An Engaged Chronicler of His Times

Many aspects of the relationship between India and Pakistan have changed since eminent journalist Nikhil Chakravartty wrote about it, but some things have also rem­ained the same. In this collection of writings spanning 33 years from 1964 to 1997, he covers the period starting from two decades after independence and writes on significant events in the history of the subcontinent. That was the time when there was hope for peace bet­ween India and Pakistan, when Jawaharlal Nehru sent Sheikh Abdullah to meet President Muhammad Ayub Khan and explore the possibility of a settlement over Kashmir. Perhaps Cha­kra­vartty, if he was alive today, would have deplored the situation in Kashmir or rued over the Taliban retaking Afg­ha­nistan and the fact that India and ­Pakistan are deadlocked in a situation of “armed peace.”

Chakravartty’s writings offer a gra­nular view of a range of events related to the relations between the two countries carved out in 1947. As former foreign secretary Muchkund Dubey writes in his foreword, these writings should help understand the relations between the two countries “not as a taboo” but as a challenge. A challenge that has time and again struggled to come up with constructive and substantive results.