Academic’s analysis of 1947
G.S. Bhargava
The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan
by Yasmin Khan.
Penguin Viking.
Pages 242. Rs 495.
It is not pleasant to open the review of a book with a caveat about its title. In this case, however, it becomes unavoidable because the subtitle of the book, The Making of India, is both historically and technically wrong. As V. K. Krishna Menon validly pointed out in the United Nations, "India is a residuary State"; while Pakistan is the product of "the great Partition" as Yasmin Khan calls it.

Hell’s angel
Vikramdeep Johal
Tohellwithyou Mitro
by Krishna Sobti.
Trans. Gita Rajan and Raji Narasimhan.
Katha, New Delhi.
Pages 120. Rs 200.
If you can enjoy a classic in the original, what’s the point of reading its translation? Ironically, and unfortunately, Krishna Sobti’s path-breaking work Mitro Marjani—written in our so-called national language—won’t be as easily available in bookstores across the country as its translation in the international language. Moreover, there is a category of readers who are familiar with Hindi but prefer English because it’s fashionable and convenient to do so.

A vivid account of Guru’s martyrdom
Roopinder Singh
The A Saga of Supreme Sacrifice: Martyrdom of Shri Guru Arjan Dev
by Harbhajan Singh. Developers India. Chennai. Pages 162.
Price not mentioned.
Guru Arjan Dev was the fifth Guru of the Sikhs who compiled the Adi Granth, which later became Guru Granth Sahib; founding new cities of Taran Tarn, Goindwal and Sri Hargobindpur, and the piety and splendour that marked his Guruship.

Whirlwind adventures
Jyoti Singh
Where Angels Face the Heat
by Edel Weis. Pilgrim Publishing, Varanasi.
Rs 250. Pages 337.
Edel Weis is a pseudonym for Tejwant Singh. This is an account of high venture set in the Great Himalayas. It is a story of a group of intrepid Indian Air Force Officers who are forced down over Chinese occupied Tibet just before the Indo-China conflict of 1962. Packed with adventure, tension, suspense, action, treachery and love, it narrates how these officers are taken prisoners by the Chinese, how they endure and how ultimately they escape and cross into India.

Essence of Indian spirit
Manmeet Sodhi
The Indians: Portrait of a People
by Sudhir Kakar and Katharina Kakar.
Penguin. Pages 226. Rs 395.
This stimulating book is a magnificent attempt to portray the Indian life in all its fullness. Both the authors have exhibited vast research and diverse aspects of human existence: identity, sexsuality, health, Indian women and the Hindu-Muslim relationship.

Air power for the Army
Vijay Mohan
Indian Army Aviation 2025
Ed. Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi (retd)
Published by Centre for Land Warfare Studies and K.W Publisher, New Delhi. Pages 173. Rs 460
Aerial assets provide the bulk of a force’s eyes, ears as well as muscle in today’s battlefield. In the tactical battlefield air power comes into play for purposes of observation, surveillance, command and control by unleashing the first wave of firepower.

SHORT TAKES
Economy and sex ratio
Randeep Wadehra
Public Sector Reforms in India
by Chandan Sinha. Sage, N. Delhi. Pages 331. Rs 395
In our quasi-capitalist economy, the state’s role as administrator, facilitator and provider remains paramount. This is necessary because the post-liberalisation private sector behemoths are not exactly enthusiastic about shouldering responsibilities towards promotion of social welfare. The poverty-stricken teeming millions of India are vulnerable to inhumane exploitation.

The Indian State and Political Process
by C.P. Bhambri. Shipra, N. Delhi. Pages vi+360. Rs 950

Female foeticide in Punjab
by D.P. Singh. Paragon, N. Delhi. Pages xiii+166. Rs 750

In a word
Cahal Milmo Tsonga
Speakers who have had a fruitless day’s labour know it simply as walkatia. For Anglophones, it is the act of throwing down a tool in disgust. Someone fluent in Bakweri might soothe his walkatia by looking at a womba, the smile of a sleeping child. But all would probably shy at a Frenchman’s offer of a spot of chapponage, the act of a sliding a finger into a chicken’s backside to see if it is laying an egg.

Freedom Song
Salil Tripathi on the novelist and singer who has redefined how to be a modern Indian
As he walks across Leicester Square, Amit Chaudhuri looks as if he has stepped from one of his novels: the well-educated, soft-spoken embodiment of the Indian middle class. His coat is dark, his hair cut neatly, the sharp eyes behind his glasses observing everything, missing nothing.

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