Lahore in the Time of the Raj
Lahore in the Time of the Raj

Author: Ian Talbot

Publisher: Random House India

Published: 2016-12-21

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 9386057557

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Lahore during the Raj was a prosperous and cosmopolitan place, where many communities lived together and there was a constant flow of goods, people and ideas. In the Mughal era, the city’s strategic location at the junction of roads to Kabul, Multan, Kashmir and Delhi made it a seat of power, and poets, artists and traders flocked there for patronage from the royal court. The city expanded under the Sikhs as well, and with the annexation of Punjab by the British, Lahore entered a new phase. Lahore’s fabled Raj-era buildings—including the GPO, the High Court and the Museum—are widely acclaimed examples of colonial architecture. The British lived in Civil Lines, the Cantonment and the Mall; while in the 1920s, the prestigious Indian suburb of Model Town came up which, with its well-ordered streets, parks and bungalows, became a template for all subsequent residential colonies in the subcontinent. The 1930s and 1940s were a time of intense cultural and political creativity, and writers and artists flourished; F.C. College and Government College were celebrated centres of learning and there was great engagement between Lahore and the nascent Bollywood film industry, which the traumas of Partition ended. Memories of that glittering city still linger on both sides of the border.

Colonial Lahore
Colonial Lahore

Author: Ian Talbot

Publisher: Hurst Publishers

Published: 2022-02-22

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 1787387887

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A number of studies of colonial Lahore in recent years have explored such themes as the city’s modernity, its cosmopolitanism and the rise of communalism which culminated in the bloodletting of 1947. This first synoptic history moves away from the prism of the Great Divide of 1947 to examine the cultural and social connections which linked colonial Lahore with North India and beyond. In contrast to portrayals of Lahore as inward looking and a world unto itself, the authors argue that imperial globalisation intensified long established exchanges of goods, people and ideas. Ian Talbot and Tahir Kamran’s book is reflective of concerns arising from the global history of Empire and the new urban history of South Asia. These are addressed thematically rather than through a conventional chronological narrative, as the book uncovers previously neglected areas of Lahore’s history, including the links between Lahore’s and Bombay’s early film industries and the impact on the ‘tourist gaze’ of the consumption of both text and visual representation of India in newsreels and photographs.

Lahore
Lahore

Author: Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2021-09-30

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9354890695

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In the months leading up to Independence, in Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel are engaged in deliberations with British Viceroy Dickie Mountbatten over the fate of the country. In Lahore, Sepoy Malik returns home from the Great War hoping to win his sweetheart Tara's hand in marriage, only to find divide-and-rule holding sway, and love, friendships, and familial bonds being tested. Set in parallel threads across these two cities, Lahore is a behind-the-scenes look into the negotiations and the political skulduggery that gave India its freedom, the price for which was batwara. As the men make the decisions and wield the swords, the women bear the brunt of the carnage that tears through India in the sticky hot months of its cruellest summer ever. Backed by astute research, The Partition Trilogy captures the frenzy of Indian independence, the Partition and the accession of the states, and takes readers back to a time of great upheaval and churn.

Paper Jewels
Paper Jewels

Author: Omar Khan

Publisher:

Published: 2018-05

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9788189995850

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* The first book on the subject of postcards in the Indian subcontinent* More than 500 professionally restored images* Chapters dedicated to cities and movementsPostcards were to people in 1900 what the Internet was to the world in 2000. The world went from a thousand to a billion postcards in a very short span of time, with the finest painters from India, Austria and Japan getting involved.Paper Jewels is the story of postcards during the Raj, and covers India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Burma. It is the first book on the subject and features hundreds of professionally-restored images in original format, weaving together the postcard artists, photographers, and publishers who define the rich history of the medium. The author's research also charts the history and progression of the technological aspects of postcard publishing and its key players. The concluding chapters explore the role postcards played in the Independence struggle, from the First Non-Cooperation Movement through the Dandi March and Partition. It includes some of the earliest cards of Mahatma Gandhi, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and other political figures. Many of the images in the book have not been seen since they were first published nearly a century ago. Published in association with The Alkazi Collection of Photography.

Wavell and the Dying Days of the Raj
Wavell and the Dying Days of the Raj

Author: Mohammad Iqbal Chawla

Publisher: OUP Pakistan

Published: 2012-01-12

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780199062751

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Wavell's era provides the backdrop for the finale which so historically, and tragically, unfolded under his successor and the last British viceroy, Mountbatten. No understanding of Mountbatten's era and the last days of the Raj in India could be complete without a deeper and proper understanding in all its complexities, of the Wavell's time as the second-last viceroy of India (October 1943-March 1947).

The History of British Diplomacy in Pakistan
The History of British Diplomacy in Pakistan

Author: Ian Talbot

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-28

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1000326705

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This book is the first account of the British diplomatic mission in Pakistan from its foundation at the end of the Raj in 1947 to the ‘War on Terror’. Drawing on original documents and interviews with participants, this book highlights key events and personalities as well as the influence and perspectives of individual diplomats previously not explored. The book demonstrates that the period witnessed immense changes in Britain’s standing in the world and in the international history of South Asia to show that Britain maintained a diplomatic influence out of proportion to its economic and military strength. The author suggests that Britain’s impact stemmed from colonial-era ties of influence with bureaucrats, politicians and army heads which were sustained by the growth of a Pakistani Diaspora in Britain. Additionally, the book illustrates that America’s relationship with Pakistan was transactional as opposed to Britain’s, which was based on ties of sentiment as, from the mid-1950s, the United States was more able than Britain to give Pakistan the financial, military and diplomatic support it desired. A unique and timely analysis of the British diplomatic mission in Pakistan in the decades after independence, this book will be of interest to academics working in the fields of South Asian History and Politics, International Relations, British and American Diplomacy and Security Studies, Cold War Politics and History and Area Studies.

The British Raj in India
The British Raj in India

Author: S. M. Burke

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 699

ISBN-13: 9780195777345

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This scholarly study is different from earlier books on the Raj in that it is neither hero-oriented nor self justifying. The emphasis instead is on world events and developments inside the subcontinent which influenced the conduct of the leaders, and affected the course of events. It is the crucial transfer of power process resulting in the partition of Britain's Indian Empire into two independent states that is appraised. The authors have made good use of the massive documentation made available by the British Government since 1983, as well as the unique archives kept in the British Museum. These have enabled the authors to throw some new light on the partition process, in particular on the workings of the Radcliff Boundary Awards Commission.

The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State
The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

Author: Declan Walsh

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2020-11-17

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0393249921

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Winner of the 2021 Overseas Press Club of America Cornelius Ryan Award The former New York Times Pakistan bureau chief paints an arresting, up-close portrait of a fractured country. Declan Walsh is one of the New York Times’s most distinguished international correspondents. His electrifying portrait of Pakistan over a tumultuous decade captures the sweep of this strange, wondrous, and benighted country through the dramatic lives of nine fascinating individuals. On assignment as the country careened between crises, Walsh traveled from the raucous port of Karachi to the salons of Lahore, and from Baluchistan to the mountains of Waziristan. He met a diverse cast of extraordinary Pakistanis—a chieftain readying for war at his desert fort, a retired spy skulking through the borderlands, and a crusading lawyer risking death for her beliefs, among others. Through these “nine lives” he describes a country on the brink—a place of creeping extremism and political chaos, but also personal bravery and dogged idealism that defy easy stereotypes. Unbeknownst to Walsh, however, an intelligence agent was tracking him. Written in the aftermath of Walsh’s abrupt deportation, The Nine Lives of Pakistan concludes with an astonishing encounter with that agent, and his revelations about Pakistan’s powerful security state. Intimate and complex, attuned to the centrifugal forces of history, identity, and faith, The Nine Lives of Pakistan offers an unflinching account of life in a precarious, vital country.

Imagining Lahore
Imagining Lahore

Author: Haroon Khalid

Publisher: Penguin, Viking

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780670089994

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An anecdotal travelogue about Lahore - which begins in the present and travels through time to the mythological origins of the city attributed to Ram's son, Lav. Through the city's present - its people, communities, monuments, parks and institutions - the author paints a vivid picture of the city's past. From its emergence under Mahmud Ghaznavi to the Mughal centuries where several succession intrigues unfolded on its soil, its recasting as the capital of Maharaja Ranjit Singh's Khalsa Empire, the role it played in preserving the British Raj, to acting as an incubator of revolutionaries and people's movements, Lahore influenced the subcontinent's political trajectory time and again. Today, too, Lahore often determines which way the wind will blow on Pakistan's political landscape. The Lahore Resolution of 1940, which laid the blueprint for the creation of the country, was signed here. The city saw the birth of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's PPP, as well as his downfall. It was to Lahore that Benazir Bhutto returned to combat a military dictator, and where Imran Khan heralded his arrival as a main contender on the political battlefield. As the capital of Punjab, Lahore continues to cast a long shadow over the federal state.