Book Review: Documents on Economic History of British Rule in India, 1858–1947: Part I: Eastern India in the Late Nineteenth Century, 1860s–1870s; Part II: Eastern India in the Late Nineteenth Century, 1880s–1890s

TL;DR: The Indian Historical Review as discussed by the authors provides an excellent overview of Azad's life and career, concluding that between Jinnah the politician and Azad the scholar, the latter had the last laugh.

Abstract: Indian Historical Review, 39, 1 (2012): 93–128 between 1947 and 1958 he achieved far more than the founder of Pakistan did. In many ways the scholarly Azad, with Nehru’s support, stamped many of the post-colonial Indian academic, scientific and cultural institutions with secularism. It is not their fault if this secular stamp appears faded today. This volume succeeds in informing us that between Jinnah the politician and Azad the scholar, the latter had the last laugh. I would recommend this book to all scholars of Indian history but especially to undergraduate and postgraduate students, most of whom know very little about this influential institution builder of modern India. School textbooks usually place the trademark picture of Azad in a sherwani and shades within the pantheon of India’s nation builders without narrating his political failures or ministerial successes. This volume, with some memorable photographs enclosed in the middle, fills a void in our rather incomplete understanding of Azad half a century after his demise. It tells us why Azad, a premier Muslim leader of the pre-independence Indian National Congress, was destined to fail as an elite politician. It also tells us why the Maulana should not be consigned to the dustbin of history despite his and the Congress party’s failure to prevent the vivisection of India in 1947.