Kusum Choppra

The book has undoubtedly made very much thicker by pages of compliments, but what about its rendering of the story of 1857 and the Last Mughal, Bahadur Shah Zafar? Of the 486 page story, how much is actually about Bahadur Shah Zafar and his environs? The bias would be obvious with a simple page count in each chapter which reveals that against 223 pages which tell the Indian story; almost 263 give the British viewpoint. There is an amazing amount of detail about life for the British in 1857, with elaborate flourishes of verbal embroidery; comparatively very little of the Indian overall picture. Yes, all the possible negatives of the Mughal court are lovingly delineated. But it is difficult to digest that amongst all those thousands of princelings, nawabs and adventurers etc who descended on Delhi in 1857, there was not one single person of any military or other type of leadership or vision? Was that actually so? What Research? Despite the loud claims of exhaustive research fr...

Remember the “Let a hundred roses bloom” of yore? Why not in India? The Lead India campaign is no doubt a welcome initiative. But why are we limiting ourselves to discover one leader for all of India? Is that possible, when our country is so huge with so many disparate elements, each of which presents problems which need solutions specially tailored for them. When we are saluting all these young people, each of whom has attained excellence in the effort they are making within their social ambit, why not endorse their efforts with concrete support. Imagine the India ten years down the road with not one but eight or ten energetic young leaders working in their respective arenas and coordinating with each other. Such efforts go out in concentric circles of development and we may just see such leaders emerge not just in eight or ten major cities, but also perhaps at each district level or even lower in a true spirit of Chak De India!

Woe to India: The day that the netas ambitions overshadow national interests. Sixty years ago, the Father of the Nation wanted to see his Jawaharlal become Prime Minister before he died. Lo and behold, India took birth as a truncated state, scoured by the ravages of mass murder in the Partition. We then had a prime minister, Vajpayee who aspired to a Nobel Peace Prize. Was that perhaps why we were maneuvered through a “war” and later a grandstand peace with Pakistan, which was aborted thanks to the machinations reputedly by his own team mate? Now we are witness to another desperate bid for prime ministership (before I die) attempt. The dramatic announcement of a prime ministerial candidate when no elections have been called, the self same candidate whose candidature was refuted the last time it was raised, by the “elder statesman and former prime minster” who has not yet accepted the candidature. Only been said to have done so, by sources! The same sources who have perhaps rele...