the saga of a young family amazed by their swiftly changing world, and swept up in its violence.
Described as ‘a masterpiece’ by critics, this remarkable book tells the story of war through the lives and deaths of a single family. Absolutely unforgettable new writing. If you loved The English Patient or Rohinton Mistry’s Fine Balance or Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers, you will love this book.
Two and a half million Indians volunteered in the Second World War. Their stories had been lost and silenced, until now. Award-winning historian Yasmin Khan marshals interviews, newspaper reports and unseen archival material to tell the forgotten story of India’s role in the Second World War. We meet soldiers, sailors and non-combatants – prostitutes, nurses, cooks, peasants – whose lives were upended by a war far, far away. From a small Muslim boy arrested for singing anti-recruitment songs, to cooks preparing chapattis on army boats, to a family listening to illicit German radio broadcasts, and a love letter from the first Indian soldier to receive the Victoria Cross, Khan makes us feel and hear the lost voices of a people involved in a war that wasn’t of their choosing. Dramatizing a cataclysm that transformed the subcontinent and led to its independence, The Raj at War undeniably inserts South Asia back into World War II history and confirms that the Empire – and all its subjects – formed both the heart and limbs of Britain’s war efforts and eventual victory.
Humanly compelling, beautifully told ... brings to light a forgotten chapter of Indian history, one we need to remember in these troubled times' PRATAP BHANU MEHTA '[Joy Ma and Dilip D'Souza] have seamlessly woven together historical facts with personal stories about how the Chinese- Indians lost the country of their birth' YIN MARSH The untold account of the internment of 3,000 Chinese-Indians after the 1962 Sino-Indian War. Just after the Sino-Indian War of 1962, about 3,000 Chinese-Indians were sent to languish in a disused World War II POW camp in Deoli, Rajasthan, marking the beginning of a painful five-year-long internment without resolution. At a time of war with China, these ‘Chinese-looking’ people had fallen prey to government suspicion and paranoia which soon seeped into the public consciousness. This is a page of Indian history that comes wrapped in prejudice and fear, and is today largely forgotten. But over five decades on, survivors of the internment are finally starting to tell their stories. As several Indian communities are once again faced with discrimination, The Deoliwallahs records these untold stories through extensive interviews with seven survivors of the Deoli internment. Through these accounts, the book recovers a crucial chapter in our history, also documenting for the first time how the Chinese came to be in India, how they made this country their home and became a significant community, until the war of 1962 brought on a terrible incarceration, displacement and tragedy.
'An incredible and important story, finally being told' - Mishal Husain On 28 May 1940, Major Akbar Khan marched at the head of 299 soldiers along a beach in northern France. They were the only Indians in the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk. With Stuka sirens wailing, shells falling in the water and Tommies lining up to be evacuated, these soldiers of the British Indian Army, carrying their disabled imam, found their way to the East Mole and embarked for England in the dead of night. On reaching Dover, they borrowed brass trays and started playing Punjabi folk music, upon which even 'many British spectators joined in the dance'. What journey had brought these men to Europe? What became of them – and of comrades captured by the Germans? With the engaging style of a true storyteller, Ghee Bowman reveals in full, for the first time, the astonishing story of the Indian Contingent, from their arrival in France on 26 December 1939 to their return to an India on the verge of partition. It is one of the war's hidden stories that casts fresh light on Britain and its empire.
Over a million Indian soldiers fought in the First World War, the largest force from the colonies and dominions. Their contribution, however, has been largely forgotten. Many soldiers were illiterate and travelled from remote villages in India to fight in the muddy trenches in France and Flanders. Many went on to win the highest bravery awards. For King and another Country tells, for the first time, the personal stories of some of these Indians who went to the Western Front: from a grand turbanned Maharaja rearing to fight for Empire to a lowly sweeper who dies in a hospital in England, from a Pathan who wins the Victoria Cross to a young pilot barely out of school. Shrabani Basu delves into archives in Britain and narratives buried in villages in India and Pakistan to recreate the War through the eyes of the Indians who fought it. There are heroic tales of bravery as well as those of despair and desperation; there are accounts of the relationships that were forged between the Indians with their British officers and how curries reached the frontline. Above all, it is the great story of how the War changed India and led, ultimately, to the call for independence.
Raghu Karnad’s “Everybody’s Friend” is a poignant pilgrimage to the military grave of a great-uncle, fallen defending the obsolescent Raj against the oncoming army of imperial Japan. The most brutal fighting unfolded on the unforgiving northeast Indian border with Burma, and Karnad takes himself and the reader deep into Nagaland to find the war graves of Imphal. There he broods without heavy reproach but with stoical sorrow on the marginalisation of memory offered to Indian troops who, in the authorised epic of Indian independence, fought on the “wrong” side for their imperial masters while the much thinner ranks of the Indian National Army, Subhash Chandra Bose’s fighters, have been accorded the rites and respects of freedom fighters
"Readers who choose the book for the attraction of Navajo code talking and the heat of battle will come away with more than they ever expected to find."—Booklist, starred review Throughout World War II, in the conflict fought against Japan, Navajo code talkers were a crucial part of the U.S. effort, sending messages back and forth in an unbreakable code that used their native language. They braved some of the heaviest fighting of the war, and with their code, they saved countless American lives. Yet their story remained classified for more than twenty years. But now Joseph Bruchac brings their stories to life for young adults through the riveting fictional tale of Ned Begay, a sixteen-year-old Navajo boy who becomes a code talker. His grueling journey is eye-opening and inspiring. This deeply affecting novel honors all of those young men, like Ned, who dared to serve, and it honors the culture and language of the Navajo Indians. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults "Nonsensational and accurate, Bruchac's tale is quietly inspiring..."—School Library Journal
Sally Jenkins, bestselling co-author of It's Not About the Bike, revives a forgotten piece of history in The Real All Americans. In doing so, she has crafted a truly inspirational story about a Native American football team that is as much about football as Lance Armstrong's book was about a bike. If you’d guess that Yale or Harvard ruled the college gridiron in 1911 and 1912, you’d be wrong. The most popular team belonged to an institution called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Its story begins with Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt, a fierce abolitionist who believed that Native Americans deserved a place in American society. In 1879, Pratt made a treacherous journey to the Dakota Territory to recruit Carlisle’s first students. Years later, three students approached Pratt with the notion of forming a football team. Pratt liked the idea, and in less than twenty years the Carlisle football team was defeating their Ivy League opponents and in the process changing the way the game was played. Sally Jenkins gives this story of unlikely champions a breathtaking immediacy. We see the legendary Jim Thorpe kicking a winning field goal, watch an injured Dwight D. Eisenhower limping off the field, and follow the glorious rise of Coach Glenn “Pop” Warner as well as his unexpected fall from grace. The Real All Americans is about the end of a culture and the birth of a game that has thrilled Americans for generations. It is an inspiring reminder of the extraordinary things that can be achieved when we set aside our differences and embrace a common purpose.