As of early 2014, Gita Press had sold close to 72 million copies of the Gita, 70 million copies of Tulsidas's works and 19 million copies of scriptures like the Puranas and Upanishads. And while most other journals of the period, whether religious, literary or political, survive only in press archives, Kalyan now has a circulation of over 200,000, and its English counterpart, Kalyana-Kalpataru, of over 100,000.Gita Press created an empire that spoke in a militant Hindu nationalist voice and imagined a quantifiable, reward-based piety. Almost every notable leader and prominent voice, including Mahatma Gandhi, was roped in to speak for the cause. Cow slaughter, Hindi as national language and the rejection of Hindustani, the Hindu Code Bill, the creation of Pakistan, India's secular Constitution: Kalyan and Kalyana-Kalpataru were the spokespersons of the Hindu position on these and other matters. The ideas articulated by Gita Press and its publications played a critical role in the formation of a Hindu political consciousness, indeed a Hindu public sphere. This history provides new insights into the complicated and contested rise to political pre-eminence of the Hindu Right. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India is an original, eminently readable and deeply researched account of one of the most influential publishing enterprises in the history of modern India. Featuring an extraordinary cast of characters - buccaneering entrepreneurs and hustling editors, nationalist ideologues and religious fanatics - this is essential (and exciting) reading for our times.

    It deals with the cultural history too. A must read for the students of history and anyone with a curiosity to go through the history of this land.

    The dam burst the night JKLF boys were freed in exchange for the release of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of then Union home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. As Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah had predicted, the government's caving in emboldened many Kashmiris into thinking that azaadi was possible. 'The price we will have to pay,' were Farooq's prophetic words. Killings were almost a daily occurrence. Bombs and firings occurred not far from the chief minister's residence in the most secure zone. Gun-toting youth in trucks were seen close to the cantonment. Kashmiris believed that they were on the verge of liberation. It was prime time for Pakistan spies; not just militants but reputed businessmen, doctors, engineers and government officials were meeting their handlers in Delhi, Kathmandu, Lahore and Rawalpindi. No one trusted anyone else. A.S. Dulat was posted there at the time. Soon he saw Intelligence Bureau colleagues being picked off one by one. It was a long, slow haul to regaining control. From then to today, though he is now retired, he has had a continuous engagement with Kashmir. The initiatives launched by the Vajpayee government between 1998 and 2004 were the high point of this constant effort to keep things in balance in a delicate state. As Vajpayee said, Kashmir was a problem that had to be solved. In this extraordinary memoir that reads like a thriller, Dulat gives a sweeping dramatic account of the difficulties, success and near triumphs in this effort, showing the players, the politics, the strategies and the intent and sheer ruthlessness of the meddlers from across the border. Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years paints an unforgettable portrait of politics in India's most beautiful but troubled state.

    

    More than 750,000 people were butchered, and 12 million fled their homes -- primarily in caravans of bullock-carts -- to seek refuge across the new border: it was the largest exodus in history. Sixty-seven years later, it is as if that August never ended. Renowned historian and journalist Dilip Hiro provides a riveting account of the relationship between India and Pakistan, tracing the landmark events that led to the division of the sub-continent and the evolution of the contentious relationship between Hindus and Muslims. To this day, a reasonable resolution to their dispute has proved elusive, and the Line of Control in Kashmir remains the most heavily fortified frontier in the world, with 400,000 soldiers arrayed on either side. Since partition, there have been several acute crises between the neighbors, including the secession of East Pakistan to form an independent Bangladesh in 1971, and the acquisition of nuclear weapons by both sides resulting in a scarcely avoided confrontation in 1999 and again in 2002. Hiro amply demonstrates the geopolitical importance of the India-Pakistan conflict by chronicling their respective ties not only with America and the Soviet Union, but also with China, Israel, and Afghanistan. Hiro weaves these threads into a lucid narrative, enlivened with colorful biographies of leaders, vivid descriptions of wars, sensational assassinations, gross violations of human rights -- and cultural signifiers like cricket matches. The Longest August is incomparable in its scope and presents the first definitive history of one of the world's longest-running and most intractable conflicts.

    But now these divisions are eroding under the barrage of television, which turns the adult secrets of sex and violence into popular entertainment and pitches both news and advertising at the intellectual level of ten-year-olds.

    A series of three ~40-page pamphlets written by Jacobin and Catalyst Magazine explaining capitalism and it's relationship to the state and class struggle.

    It covers a range of items from the political integration of India to the making of Indian constitution, the history of Indian sports, economy, movies, science, among other topics. Through this exciting train journey we will meet the various historic characters - Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar, Tendulkar, VP Menon, Kalam, Homi Bhaba, Narasimha Rao. The first 9 chapters of this 18 chapter book focus on the darker side of the history - wars, accidents, disasters and deaths. The second 9 chapters focus on the brighter side of the history - the various achievements India has made in foreign policy, economics, science and art. We will start with the distant past history that led to 1947 and we will end with the recipes for the future.

    They were born worlds apart: Winston Churchill to Britain's most glamorous aristocratic family, Mohandas Gandhi to a pious middle-class household in a provincial town in India. Yet Arthur Herman reveals how their lives and careers became intertwined as the twentieth century unfolded. Both men would go on to lead their nations through harrowing trials and two world wars--and become locked in a fierce contest of wills that would decide the fate of countries, continents, and ultimately an empire. Gandhi & Churchill reveals how both men were more alike than different, and yet became bitter enemies over the future of India, a land of 250 million people with 147 languages and dialects and 15 distinct religions--the jewel in the crown of Britain's overseas empire for 200 years. Over the course of a long career, Churchill would do whatever was necessary to ensure that India remain British--including a fateful redrawing of the entire map of the Middle East and even risking his alliance with the United States during World War Two. Mohandas Gandhi, by contrast, would dedicate his life to India's liberation, defy death and imprisonment, and create an entirely new kind of political movement: satyagraha, or civil disobedience. His campaigns of nonviolence in defiance of Churchill and the British, including his famous Salt March, would become the blueprint not only for the independence of India but for the civilrights movement in the U.S. and struggles for freedom across the world. Now master storyteller Arthur Herman cuts through the legends and myths about these two powerful, charismatic figures and reveals their flaws as well as their strengths. The result is a sweeping epic of empire and insurrection, war and political intrigue, with a fascinating supporting cast, including General Kitchener, Rabindranath Tagore, Franklin Roosevelt, Lord Mountbatten, and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. It is also a brilliant narrative parable of two men whose great successes were always haunted by personal failure, and whose final moments of triumph were overshadowed by the loss of what they held most dear.

    Jad Adams offers a concise account of Gandhi's life: from his birth and upbringing in a small princely state in Gujarat during the high noon of the British Raj, to his assassination at the hands of a Hindu extremist in 1948 only months after the birth of the independent India which he himself had done so much to bring about.

    In China, men in Mao jackets pedal bicycles along newly built highways, past skyscrapers sprouting like bamboo. Yet exotic India is as near as the voice answering an 800 number for one dollar an hour. Communist China is as close as the nearest Wal-Mart, its shelves full of goods made in Chinese factories.Not since the United States rose to prominence a century ago have we seen such tectonic shifts in global power; but India and China are vastly different nations, with opposing economic and political strategiesstrategies we must understand in order to survive in the new global economy. The Elephant and the Dragon tells how these two Asian nations, each with more than a billion people, have spurred a new "gold rush," and what this will mean for the rest of the world.

    Marking the pinnacle of his public life; it reflected his popularity among ordinary people who revered him as Anna; or elder brother. This rich biography illuminates his many lives—as a charismatic leader of modern India; as a stalwart of the Dravidian movement; as the founder of the DMK; as spokesman for the South—besides documenting his abilities as an acclaimed orator and littérateur in Tamil and English; and as a stage actor.Born into a weaving caste family in Kanchipuram; Anna was exposed to the non-Brahmin politics of the Justice Party during his college years and this interest led him to become a protégé of the radical thinker Periyar E.V. Ramasamy in 1935. Anna promoted his mentor’s ideas of Self-Respect and Tamil identity but not his atheism. Like him; he attacked Brahminism and ‘Aryan’ values as the cause of Tamil political and cultural decadence and opposed the imposition of Hindi as the official language. In 1962 Anna took his independent Dravida Nadu demand to the Rajya Sabha; threatening the nation’s unity. Importantly; he used public speaking; journalism; theatre; cinema and agit-prop to broaden the base of the party; which drew renowned film actors into its fold; a bond that endures to this day.The book does not shy away from the controversies that surrounded the Dravidian movement and candidly examines Anna’s complex relationship with Periyar. It records Anna’s move to form the DMK in 1949; his split with Sampath in 1961 over the party’s strategy and course; and his disillusionment with the corruption and power politics he witnessed as chief minister.Kannan draws on Anna’s considerable body of writing; the memoirs of other leaders and authors in Tamil; including critics like the poet Kannadasan; Jayakanthan and P. Ramamurti; apart from secondary sources. Featuring luminaries like Rajagopalachari and Kamaraj; Kalaignar Karunanidhi and MGR; among many others; Anna offers a warm and rounded portrait of a man who showed the way for the democratic expression of regional aspirations within a united India.

    But while he has been widely extolled for his achievements, parts of Churchill's record have gone woefully unexamined. As journalist Madhusree Mukerjee reveals, at the same time that Churchill brilliantly opposed the barbarism of the Nazis, he governed India with a fierce resolve to crush its freedom movement and a profound contempt for native lives. A series of Churchill's decisions between 1940 and 1944 directly and inevitably led to the deaths of some three million Indians. The streets of eastern Indian cities were lined with corpses, yet instead of sending emergency food shipments Churchill used the wheat and ships at his disposal to build stockpiles for feeding postwar Britain and Europe.Combining meticulous research with a vivid narrative, and riveting accounts of personality and policy clashes within and without the British War Cabinet, Churchill's Secret War places this oft-overlooked tragedy into the larger context of World War II, India's fight for freedom, and Churchill's enduring legacy. Winston Churchill may have found victory in Europe, but, as this groundbreaking historical investigation reveals, his mismanagement--facilitated by dubious advice from scientist and eugenicist Lord Cherwell--devastated India and set the stage for the massive bloodletting that accompanied independence.

    It begins at Anand Bhavan, the Nehru mansion in Allahabad, and FerozeGandhi’s relationship with the Nehrus – particularly Kamala and Indira. This gives the background to an understanding of Sanjay’s volatile personality as it developed through his early years and his obsession with cars that led to the establishment of the Maruti factory. Writing in a style that is both compelling and honest, Vinod Mehta sifts the facts from the rumours and gets to the core of Sanjay’s dramatic emergence after the declaration of the Emergency. His capturing of the Youth Congress and the excesses of the sterilization campaign (which he thought would ensure his place in history) are brought out in telling detail, as is the use of the media to build the cult of Sanjay.With a new introduction, The Sanjay Story allows readers to look with the benefit of hindsight on the rise and fall of one of independent India’s most controversial figures. What emerges from the text is not only an understanding of Sanjay and his times, but an understanding of India’s current political scenario. Vinod Mehta confirms the truth of history writing – that to engage intelligently with the present, you must come to terms with the past, even a past as inglorious and bewildering as the Emergency.

    This is the acclaimed study and interpretation of Banaras, the holy place of the Hindus.