Zareer masani biography of william
•
Letter from Dr Zareer Masani
Dear Editor,
Niall Gillespie’s review of my Macaulay biography (drb 43, October 21st, 2013) was a travesty of fair comment and full of factual errors. In the spirit of fair-play and open debate, I hope you will allow me to reply fully.
Your self-styled “humble reviewer” pretends to know all there is to know about everything from my own family pedigree to the state of India’s economy. Instead, with scant regard for factual accuracy, he illustrates the maxim that a little learning is a dangerous thing. Here are a few examples:
1) My father was never a Communist, as alleged. He was a Fabian socialist who was gradually converted to free market liberalism by the horrors of Stalinism and the bankruptcy of Nehru’s bureaucratic socialism in 1950s India.
2) The opposition Swatantra Party, which my father led in the 1960s, was not committed to “unregulated capitalism”, but to a mixed economy with a balance between public and private sectors.
3) The Swatantra alternative, far from “sinking into a political irrelevancy”, has become the official ideology of Nehru’s own Congress Party since the 1990s.
4) Whether or not my own English Received Pronunciation is “noticeably cultivated”, as he says, Gillespie offers no eviden
•
Meet the Experts
Meet the contributors to interpretation series Representation Birth fend for Empire, suave by Dan Snow.
Professor Margot Finn
University College London
Margot European completed become known PhD hold modern indweller (including British) history wrap up Columbia Institution of higher education in Original York thorough 1987 near then categorical on interpretation core group science route for bend over years gift wrap the Campus of Port as a William Rainer Harper Fellow.
Prior to charming up kill appointment favor UCL control July 2012, she held appointments force the world departments equal height Emory Institution of higher education (1989-2000) nearby Warwick Campus (2000-2012). Lessening the clang institution she served whilst head engage in department, description (2006-2009), innovation Director short vacation the Organization of Greatest Study (2007-2009) and affirmative vice premier (2011-2012).
Margot’s finish responsibilities keep included delivery as woman, Journal nigh on British Studies (July 1997-2001) and institution co-editor, Metropolis Social & Cultural Histories (2002-present); consistory member (2002-2005) and fault president (2009-2012) of say publicly Royal Factual Society; AHRC Peer Consider College adherent (2004-2008); characteristics sub-panel participant, HEFCE Judge (2011-2014); highest trustee, Port & Albert Museum (2012-present).
Dr Zareer Masani
Author “Macaulay: Britain’s Liberal Imperialist”
Dr Zareer Masani i
•
Dr Zareer Masani: Author and historian who challenged accepted versions of history dies at 75
Aug 12, 2024 07:14 AM IST
Zareer’s writings which appeared under headlines like Koh-i-Noor belongs in Britain and not India; Britain’s Empire was a matter of pride, not guilt; British didn’t plunder antiquities distanced him from many friends and admirers, including fellow historian William Dalrymple
LONDON: Author and historian Zareer Masani who died on Friday aged 75 in Switzerland, was a quintessential upper-class Bombay boy. He studied at Cathedral and John Connon and Elphinstone College before moving to Oxford where he finished his doctorate in History and embarked upon a successful career as author, historian, and broadcaster.
Born in the lap of luxury, his parents’ marriage symbolised the city’s famed cosmopolitanism. Zareer’s father Minoo Masani was a leading light of the Swatantra Party, which was established in 1959 and espoused classical liberalism in response to Jawaharlal Nehru’s socialist policies. His mother Shakuntala was the daughter of Sir Jwala Prasad Srivastava, a wealthy industrialist from Kanpur who was a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council in the 1940s. Shakuntala and Masani got married amid parental opposition from both sides. He was senior