Bücher von Rajmohan Gandhi

There's no dearth of references to a sense of kinship beyond one's familyor tribe in ancient Indian texts. We know from anecdotes in the Ramayanaand Mahabharata, the Upanishads and epigraphic sources like Ashoka's 12thMajor Rock Edict, that our ancestors were no strangers to an expansiveunderstanding of fraternity. Therefore, although the earliest adoption offraternity as state motto happened in 18th-century France, the West cannotclaim to have taught fraternity to India. Even so, it took our freedom struggleand the writing of the Constitution for it to become an integral valuegoverning our lives.While the idea of fraternity was implicit in the Motilal Nehru ConstitutionalDraft of 1928 and the 1931 Karachi Resolution of the Indian NationalCongress, the National Movement's commitment to it was questioned byleaders like Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar because the Movement appeared toprioritize the anti-colonial struggle over social reform to eliminate casteinequality. Dr Ambedkar, who had suffered caste oppression, knew that therecouldn't be a democratic future if caste wasn't done away with. However, hisantagonism with Mahatma Gandhi, the pre-eminent leader of the NationalMovement, is often amplified. This monograph argues, instead, that not onlydid both hold each other in high regard, it was due to Ambedkar's steadfastopposition to caste that, through Gandhi, modern Indian society learnt to takeits first steps towards embodying fraternity, even as it fought the Raj.Rajmohan Gandhi, one of India's leading and most admired thinkers, moveseasily from ancient India to modern Europe to an intimate portrait of the epicface-off between Gandhi and Ambedkar which led to the Poona Pact of 1932.This engaging monograph should be read by everyone invested in upholdingthe constitutional norm of fraternity in our increasingly divided country.

The sounds and flavours of the land south of the Vindhyas-temple bells, coffee and jasmine,coconut and tamarind, delicious dosais and appams-are familiar to many, but its historyis relatively unknown. In this monumental study, the first in over fifty years, historian andbiographer Rajmohan Gandhi brings us the South Indian story in modern times. At heart, thestory he tells is one of four powerful cultures-Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu; aswell as the cultures that have influenced them-Kodava, Konkani, Marathi, Oriya, Tulu andindigenous.When the narrative begins at the end of the sixteenth century, the Deccan sultanates of Bijapur,Ahmadnagar, Golconda and Bidar have combined to defeat the kingdom of Vijayanagara, oneof the last great medieval empires of the South. After the fall of Vijayanagara, less powerfulnayakas or sultans ruled the region. Competition raged between these rulers and the manyEuropean trading companies. By the seventeenth century, only the French and Britishremained to fight it out, in association with Indian rulers and princely states.

Close to 150 years after he was born, how relevant is Mahatma Gandhi? In our country, he is revered as the Father of the Nation; his face still adorns currency notes, postage stamps and government offices; streets and welfare schemes continue to be named after him but has he been reduced to a mere symbol? Do his values, message and sacrifice have any meaning for us in the twenty-first century?In Why Gandhi Still Matters, the Mahatma's grandson and award-winning writer and scholar Rajmohan Gand

With the surge of interest in personalities from Gujarat, not least because of the election of the controversial Narendra Modi as Prime Minister of India, there is no better time for a biography of a great son of Gujarat and one of India's forgotten heroes. Born in 1887 into a clan of princely Patels, Darbar (or Prince) Gopaldas was not only a beloved and just ruler of the people of his tiny state in Saurashtra, he was an active and courageous participant in the struggle for India's freedom and