Bhavya Chowdhury Number of words: 712 We now know that this civilization did not suddenly appear or disappear. Rather, these cities were built gradually, sometimes rebuilt on older sites, and their disintegration too was gradual. But why were these cities abandoned? This did not happen overnight, so it’s clear that it wasn’t because of ‘Aryan’ invasions as … Read more
Number of words: 387 The core of the Harappan Civilization extended over a large area, from Gujarat in the south, across Sindh and Rajasthan and extending into Punjab and Haryana. Many sites have been found outside the core area, including some as far east as Uttar Pradesh and as far west as Sutkagen-dor on the … Read more
Number of words: 399 Dholavira is a good example of a large Harappan urban centre. It is on an island in the Rann of Kutch. At the centre of the settlement is a ‘citadel’, which consists of a rectangular ‘castle’ and a ‘bailey’ (the outer wall of the castle). The citadel must have contained the … Read more
Number of words: 293 The last full-blown ice age started around 24,000 years ago, reached its peak around 18,000–20,000 years ago and then warmed up. Around14,000 years ago, the ice sheets began melting rapidly, the sea levels were rising around the world and weather patterns were changing. The Persian Gulf began to fill up 12,500 … Read more
Number of words: 174 If the Aravallis are one of the oldest geological features, the Gangetic plains are among the youngest. They started out as a marshy depression running between the Himalayas and an older mountain range called the Vindhyas. Silt brought down by the Ganga and its tributaries began to fill up this hollow … Read more
Number of words: 416 Where does the ‘centre of gravity’ of India’s partition lie? Was it the Quit India Movement of 1942–45, and its visible lack of success that so demoralised Congress leaders that they had neither any more wish nor much stamina left to carry on with this fight for India’s unity? Annie Besant, … Read more
Number of words: 717 Mohammed Ali Jinnah was, to my mind, fundamentally in error proposing ‘Muslims as a separate nation’, which is why he was so profoundly wrong when he simultaneously spoke of ‘lasting peace, amity and accord with India after the emergence of Pakistan’; that simply could not be. Perhaps, late General Zia-ul- Haq … Read more
Number of words: 476 M.J. Akbar, in an erudite and magisterial essay analyses the challenge of it convincingly, in a yet to be published work The Major Minority: ‘At what point in the story of the last thousand years did Indian Muslims become a minority? The question is, clearly, rhetorical. Muslims have never been in … Read more
Number of words: 450 Rajendra Prasad’s motive in accepting Partition may be understood from the following passage: ‘It is necessary to mention here that it was the Working Committee, and particularly such of its members as were represented on the Central Cabinet, which had agreed to the scheme of partition. … (They) did so because … Read more
Number of words: 520 It was not the massacres alone but the response to it of the Indian politicians, of all those who were then engaged in fighting this ‘war of succession’ in India, that was so inexpressibly tragic, also so unforgivable. Nehru was too preoccupied by this idea of forming the fi rst independent, … Read more
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