Book Review [99] : The Blood Telegram

Indians are bastards, sons of bitches, cowards, full of ingratitude, Indira is a bitch..blah blah blah.... (President Nixon and his NSA Henry Kissinger)

These were the words spoken by the most powerful men of 1970s and so called upholder of democracy and human rights. 

President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser perpetrated what can be called a full blown genocide in the flat lands of East Pakistan. They were neither actually pulling the triggers nor burning the houses of Bengalees (mainly Hindus) but they were the force behind all those criminals and their super boss Yahya Khan. The crackdown started by Lt. General Tikka Khan (Military Governor of East Pakistan) on 25th March 1971 stopped only when Indian Army along with Bangladeshi volunteer force (Mukti Bahini) liberated East Bengal on the fateful day of 16th Dec 1971 but before that about 1 million (though the numbers vary from 300,000 to 3 million depending on the source selected) people were brutally killed, more than hundred thousands women were raped and about 10 million Bengalees were expelled from East Pakistan. This was called selective genocide as various sources including Senator Ted Kennedy, Dacca Consul General Archer Blood, NYT Correspondent Sydney Schanberg and others had proved beyond any reasonable doubt that this was directed mainly against Hindus. 80% of the people killed in East Pakistan were Hindus and 90% of the expelled people were Hindus. The twin objective of Pakistani leadership were:

1. To crush the moral of Bengalees

2. To get rid of Hindu element from East Pakistan thus reducing the population of Bengalees to less than 50% of the overall population of Pakistan. This would reduce their say in the political solution of the Pakistan. 

Nixon and Kissinger supported Yahya Khan in this Hitlerian task to gain some points on Cold War chessboard. Yahya Khan was playing the role of broker between China and USA to bring China closer to USA in order to end the Cold War once and for all. 

The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide is a magnificently researched work by historian Gary. J Bass. This work is based on the White House tapes, papers of Nixon and others and is well acclaimed. The Blood Telegram was the telegram sent by the Archer Blood in April 1971 just a week after the star of the genocide. This telegram was a conscious effort of the American diplomats based in Dacca to shift a change in US foreign policy to save people from getting massacred in East Pakistan but Nixon and Kissinger ignored this telegram and endorsed Yahya Khan's effort in East Pakistan.

Its a must read book to understand the politics and policies of USA; the country that considers itself as the defender of Democracy and upholder of Human Rights played a key role in the genocide and rape of Bengalees (mainly Hindus) in East Pakistan. 

Highly Recommended (10/10)

Book Review [98] : Playing It My Way

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is arguably the greatest Indian athlete of all time and his              

contribution to this country is far greater than the runs he scored, centuries he made and trophies he won. 'Playing it my way' is a beautifully written autobiography of Sachin Tendulkar and he speaks his heart out in this book and covers almost all the aspect of his 24 years of international cricket though i was expecting bit more on match fixing scandal.

Sachin started his First class career in 1988 in Ranji Trophy and soon he was selected to Indian team for Pakistan tour of 1989. He did not look back even once after hitting Abdul Qadir for those bloody sixes. This book is also a timeline of my love for this game as i started watching cricket at the age of 7 or 8. I can never forget his scintillating knocks in 1991-92 tour of Australia and that series made me a fan of Sachin; though Ganguly competed for that place briefly. Sachin categorically states the negative influence of Greg Chappell on the team and also clears the air about "infamous" Multan declaration when Sachin got stranded at 194. From the hind sight it appears that Sachin simply had enough talent and we often side line the effort and hard work that he had put it to achieve these unparalleled feats. He is Rana Sangram Singh of Indian Cricke; just like entire body of Rana was full of wounds, Sachin is also a patch work of various sores and surgeries. 

Its a must read book for all of us, specially for those who watched his game and followed him closely.

Highly Recommended (9/10)

Book Review [97] : Annihilation of Caste

Some books are not to be reviewed but to be relished by the mental faculties and to be used a fodder for intellectual growth and bricks for nation building. 'Annihilation of Caste' is one such book; though originally written by Dr. Ambedkar as a speech and later it was published as a book. Its a great incisive take on caste system and the ills it has been fathering since time immemorial. How caste system militates against the basic purpose of community building which in turn is the basic block of a nation. It is my humble request to all fellow Indians, please read this book and give some time to ponder on the points raised by the great Indian.

A must read (10/10)

Book Review [96] : Why Nations Fail

Why great nations and civilizations like Incas, Aztecs, Roman, Chinese, India etc disintegrated and why few states lying on the periphery of European peninsula were able to colonize the known world? This question has pestered a large number of philosophers (Aristotle, Montesquieu etc), historians (like Edward Gibbon) etc? The modern era historians are also trying their best to answer this intractable puzzle. 'Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty' is one such attempt. It tries to explain the dichotomy of success and failure on the basis of inclusive and extractive institutions accompanied by creative destruction. This theory tends to be very simplistic and does not explain the success of Chinese model of growth very convincingly. It also does not explain why Roman Republic or Greece were great civilization along with Achaemenids and all these civilizations persisted for more than 200 years. Why the republic states of Greece eventually disintegrated despite having the first manifestation of Democracy? Why Vrijji confederacy failed against the extractive state of Magadha? 

Niall Fergusson's Civilization offers more conclusive answers to this great puzzle. These two books should be read together so that one can understand the holistic picture of the question and the answer.

Recommended (7/10)

Book Review [95] : Hard Choices

"In the aftermath of the crackdown in Iran, I resolved to step up efforts to provide pro-democracy activists with tools and technology to evade government repression and censorship. Over the next few years we invested tens of millions of dollars and trained more than five thousand activists around the world" 

The above excerpts from "Hard Choices" (memoir of former Secretary of State of US - Hillary Clinton) clearly suggests the interference of USA in the "internal affairs" of other countries on very subjective grounds of Human rights and democracy without respecting the sovereign authority of those states. 

As far as India is concerned this book does not having much to say except few points about Indo-Pak relations, pressurizing India to cut down import of Persian oil and climate change fiasco at UNFCCC summit of 2009. She categorically calls Pakistan a nation obsessed with India. In nutshell this is a good read to understand the political affairs of the world from the perspective of United States Of America. What ever US does, it does for the sake of human rights and democracy and while other countries simply use state power to crush human rights. US is the soul champion of liberty, democracy and freedom of expression. Its a one side take on international affairs (i.e. a well written American propaganda in soft version) and one should not expect any objective outcome from this memoir but its always important to know the other side of the story. 

Recommended (7/10)