Saturday, August 13, 2011

Patrick French on India and Bollywood


He first came to Mumbai in 1996. That was also his first visit to India. He wanted to write about India.

But celebrated British writer and historian Patrick French did not expect the call for ban on his book Liberty or Death — India’s Journey to Independence and Division.

His take on Mahatma Gandhi and Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s role in the Independence Movement wasn’t taken too kindly. The fear of being looked at as an outsider crossed his mind when he started out, but being married to an Indian woman has given him a different perspective.

“Back then, there was a feeling that people were obliged to be more respectable to the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi and they felt that I was too sympathetic to Jinnah. But today if somebody wrote a book on 26/11 nobody would be bothered in the slightest bit. I think it is to do with what is acceptable at a particular time,” says French.

Full report here DNA

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