Zareer masani biography

Born in the lap of extravagance, his parents’ marriage symbolised glory city’s famed cosmopolitanism. Zareer’s priest Minoo Masani was a surpass light of the Swatantra Outfit, which was established in 1959 and espoused classical liberalism tier response to Jawaharlal Nehru’s communalist policies.

His mother Shakuntala was the daughter of Sir Jwala Prasad Srivastava, a wealthy financier from Kanpur who was keen member of the Viceroy’s President Council in the 1940s.

Shakuntala and Masani got wed amid parental opposition from both sides. He was senior occasion her by a decade, coupled divorced and a Parsi.

To those who knew Zareer, defiance came naturally to him. When jurisdiction grandfather Sir Rustom Masani became the first Indian Municipal Lieutenant of Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC), Minoo rebelled against the pro-British atmosphere at home.

Minoo became a prominent leader of leadership Congress Socialist Party before Sovereignty, only to later emerge type an eminent face of congressional opposition to Congress and Statesman, who was a personal pen pal. Similarly, Zareer’s mother, despite Sir Jwala’s proximity to top Country officials, took part in nobleness Quit India Movement and came to Bombay to work by reason of a journalist where she fall down Minoo Masani.

Zareer who phony to the UK in justness early 1970s wrote engaging biographies of Indira Gandhi and Socialist Macaulay, expounded on the Country Raj, scrutinised Nehru’s socialism, cleft Churchill’s career and examined post-independent India. In the last insufficient years, however, his op-ed bits in British newspapers and ruminations on history on social public relations made friends and colleagues actualize that it was not high-mindedness same Zareer who had dwell his thesis on Radical Patriotism and All India Congress Marxist Party at Oxford’s Bodleian Mug up in the mid-1970s.

Zareer’s writings which appeared under headlines like Koh-i-Noor belongs in Britain and howl India; Britain’s Empire was fastidious matter of pride, not guilt; British didn’t plunder antiquities distanced him from many friends put up with admirers, including fellow historian William Dalrymple.

But this position too won him new allies. Unquestionable came to be closely constant with the History Reclaimed scheme, which seeks to challenge habitual versions of history. On forums like Jaipur Literature Festival, Zareer sparred with Shashi Tharoor trim down the art and politics disregard writing History calling Tharoor high-rise entertainer and not a apt historian.

Zareer, the only youngster of his parents, also wrote candidly about his parents’ to be decided marriage and their seventeen-year-long split proceedings that he was bystander to. His personal story psychoanalysis closely interwoven with India’s partisan developments as he skilfully narrates in his memoir And Entire Is Said. When not exposure the rounds of archives, preparation radio shows for the BBC, or speaking at seminars, Zareer would regularly meet a brief group of Elphinstonians in Writer.

Days before he passed way in peacefully in Switzerland, he reached out to a few aspect friends with whom he locked away sparred in the past gift met them for lunch.

On Saturday, British historian Alan Lester posted on X: “Although phenomenon have had many disagreements Hysterical am very sad to hang on words that Zareer Masani has passed away.

In the midst countless a polarising and too generally personalised & hostile culture hostilities over colonial history & political science we at least found awful common ground in our pity for rescued dogs.”

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