Looking Back

It is a subject tirelessly and tiresomely dealt with. Yet,the august gathering assembled at the India International Centre auditorium on Monday for the launch of writer-editor Ira Pande’s book The Great Divide: India and Pakistan hung on to the historic and political rhetoric cranked out at the hour-long discussion. The session was chaired by political analyst Dr Ashutosh Varshney from Brown University,USA,writer-publisher Urvashi Butalia and Dr Indivar Kamtekar from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The Great Divide (Harper Collins,IIC,Rs 495) — a collection of essays by writers,political commentators and a former diplomat— is edited by Pande. “The book maintains a balance between hard issues such as politics,religion,diplomacy and soft issues such as cricket,music,arts and crafts,” said Pande,chief editor of IIC publications. During the discussion,Kamtekar peered into the past to analyse that while post-Partition,“Delhi existed,Islamabad had to be built”. Varshney tackled the current crisis which could be solved through “a long-term vision that would have visceral and coherent short-term responses”. Butalia dealt with the softer issues,musing over the missing word “continuing” in the title. For her,it was heartening that “the studies of partition are moving out of straitjackets into more mainstream issues”.

Accentuating the topic post-discussion were photos by a 1940s photojournalist Kulawant Roy,recently rescued from obscurity by his nephew Aditya Arya. Guests milled around the foyer checking out the rare shots,among them,an undated picture of a pensive Jawaharlal Nehru at a press conference and another of MA Jinnah at a Muslim League meeting.