Book description
The modern history of South Asia is shaped by the personalities of its
two most prominent politicians and ideologues - Mohammad Ali Jinnah and
Mahatma Gandhi. Jinnah shaped the final settlement by consistently
demanding Pakistan, and Gandhi defined the largely non-violent nature of
the campaign. Each made their contribution by taking over and
refashioning a national political party, which they came to personify.
Theirs would seem, therefore, to be a story of success, yet for each of
them, the story ended in a kind of failure. How did two educated
barristers who saw themselves as heralds of a newly independent country
come to find themselves on opposite ends of the political spectrum? How
did Jinnah, who started out a secular liberal, end up a Muslim
nationalist? How did a God-fearing moralist and social reformer like
Gandhi become a national political leader? And how did their fundamental
divergences lead to the birth of two new countries that have shaped the
political history of the subcontinent? This book skilfully chronicles
the incredible similarities and ultimate differences between the two
leaders, as their admirers and detractors would have it and as they
actually were.' Roderick Matthews is a freelance writer specializing
in Indian history. He lives in London with his wife and two children.
Born in 1956, he studied Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford, and
has written for a number of British and Indian publications, including
the Observer, the Literary Review, and the Times of India. He has his
own website at historydetox. com. His interest in Indian history was
first awakened when he discovered that one of his great-grandmothers,
Lady Cecilia Roberts, had looked after M. K. Gandhi when he fell ill on
a visit to London in 1914. Lady Cecilia unknowingly made Gandhi break
his vow not to drink cow's milk, but the Mahatma, as recorded in his
autobiography, generously forgave her. Roderick's first book, The Flaws
in the Jewel: Challenging the Myths of British India (HarperCollins
India), was published in 2010.
