Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten

One of the best books on PunjabBeing a punjabi I can confirm thisPuts the history in religious and social perspective

Very well researched

This book is a must read for all Punjabis who need to understand that we are extremely lucky to be living in this peaceful and a self governed Indian Punjab today and we cannot allow vested political interests to snatch it from us as it happened in 1947.

An excellent, well-deserved, and eminently readable history. Recommended.

I am surprised that there is no mention and detailing of various Sikh states such as Patiala, Nabha, Kapurthala and Faridkot. The details of rulers in Jind, Narnaul, Pataudi and life in the area s now in Haryana has been totally missed. Also life of the Guru's as well as various religious leaders has been glossed over. The book is incomplete with emphasis only on Ranjit Singh.I wish the author had given us a more comprehensive book

This is an excellent book. Rajmohan Gandhi does an exceedingly good job of putting together a story of Punjab in one volume.There is much to commend this book. Early history is not always easy and often seems confusing when seen from the perspective of the modern-day world. However, he has done admirably and presents the sweep of history with a deft hand.We get an idea of some of the early conflicts and realise how they have been aggrandised by later day political leaders.I would have liked some more detail on some of the recent events in Punjab, especially the Khalistani movement, but that may be in the scope of the next edition.

The problems with Rajmohan Gandhi's book on Punjab are, firstly, that he is a non-Punjabi in a hurry to finish the book choosing half-a-dozen books for each chapter and quoting extensively from them--basically a cut-and-paste technique; and secondly, that he has missed reading some significant books particularly on the subject of Partition which aren't even listed in the Bibliography--Butalia's "The Other Side of Silence" and Stanley Wolpert's "Shameful Flight" to name just two.His connection to Mahatma (the author is a grandson) raised hopes of insider information from Congress Party's papers about the discussions on Partition, but no such luck either.On the subject of objectivity, the author does pass creditably, except for the fact most of his information is taken from a very limited field. Still, his response to his grandfather's rhetorical passage makes interesting reading:`How are the Muslims of the Punjab,' Mahatma Gandhi wrote in 1940, `different from the Hindus and the Sikhs? Are they not all Punjabis, drinking the same water....?'The author retorts: It was indeed the same water, yet Punjabis were usually drinking it from different wells and taps. In the cities, the government had ensured that `Hindu pani' and `Muslim pani' were separately served to railway stations and other public places.On the number of Partition casualties, Rajmohan Gandhi has simply lifted his figure of 500,000 to 800,000 from a single book Ishtiaq Ahmed's "Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed" from where he has also cut-and-pasted most of Chapter 9. Here is the single most significant historical figure the reader would have liked to know, and the author has simply plagiarised it from a single source. Why not from Ramchandra Guha's "India after Gandhi" (2 million: Page 48) or dozens of other books giving mostly higher figures? Because most likely the author didn't bother to read most of the other books.There are a few glaring editing errors in the book:* Maps are all wrong showing West as North. We Punjabis know from which direction the invaders came since Alexander's time, but others may falsely believe Afghanistan is to the North of Punjab.* On Page 149, it states that Ahmed Shah Abdali had captured Kohinoor diamond from the Mughals in Delhi. Well, actually Nadir Shah had captured the diamond from the Mughals in his 1739 invasion of India, and Abdali had taken the diamond from Nadir Shah's possession after the latter's death.* On Page 246, it states: In 1853, the boy-prince Duleep, then eight... Duleep Singh was born in 1838 (a few months before Ranjit Singh's death in June 1839) and was 15 in 1853.All in all, it is a disappointing book from a well-known historian, and adds hardly any new information on the subject of Punjab.Manjit SachdevaAuthor of "Lost Generations" (2013)[...]

Informative for those interested in specific facets of history.