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    Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition
    Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition
    Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition
    Audiobook11 hours

    Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition

    Written by Nisid Hajari

    Narrated by Sunil Malhotra

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Nobody expected the liberation of India and birth of Pakistan to be so bloody-it was supposed to be an answer to the dreams of Muslims and Hindus who had been ruled by the British for centuries. Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi's protege and the political leader of India, believed that Indians were an inherently nonviolent, peaceful people. Pakistan's founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a secular lawyer, not a firebrand. But in August 1946, exactly a year before Independence, Calcutta erupted in street-gang fighting. A cycle of riots-targeting Hindus, then Muslims, then Sikhs-spiraled out of control. As the summer of 1947 approached, all three groups were heavily armed and on edge, and the British rushed to leave. Hell let loose. Trains carried Muslims west and Hindus east to their slaughter. Some of the most brutal and widespread ethnic cleansing in modern history erupted on both sides of the new border, searing a divide between India and Pakistan that remains a root cause of many evils. From jihadi terrorism to nuclear proliferation, the searing tale told in Midnight's Furies explains all too many of the headlines we read today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateAug 25, 2015
    ISBN9781494586461

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    Reviews for Midnight's Furies

    4.5/5

    39 ratings3 reviews

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    • 2/5
      The real reason of India's partition was obviously the British who alongwith the US wanted the creation of Pakistan as their base to counter Russia. So the book just talks about the horrendous killings taking place without delving into the motive of the West.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      A well-written, well-read overview of a complex topic. Fascinating and harrowing at the same time.
    • 4/5
      A solid narrative history, which helped me understand partition, and the mess that it caused. The first half of the book is the more interesting, the second half mostly depressing, as mobs hack each other to pieces and the 'leaders' of the various parties and nations do... nothing. So it's a bit of a let-down; the build up to partition is fascinating; the actual process of partition is mostly mindless violence, which is hard to make interesting, I'm sure.

      Special bonus star for learning that Winston Churchill, yet again, managed to stick his nose into a situation he did not understand, that did not involve him, and that he could do nothing but make worse, and, naturally, did precisely that. Churchill is the twentieth century: a thin, peeling veneer of heroism stuck to stupidity, rot, and fetor.