Tag Archives: History

In My Hands Today…

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The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World – Tim Marshall

In this revelatory new book, Marshall explores ten regions that are set to shape global politics in a new age of great-power rivalry: Australia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Greece, Turkey, the Sahel, Ethiopia, Spain and Space.

Find out why Europe’s next refugee crisis is closer than it thinks as trouble brews in the Sahel; why the Middle East must look beyond oil and sand to secure its future; why the eastern Mediterranean is one of the most volatile flashpoints of the twenty-first century; and why the Earth’s atmosphere is set to become the world’s next battleground.

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RAW: A History of India’s Covert Operations – Yatish Yadav

The Research and Analysis Wing, India’s shadowy external intelligence agency, is one of the country’s least understood institutions—at least in part by design. Perhaps fittingly for a spy agency, there is very little information about R&AW in the public domain.

What is this organisation, its structure, its role, and its vision? Why was it set up? Who are the people who run it? Set up in 1968 as a reaction to India’s massive intelligence failure during the war with China, R&AW played a crucial role in the formation of Bangladesh. It has since carried out highly successful covert operations in Fiji, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka and has countered and foiled Pakistani spy agency ISI’s machinations in the subcontinent.

R&AW has operations in other parts of the globe too; it played an important role during the Iran-Iraq war, for instance. No country can increase its global reach without intelligence support. That India has made enormous strides in its stature and influence is testimony to R&AW’s success. Yet, public accounts of its work exist only in highly romanticised fictional stories. Investigative journalist Yatish Yadav follows the lives of real agents and maps their actions in real situations. His conversations with Indian spies provide insight into how covert operations actually work. A History of India’s Covert Operations is the first comprehensive account of Indian spy networks, their intelligence gathering, and their role in securing and advancing Indian interests.

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Veerappan: Chasing the Brigand – K. Vijay Kumar

No other bandit in recent times has captured the public’s imagination as much as Koose Muniswamy Veerappan.

Be it his trademark moustache, stories of his daring escapades, or his ruthless massacre of officers, Veerappan continues to fascinate, even thirteen years after his death.

Chasing the Brigand is a lucid and incisive account of the rise and fall of India’s most dreaded forest brigand. Chronicled by K. Vijay Kumar, IPS, the man who spearheaded the Tamil Nadu Special Task Force (STF) that planned and executed the dreaded bandit’s encounter, the book recounts the various incidents that shaped Veerappan’s life, from his birth in Gopinatham in 1952 to his death in 2004 in a shootout in Padi.

It traces his dramatic rise from a small-time poacher and sandalwood smuggler to a brutal fugitive who held three states to ransom for two decades. The ruthless killings and high-profile kidnappings masterminded by Veerappan, including the 108-day ordeal involving Kannada cinema superstar, Dr Rajkumar, are described in fascinating detail. Chasing the Brigand is the most authentic account of the life and times of the dreaded outlaw.

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The Happiest Man on Earth – Eddie Jaku

Life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful. It is up to you.

Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed in November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp.

Over the next seven years, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on a Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country.

Because he survived, Eddie made the vow to smile every day. He pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story, sharing his wisdom and living his best possible life. He now believes he is the ‘happiest man on earth’.

Published as Eddie turns 100, this is a powerful, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful memoir of how happiness can be found even in the darkest of times.

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The Silent Coup: A History of India’s Deep State – Josy Joseph

‘They were not expected to behave like the terrorists they were hunting. Even in the thickest fog of war, the law-abider and the law-breaker must be distinguished.’

India is justly proud of a parliamentary democracy that has never been threatened by a military coup. This is no mean feat in a neighbourhood where coups are common and notions of constitutionality are shaky. However, for decades now, India’s democratic standing has been steadily declining. An international analysis recently rated the country as only ‘partly free’, while another deemed it an ‘electoral autocracy’.

Josy Joseph investigates this decline and comes away with a key insight: that the process of confronting militancy has warped the system. As insurgencies erupted across India and grew increasingly sophisticated in the 1980s and ’90s, the security establishment struggled to keep up. Increasingly overwhelmed, the police forces, intelligence agencies, federal investigation agencies, tax departments, and the like came up with ingenious—at times sinister—solutions, from faking and framing evidence to staging massive terror attacks and even creating terrorist organisations. Over time, militancy became a flourishing, multi-faceted business enterprise.

From the Kashmiri militancy to the Sri Lankan civil war, from the attack on Mumbai to the long-term unrest in the Northeast, India’s ‘war on terror’ has made its security institutions more nationalistic and chauvinistic and, inevitably, more corrupt. Most dangerously, there is a near-complete capture of the security apparatus, whether investigative agencies, police, or intelligence, by the political executive—serving as stormtroopers with no accountability rather than as defenders of the Constitution.

The result of more than two decades of reporting on insurgencies, terrorism, and the security establishment, The Silent Coup is a wake-up call to the nation. You do not need a military coup to subvert democracy, Joseph says—in India, it has already been subverted.