Expunging Variola: The Control and Eradication of Smallpox in India 1947 – 1977
Sanjoy Bhattacharya
Published by Orient Longman
Expunging Variola is a serious and important book. This ‘nuanced history’ (p 7) enriches our understanding of the eradication of smallpox in India which went a long way to ensuring global eradication of smallpox in 1979. However, its true value outstrips a better understanding of local history. Its far greater value lies in what it teaches about human endeavour in the health field. Removing health inequalities is not easily or simply achieved. Having a good policy and programme is not good enough to ensure success. One has to be willing to communicate, negotiate, evaluate, redesign and persist. Health professionals, bureaucrats and politicians would do well to read this book and savour its message.
Mary Ditton, University of New England, Australia
CONTEMPORARY SOUTH ASIA 16(1) (March 2008)
Review of Nick Robins’ The Corporation that Changed the World
The Corporation that Changed the World
Nick Robins
Published by Orient Longman
As a world famous organisation, East India Company (EIC) pioneered not only the shareholder model of corporate ownership but also a plethora of modern business practices as well as malpractices. Yet, not much is known about its social record as a corporation that would have easily outstripped Wal-Mart in terms of market power, Enron for corruption, and Union Carbide for human devastation. “The Corporation that Changed the World by Nick Robins admirably fills this glaring gap. Throughout the book, the author seeks to examine the meaning of the Company’s legacy for the global economy of the twenty-first century by drawing lessons on how corporate power which is “as much a political as an economic problem”, can be confronted and countered through reform, protest, litigation, regulation, and, above al, through organizational redesign.
Students as well as professionals in the area of Organisational Behaviour in general and International Management in particular must not miss this gripping account of the rise and fall of the world’s most opulent and greatest corporation. The book is suitably adorned with a number of tables, figures, maps, and illustrations.
Dr. J. M. Deo
THE SOCIAL ENGINEER, January 2008
Nick Robins
Published by Orient Longman
As a world famous organisation, East India Company (EIC) pioneered not only the shareholder model of corporate ownership but also a plethora of modern business practices as well as malpractices. Yet, not much is known about its social record as a corporation that would have easily outstripped Wal-Mart in terms of market power, Enron for corruption, and Union Carbide for human devastation. “The Corporation that Changed the World by Nick Robins admirably fills this glaring gap. Throughout the book, the author seeks to examine the meaning of the Company’s legacy for the global economy of the twenty-first century by drawing lessons on how corporate power which is “as much a political as an economic problem”, can be confronted and countered through reform, protest, litigation, regulation, and, above al, through organizational redesign.
Students as well as professionals in the area of Organisational Behaviour in general and International Management in particular must not miss this gripping account of the rise and fall of the world’s most opulent and greatest corporation. The book is suitably adorned with a number of tables, figures, maps, and illustrations.
Dr. J. M. Deo
THE SOCIAL ENGINEER, January 2008
The Impact of 1857
Rethinking 1857
Edited by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Published by Orient Longman
The papers on the theme ‘Rethinking 1857’ have been divided into four groups according to the thematic unity or convergence of focus. The first group addresses questions of historiography and interpretative trends, both old and new. The second is about the impact of 1857 on marginal communities, i.e. social groups, such as the Dalits or tribals who were kept on the margins by the socially dominant. An effort to look beyond the consideration that the uprising of 1857 was an exclusively north Indian affair is reflected in the third section on regions beyond the Gangetic heartland. The fourth section addresses from diverse angles the question of what kind of polity and system of governance and military organisations was posited in the rebel discourse.
Manju Gupta
Bookmark
Edited by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Published by Orient Longman
The papers on the theme ‘Rethinking 1857’ have been divided into four groups according to the thematic unity or convergence of focus. The first group addresses questions of historiography and interpretative trends, both old and new. The second is about the impact of 1857 on marginal communities, i.e. social groups, such as the Dalits or tribals who were kept on the margins by the socially dominant. An effort to look beyond the consideration that the uprising of 1857 was an exclusively north Indian affair is reflected in the third section on regions beyond the Gangetic heartland. The fourth section addresses from diverse angles the question of what kind of polity and system of governance and military organisations was posited in the rebel discourse.
Manju Gupta
Bookmark
The Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar and Rethinking 1857
The Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar
Edited by Pramod K. Nayar
Published by Orient Longman
Rethinking 1857
Edited by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Published by Orient Longman
As is well known, following the ‘recapture’ of Delhi in mid-September 1857, the British carried out a mock trial of Bahadur Shah in the Diwan-i-khas of the Red Fort. This sham show was conducted by a military commission headed by Lt. Col. M. Dawes. It lasted from 27 January to 9 March 1858. At the end of the trial Bahadur Shah was convicted of treason and of having abetted the killing of Europeans. Neither of these charges had any legal substance. In October 1858 Bahadur Shah, along with some of the members of his immediate family, was transported to Rangoon, where he died in 1862.
If Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar and Rethinking 1857, and some of the other writings on the Revolt which have appeared during the course of 2007, are any indication then the commemoration of such a major historical event is not merely an occasion of empty rhetoric or trivial cliché-laden speeches/writings as quite a few sceptics have suggested it is. The commemoration has provided an opportunity for serious reflection on our past, on the rich legacy of the anti-imperialist struggle which has great contemporary relevance.
Amar Farooqui
THE BOOK REVIEW/ April 2008
Edited by Pramod K. Nayar
Published by Orient Longman
Rethinking 1857
Edited by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Published by Orient Longman
As is well known, following the ‘recapture’ of Delhi in mid-September 1857, the British carried out a mock trial of Bahadur Shah in the Diwan-i-khas of the Red Fort. This sham show was conducted by a military commission headed by Lt. Col. M. Dawes. It lasted from 27 January to 9 March 1858. At the end of the trial Bahadur Shah was convicted of treason and of having abetted the killing of Europeans. Neither of these charges had any legal substance. In October 1858 Bahadur Shah, along with some of the members of his immediate family, was transported to Rangoon, where he died in 1862.
If Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar and Rethinking 1857, and some of the other writings on the Revolt which have appeared during the course of 2007, are any indication then the commemoration of such a major historical event is not merely an occasion of empty rhetoric or trivial cliché-laden speeches/writings as quite a few sceptics have suggested it is. The commemoration has provided an opportunity for serious reflection on our past, on the rich legacy of the anti-imperialist struggle which has great contemporary relevance.
Amar Farooqui
THE BOOK REVIEW/ April 2008
Interrogating the past
RETHINKING 1857
Edited by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Published by Orient Longman
This is one among the interesting collections of essays brought out in the 150th anniversary of 1857.
Basudev Chattopadhyay describes the situation of general panic in Calcutta and how the British went about disarming Indians; N. Rajendran that not all was quiet in the Madras Presidency either; and David R. Siemlieh that despite little popular support, disaffection was expressed by the Ahom princes and the princes of Manipur and in the Barak valley. Two essays deal with the differential access of rebels and the British to technology and means of communication and the extent to which these affected the outcome.
The book certainly contributes to our understanding of 1857...
Nalini Taneja
THE HINDU, 11 March 2008
Edited by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Published by Orient Longman
This is one among the interesting collections of essays brought out in the 150th anniversary of 1857.
Basudev Chattopadhyay describes the situation of general panic in Calcutta and how the British went about disarming Indians; N. Rajendran that not all was quiet in the Madras Presidency either; and David R. Siemlieh that despite little popular support, disaffection was expressed by the Ahom princes and the princes of Manipur and in the Barak valley. Two essays deal with the differential access of rebels and the British to technology and means of communication and the extent to which these affected the outcome.
The book certainly contributes to our understanding of 1857...
Nalini Taneja
THE HINDU, 11 March 2008
Review of Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke
The Prisons We Broke: The Autobiography of a Community
Baby Kamble
Published by Orient Longman
The Prisons We Broke is the first autobiography of a Dalit woman in Marathi. Jina Amucha, the original in Marathi, was serialised in 1982 and published as a book in 1986.
What Ambedkar’s teachings meant to this oppressed group of people shunned by society is what comes through in this work, as Baby records her own involvement with the Dalit movement. An interesting read, The Prisons We Broke humanises the Dalit movement in India.
Priya M Menon
THE NEW SUNDAY EXPRESS
Janhavi Acharekar
THE HINDU, 2 March 2008
Baby Kamble
Published by Orient Longman
The Prisons We Broke is the first autobiography of a Dalit woman in Marathi. Jina Amucha, the original in Marathi, was serialised in 1982 and published as a book in 1986.
What Ambedkar’s teachings meant to this oppressed group of people shunned by society is what comes through in this work, as Baby records her own involvement with the Dalit movement. An interesting read, The Prisons We Broke humanises the Dalit movement in India.
Priya M Menon
THE NEW SUNDAY EXPRESS
Janhavi Acharekar
THE HINDU, 2 March 2008
Liberation narrative
The Prisons We Broke: The Autobiography of a Community
Baby Kamble
Published by Orient Longman
The Prisons We Broke is significant because it traces the evolution of the Mahar community from pre-Ambedkar days to its rapid transformation through education and mass conversion.
Dalit literature, historically, has been writing of protest and part of a larger social movement. While Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke continues the tradition, it is also an important life narrative whose original title Jina Amucha (Our Existence) communicates simply an urge to share the trials, tribulations and triumphs of an extraordinary people.
Janhavi Acharekar
THE HINDU, 2 March 2008
Baby Kamble
Published by Orient Longman
The Prisons We Broke is significant because it traces the evolution of the Mahar community from pre-Ambedkar days to its rapid transformation through education and mass conversion.
Dalit literature, historically, has been writing of protest and part of a larger social movement. While Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke continues the tradition, it is also an important life narrative whose original title Jina Amucha (Our Existence) communicates simply an urge to share the trials, tribulations and triumphs of an extraordinary people.
Janhavi Acharekar
THE HINDU, 2 March 2008
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