A study of Indian foreign policy under Jawaharlal Nehru, concentrating on the fundamental questions of war and peace. Looks at Nehru's handling of the disputes over the fate of Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir in 1947-48; the refugee crisis in East and West Bengal in 1950; the Kashmir crisis in 1951; and the boundary dispute with China 1949-62.

Historical study of Jawaharlal Nehru's foreign policy.

War and Peace in Contemporary India examines the importance of institutions and the role played by international actors in crucial episodes of India’s strategic history. The contributions trace India’s tryst with war and peace from immediately before the foundation of the contemporary Indian state, to the last military conflict between India and Pakistan in 1999. The focus of the chapters included in this edited volume is as much on India as it is on Pakistan and China, its opponents in war. The chapters offer a fresh take on the creation of India as a regional military power, and her approach to War and Peace in the post-independence period. Importantly, it advances the broader work on Indian strategic history during the Cold War and after, an otherwise under-studied intellectual landscape. The book offers fresh insights based on archival work, as well as a closer conceptual reading of Indian, British and American decision making at times of war and peace in contemporary India. This book will be of great interest to scholars, researchers and students interested in strategic studies, diplomatic and military history, international diplomacy, as well as Indian history and politics. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies.

Between 1939 and 1945 India underwent extraordinary and irreversible change. Hundreds of thousands of Indians suddenly found themselves in uniform, fighting in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Europe and-something simply never imagined-against a Japanese army poised to invade eastern India. With the threat of the Axis powers looming, the entire country was pulled into the vortex of wartime mobilization. By the war's end, the Indian Army had become the largest volunteer force in the conflict, consisting of 2.5 million men, while many millions more had offered their industrial, agricultural, and military labor. It was clear that India would never be same-the only question was: would the war effort push the country toward or away from independence? In India's War, historian Srinath Raghavan paints a compelling picture of battles abroad and of life on the home front, arguing that the war is crucial to explaining how and why colonial rule ended in South Asia. World War II forever altered the country's social landscape, overturning many Indians' settled assumptions and opening up new opportunities for the nation's most disadvantaged people. When the dust of war settled, India had emerged as a major Asian power with her feet set firmly on the path toward Independence. From Gandhi's early urging in support of Britain's war efforts, to the crucial Burma Campaign, where Indian forces broke the siege of Imphal and stemmed the western advance of Imperial Japan, Raghavan brings this underexplored theater of WWII to vivid life. The first major account of India during World War II, India's War chronicles how the war forever transformed India, its economy, its politics, and its people, laying the groundwork for the emergence of modern South Asia and the rise of India as a major power.

Jews who have made India their home have flourished without adverse discrimination. Of this, the Baghdadi Sephardic community is very small in number but has produced one of India's greatest contemporary soldiers, Lt Gen. Jack Jacob. This is his fascinating story. As a small boy, Jacob, who was from a business family, was sent to a residential public school in Darjeeling along with his two brothers. When the Second World War broke out, Jacob without informing his family joined the army in 1941 to fight against the Nazis! After Independence, Gen. Jacob became a gunnery instructor for some time and subsequently was trained in an advanced Artillery and Missile course at Fort Sill in the US. A quick learner, he commanded infantry and artillery brigades, headed the artillery school, and finally the Eastern Army. Rubbing shoulders with some of the stalwarts who strode the Indian political and military arena in those times, Gen. Jacob sometimes fell foul of his bosses and twice came close to resigning. But he stuck on and the pinnacle of his career came in 1971, when he planned and oversaw operations leading to the fall of Dacca and obtained an unconditional public surrender, the only one in history, of Gen. Niazi and his army of 93,000. Written lucidly, this autobiography comes to life as a historical document recapitulating some of the most important events of the 1960s to the 90s - from the defeat of the Naxalites in West Bengal, to the problems of Nagaland and Sikkim and the politics of Goa and Punjab. This is not only the story of the life of one great soldier, but provides glimpses of some of the most influential and colourful personalities who wrote the history of those tumultuous times.

SPECTATOR BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2016, GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2016 'Authoritative, expansive and incisive...helps restore India to the global twentieth century' Sunil Khilnani Between 1939 and 1945 India changed to an extraordinary extent. Millions of Indians suddenly found themselves as soldiers, fighting in Europe and North Africa but also - something simply never imagined - against a Japanese army threatening to invade eastern India. Many more were pulled into the vortex of wartime mobilization. Srinath Raghavan's compelling and original book gives both a surprising new account of the fighting and of life on the home front. For Indian nationalists the war has tended to be seen as a distraction from the quest for national independence - but Raghavan shows that in fact the war lay at the very heart of how and why colonial rule ended in South Asia. By seeing the Second World War through Indian eyes, Raghavan transforms our understanding of the conflict - with famous battles such as those in North Africa and Iraq reinterpreted, as well as fascinating and little known campaigns such as the destruction of Italian northeast Africa. Time and again, it was Indian troops that made Britain into a global power and, as the war came to an end, it was the Indian army that fought the final battles which marked the end both of the Japanese empire, and of the British.