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Tags: indian independence

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  A Suitable Boy

  by Vikram Seth

  Vikram Seth's novel is, at its core, a love story: Lata and her mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, are both trying to find -- through love or through exacting maternal appraisal -- a suitable boy for Lata to marry. Set in the early 1950s, in an India newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis, A Suitable Boy takes us into the richly imagined world of four large extended families and spins a compulsively... (more)
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  A Bend in the Ganges

  by Manohar Malgonkar

  This novel set during the period just prior to partition of India and the onset of freedom is a cleverly crafted piece of literature.Malgonkar creates a vivid picture of that time and he brings out the stark reality that along with freedom came murder, mayhem and anarchy. Violence ruled the roost and three hundred thousand people were slaughtered as well as a hundred thousand women were raped and... (more)
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  The House of Blue Mangoes: A Novel

  by David Davidar

  In 1899, in the south Indian village of Chevathar, Solomon Dorai is contemplating the imminent destruction of his world and everything he holds dear. As the thalaivar, or headman, of Chevathar, he seeks to preserve the village from both catastrophe and change, and the decisions he makes will mark his family for generations to come. A gripping family chronicle, TheHouse of Blue Mangoes spans nearly half a... (more)
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  Men Who Killed Gandhi

  by Manohar Malgonkar

  A classic text on the assassination of Gandhi, written like a thriller.
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  Churchill Defiant

  Fighting On, 1945-1955

  by Barbara Leaming

  Winston Churchill rages against time and his own mortality in this tumultuous political drama of his last ten years of public life. Here is Churchill at his most outrageous, maddening, and devious—but also at his most human, courageous, and defiant. "I am an obstinate pig." This was how Winston Churchill described himself. At the end of July 1945, Winston Churchill was a defeated man—hurled from power by... (more)
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  Daughter of Empire

  by Pamela Hicks

  Pamela Mountbatten was born at the end of the Twenties into one of Britain's grandest families. The daughter of Lord Louis Mountbatten and his glamorous wife Edwina Ashley, she was bought up by nannies and governesses as she was often parted from her parents as they dutifully carried out their public roles. A solitary child, she learned to occupy her days lost in a book, riding or playing with the family's animals... (more)
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  Sunlight on a Broken Column

  by Attia Hosain

  Laila, orphaned daughter of a distinguished Muslim family, is brought up by her orthodox aunts who keep purdah. At 15, she moves to the home of a "liberal" uncle in Lucknow. Here, during the 1930s, as the struggle for independence sharpens, Laila is surrounded by relatives and university friends caught up in politics. But Laila is unable to commit herself to any cause: her own fight for independence is a struggle... (more)
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  Ghaffar Khan, Nonviolent Badshah of the Pakhtuns

  by Rajmohan Gandhi

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  Do and Die

  by Manini Chatterjee

  On the role of the young revolutionaries from Chattagram District, now in Bangladesh, in the freedom struggle of India.
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  The lost hero: A biography of Subhas Bose

  by Mihir Bose

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  Mountbatten

  by David Butler

  THE LAST VICEROY EPIC DRAMA
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  Azadi

  by Chaman Lal Nahal

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  Anthropologist Among the Marxists and Other Essays

  by Ramachandra Guha

  Most on eminent Indians.
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  Mountbatten

  by Richard Hough

  Lord Louis Mountbatten was one of the most colorful figures of the twentieth century. Here is the first full-length biography of this remarkable man.
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  Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire

  by Alex Von Tunzelmann

  At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the British Empire withdrew from India, inviting in all the exhilaration and turmoil of a newly free society. In this vivid, atmospheric popular history, Alex von Tunzelmann chronicles these times through the most prominent figures: Dickie Mountbatten, Britain’s dashing, inept last viceroy; Dickie's savvy, glamorous wife, Edwina, who found the love of her life in... (more)
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  Midnight's Children

  by Salman Rushdie

  Midnight's Children a book by Salman Rushdie deals with India's transition from British colonialism to independence and the partition of India. It is considered an example of postcolonial literature and magical realism. The story is told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, and is set in the context of actual historical events as with historical fiction.The book begins with the story of the Sinai family,... (more)
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  Freedom at Midnight

  by Larry Collins, Dominique Lapierre

  Fifty years ago, seconds after midnight on 14-15 August 1947, the Union Jack, emblazoned with the Star of India, began its final journey down the flagstaff of Viceroy's House, New Delhi. One fifth of humanity claimed their independence from the greatest empire history has ever seen. But 400 million people were to find that the price of freedom was partition and war, riot and murder. In this new edition of... (more)
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  The Tree Bride

  by Bharati Mukherjee

  ational Book Critics Circle Award-winner Bharati Mukherjee has long been known not only for her elegant, evocative prose but also for her characters- influenced by ancient customs and traditions but also very much rooted in modern times. In The Tree Bride, the narrator, Tara Chatterjee (whom readers will remember from Desirable Daughters), picks up the story of an East Bengali ancestor. According to legend, at the... (more)
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  The Business of Empire

  The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756-1833

  by H. V. Bowen

  This volume is the first detailed study of what happened in Britain when the East India Company acquired a vast territorial empire in South Asia. Drawing on a mass of hitherto unused material contained in the Company's administrative and financial records, the book offers a reconstruction of the inner workings of the Company as it made the remarkable transition from business to empire during the late-eighteenth... (more)
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  India Wins Freedom: The Complete Version

  by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

  One of the makers of modern India tells the story of the partition of India as never before, with intimate knowledge and feeling. India Wins Freedom has at last won its own freedom. The full text of this autobiographical narrative was confined, under seal, in the National Library, Calcutta, and in the National Archives, New Delhi, for thirty years. What we now have is the complete text, released in September 1988,... (more)