Since independence
South Asian history after 1947, including 1965 and 1971.
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Nadir Ali 1936-2020, RIP
An obituary of Colonel Nadir Ali (1936-2020) by his son, recounting a Punjab childhood, helping rescue kidnapped girls during Partition, Pakistan Army service, a 1971 East Pakistan deployment that left…
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Bangladesh’s War of Liberation-Historicising a Personal Narrative
A talk given by retired Pakistan Army Colonel Nadir Ali at BRAC University in Dhaka in 2007, recounting his experience of 1971 in East Pakistan, his links to Bengali officers…
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Playing with fire ?
After the Babri demolition conspiracy verdict acquitted all 32 accused, the author, rewatching a 2000 Advani interview, weighs three accounts of how the demolition happened and concludes that, if it…
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Book Review: Our moon has blood clots
Nachiketa reviews Rahul Pandita’s memoir of the Kashmiri Pandit exodus after 1989, praising its small-incident portrayal of changing neighbours’ attitudes and its account of the killings, and calling it the…
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Why Did the Indian and Pakistani Armies fail in 1965?
A very long chapter from Major Agha Humayun Amin’s history of the Pakistan Army analysing why both armies failed in the 1965 war, posted whole by Omar Ali as a…
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The Qualitative Destruction of Pakistan Army between 1955 and 1971
An essay by retired Major A. H. Amin, written in 1999 and reposted from his Military History Centre site, arguing the Pakistan Army’s quality was eroded between 1955 and 1971…
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The Indo-Pakistan problem — To be or Not to be
Written in 2016 after the Uri attack and republished in 2020, the essay seeks nuance on Pakistan, rejecting both the Aman ki Asha line and boycott, and examines the Pakistan…
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Myth from history
Razib Khan argues that nation-states grow out of historical memory and organic identity, so India’s civilisational unity does not automatically make a nation-state; he contrasts Southeast Asia, Europe and China…
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After the 1971 Ceasefire: The Officers Who Wrote to Yahya
Reproduces a Pakistani officer’s account of the weeks after the 1971 ceasefire, including a reported letter from officers of 6 Armoured Division asking President Yahya to resign, and the subsequent…
