Srinath Raghavan is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and Senior Research Fellow at King’s India Institute at King’s College London.
[Raghavan’s] superb analysis of the global intricacies of 1971 uses
[a wide] lens with great precision to explain the breakup of
Pakistan more convincingly than any preceding account…
Raghavan…draw[s] on an impressive array of far-flung and hitherto
untapped sources as [he] investigate[s] the strategic ambitions,
the moral pressures, the judgments of risk, and the sheer brutality
of that pivotal year. [He] show[s] how the most powerful democracy
in the world could become complicit in a mass slaughter, and how in
turn India—the world’s largest democracy but also one of its
poorest and militarily weakest—was pushed to intervene to stop the
slaughter. For Raghavan, the origins of the Bangladesh crisis lie
in the peculiarities of Pakistan and the intricacies of its
politics. It is one of Raghavan’s consistent and convincing
arguments that, contrary to retrospective nationalist narratives,
there was nothing inevitable about the fact that Pakistan would
break violently in half less than a quarter of a century after its
creation… Raghavan provide[s] the first authoritative account of
the debates among Indian decision-makers, as they weighed the
pressures and risks of action to stop the violence… Raghavan’s
[book] carries important warnings to Indian decision-makers about
the costs of circumspection and delay. Raghavan argues that a swift
and early intervention might well have been effective: helping save
innumerable lives and much suffering, it would have left Bangladesh
less battered and more able to rebuild as a democratic state…
Raghavan [has] given us [an] indispensable stud[y] of one of the
most sordid and important instances of horror and help.
*New Republic*
The vastly complicated international dimension of the Indo–Pakistan
War is expertly mapped out by Srinath Raghavan in 1971: A Global
History of the Creation of Bangladesh… Raghavan analyzes with
precision the military operations and economic realities of 1971;
he also offers an indispensable array of international perspectives
on the war, with the views from Beijing, Bonn, Ottawa and beyond,
all analyzed in concert. Raghavan’s book makes clear that for all
the power it projected, the United States was never the prime mover
in the conflict, and that even if Nixon and Kissinger had been
moral paragons, there is little reason to believe they could have
dramatically changed the outcome.
*The Nation*
[An] absorbing and very detailed account of the creation of
Bangladesh… [Raghavan] has produced an impressive analysis of the
way the international community reacted to events… When dealing
with India’s role in the crisis, Raghavan is adept at puncturing
historical myths.
*Literary Review*
A perceptive new book.
*Times Literary Supplement*
The broader perspective is one of the things that makes the book
unusual. Many of the principal actors of 1971—military men,
diplomats, bureaucrats and politicians—have penned personal
memoirs. Archives in various nations have been released.
Professional historians have written reams. But nobody has explored
1971 and the events that led up to it across so many dimensions…
This is a splendidly researched book, which presents a logical
well-argued case for revisiting the myths surrounding the birth of
Bangladesh.
*Business Standard*
Starting with the rising tensions in South Asia, Raghavan uses
archives from seven countries (plus the United Nations) to offer a
panoramic view of the 1971 crisis as a turning point for
longstanding India–Pakistani tensions, for the cold war that now
had to reckon with the global aspirations of China, which would
soon recognize Bangladesh, and for the globalizing tendencies that
would eventually undermine the bipolar world order… [An] impressive
new history.
*Chronicle of Higher Education*
Raghavan’s book on the Bangladesh War of 1971 underscores the point
that the famous Indian victory was as much a feat of Indian arms as
that of a favorable global conjuncture that had been created
through diplomacy, as well as the contemporary great power dynamics
involving the U.S., USSR, China and India, along with the usual
dash of contingent developments that often shape historical events…
From the point of view of the Indian approach to the crisis,
Raghavan breaks new ground by the use of archival material made
available only recently, such as the papers of the Ministry of
External Affairs at the National Archives, or the papers of policy
makers such as P. N. Haksar, R. K. Nehru, T. N. Kaul, T. T.
Krishnamachari and Jayaprakash Narayan at the Nehru Memorial Museum
and Library. Of course, given his emphasis on describing the global
dimensions of the Bangladesh event, Raghavan has made full use of
the archives of the erstwhile German Democratic Republic, of
Russia, U.K., Canada, and papers of leaders such as Richard Nixon
or organizations like Oxfam, World Bank and the United Nations. The
result is that he is able to put to rest some of the abiding myths
surrounding the intervention.
*The Hindu*
Raghavan offers fresh insights into the 14-day war that led to the
creation of Bangladesh.
*Hindustan Times*
Raghavan’s reflections on the course of the war and its termination
challenges the traditional narratives of the war and underlines the
importance of the international dimension in explaining the
outcomes… 1971 is bound to reinforce Raghavan’s reputation as a
leading scholar on the security politics of India and the
subcontinent… Raghavan has filled a big breach in understanding the
evolution of contemporary India… Raghavan’s work, one hopes, will
inspire a new generation of scholarship that can historicise the
evolution of India’s foreign and security policies and thereby help
improve the quality of the current strategic discourse in
Delhi.
*Indian Express*
In 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh, Srinath
Raghavan has chronicled in vivid detail the course this contest
[for power] took and the way global politics shaped it… The book
ends up demolishing more than one myth. Henry Kissinger has a
well-deserved reputation as a clear thinker and a master
practitioner of realpolitik. 1971 casts him in a different, weaker,
light. How did this admirer of Bismarck, a person who clearly
understands the limits of power (his A World Restored: Metternich,
Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace is a masterful account) err
so badly in South Asia? Raghavan’s assessment of Kissinger and
American strategy is devastating.
*Mint*
Excellent.
*New Republic*
Raghavan has produced a scholarly study couched in sparkling prose.
He has a wide canvas, seeking not only to delineate the policies of
the major international actors, including a number of middle
powers, but also to situate the liberation struggle in the context
of broader global historical processes. He is at his best as a
diplomatic historian. The centerpiece of his book is a detailed,
skillfully pieced together account of the evolution of Indian, U.S.
and Russian policies in 1971.
*Outlook India*
A deeply impressive book at many levels: in the depth of its
research (conducted in more than a dozen archives spread across
four continents), in the acuity of its analyses, and in the power
of its prose. The thematic scope is as striking as its spatial
scale, with the author exploring and uncovering the military,
political, economic, and cultural dimensions of the 1971 conflict.
Through this magnificent work of scholarship, Srinath Raghavan has
confirmed his standing as the leading historian of his
generation.
*Ramachandra Guha, author of India After Gandhi*
Raghavan has written a meticulously researched and complex
historical narrative that moves at a fast clip and brings a global
perspective to what is all too often seen as a regional conflict:
the Bangladesh independence war of 1971. It is sure to spark
fruitful debate on South Asian history, as well as on contemporary
historiography.
*Kaiser Haq, author of Published in the Streets of
Dhaka*
The consequences of one of the last century’s defining conflicts
are still with us, and Raghavan brilliantly provides the definitive
account of how high-level diplomacy involving the superpowers,
India, Pakistan, and China shaped its outcome.
*Stephen P. Cohen, author of The Future of Pakistan*
Wonderfully written and deeply researched, Raghavan’s book will
become the standard account of India’s 1971 war with Pakistan and
the emergence of Bangladesh. In a time when South Asia is edging to
the forefront of world affairs, everyone interested in
international politics should consult this superb
interpretation.
*O. A. Westad, author of Restless Empire: China and the World
since 1750*
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
