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Renowned historian and journalist Dilip Hiro provides a riveting account of the relationship between India and Pakistan, tracing the landmark events that led to the division of the sub-continent and the evolution of the contentious relationship between Hindus and Muslims. To this day, a reasonable resolution to their dispute has proved elusive, and the Line of Control in Kashmir remains the most heavily fortified frontier in the world, with 400,000 soldiers arrayed on either side.
Since partition, there have been several acute crises between the neighbors, including the secession of East Pakistan to form an independent Bangladesh in 1971, and the acquisition of nuclear weapons by both sides resulting in a scarcely avoided confrontation in 1999 and again in 2002. Hiro amply demonstrates the geopolitical importance of the India-Pakistan conflict by chronicling their respective ties not only with America and the Soviet Union, but also with China, Israel, and Afghanistan.
Hiro weaves these threads into a lucid narrative, enlivened with colorful biographies of leaders, vivid descriptions of wars, sensational assassinations, gross violations of human rights — and cultural signifiers like cricket matches. The Longest August is incomparable in its scope and presents the first definitive history of one of the world's longest-running and most intractable conflicts.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
February 24, 2015 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781568585031
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781568585031
- File size: 1848 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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January 15, 2015
An explanation of the intractable enmity of two South Asian peoples and nations.It comes down to a matter of gods, of course, and cows, as well. "Hinduism is polytheistic and centered around idol worship," writes London-based journalist Hiro (A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Middle East, 2013, etc.). "Islam is monotheistic and forbids graven images." And then there's the pork-shunning Muslim habit of eating beef, killing cows being a capital offense in some ancient kingdoms of India, avenged in less deadly and more modern climes by "desecrating a mosque by a stealth depositing of a pig's head or carcass at its entrance." Against these secular demonstrations are arrayed the powerful forces of two states with nuclear capability that have come very close to using it-and that now are playing out some of their rivalries, born long before the partition of India into India and Pakistan in 1947, in Afghanistan, another place whose leaders are skilled in playing both sides against the middle. Helpfully, Hiro notes that India is the second place where the British government imposed partition as a solution to civil strife, the first being Ireland, also divided by a deadly blend of politics and religion. As the author documents, this sideshow in the great game has had ugly results, such as the involvement of the Pakistani secret police in the attack on a Mumbai hotel in 2008 and India's funding of Taliban attacks inside Pakistan, which "could be rationalized as Delhi's quid pro quo to Islamabad's involvement in stoking the separatist movement in Indian Kashmir." On and on it goes, and though Hiro argues effectively that it is unlikely for the political tensions to disappear, ordinary Indians and Pakistanis enjoy many of the same things and may be reconcilable to each other on at least a cultural level. Though dense and occasionally arid, a highly useful reference for those seeking to understand the geopolitics of a region often in the news for outbreaks of violence.COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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