2022
August
15
Monday

Monitor Daily Podcast

August 15, 2022
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As part of my prep for interviewing Indian oral historian Aanchal Malhotra for my story on the 75th anniversary of colonial India’s partition, I purchased a copy of her latest work – 700-plus pages of interviews with the survivors and their descendants of one of the 20th century’s most searing events.

I was still in the impressive tome’s introduction, reading about Ms. Malhotra’s own family’s experience with Partition, when I stopped at this sentence: “When I began these informal explorations, my understanding was limited to the condensed version of events in my school curriculum, and the fact that in 1953 my paternal grandfather had set up a bookshop in Delhi’s Khan Market – then a refugee market, created as a commercial initiative for those who had migrated from the other side.”

A bookshop in Khan Market, I wondered. Could it be?

On my last reporting trip to India in 2019, I’d stayed in a hotel within walking distance of Khan Market, now a collection of mostly tony boutiques and restaurants catering to Delhi’s well-off. 

But on one evening stroll, I’d come upon Bahrisons bookshop, and it quickly became a refuge for me – from the oppressive 120-degree Fahrenheit heat Delhi was experiencing, for sure. But it also opened a window into Indian society by the books displayed most prominently, or by the books patrons chose to leaf through. I purchased a couple that offered insight into stories I was doing and led me to several new sources.

So when I reached Ms. Malhotra, before we got down to the business of the interview, I shared my experience with the Khan Market bookshop, and asked if it was her grandfather’s. Indeed it was.

I could hear in her voice her delight. She said my experience with the shop would put a smile on her grandfather’s face, because what I’d found there was what he’d always intended – a welcoming place open to anyone keen to learn new things and to dream.  


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Pundits originally predicted that overturning Roe wouldn’t have much impact on November’s elections. But the summer is suggesting otherwise.

Before Russia waged war in Ukraine and threatened Western energy supplies, Lithuania steeled itself against such aggression – shown by its acquisition nearly a decade ago of a ship called Independence.

Karen Norris/Staff

Commentary

Courtesy of Noor Anand Chawla
Noor Anand Chawla poses with her paternal grandfather, Col. Dalip Singh Anand, at her wedding in Delhi in 2013. A couple of years later, in 2015, he was interviewed by the 1947 Partition Archive, an oral history repository that set out to digitally record the stories of Partition survivors.

Grappling with her family’s actions during Partition helped our contributor discover a new well of compassion – a quality needed now more than ever.

Points of Progress

What's going right

In our progress roundup, discoveries in both Brazil and Turkey were surprising in their vastness, providing paleontologists and archaeologists with a wealth of opportunities to learn.

Book review

Courtesy of Dan Corjulo/Simon & Schuster
Rinker Buck pilots his flatboat Patience. As he explains in "Life on the Mississippi," one of the most difficult tasks was steering safely among long strings of barges.

What does it take to see a project through? Journalist-adventurer Rinker Buck drew on perseverance and courage to safely pilot a flatboat down the Mississippi River – making connections with people and America’s past.


The Monitor's View

AP/file
Shiite pilgrims make their way to a shrine in in Baghdad, Iraq, passing by a poster of Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

As Americans know well, when angry protesters forcibly occupy the national legislature, violence is all too possible. Yet in Iraq, whose democracy was planted by the 2003 U.S. invasion, a similar protest in Baghdad over recent weeks has been relatively peaceful. One reason may be the quiet influence of the country’s most respected religious leader, top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

For 10 months, Iraqi politics has been in a tense stalemate following an inconclusive parliamentary election. No party won enough votes to form a government. The standoff – between two dominant alliances representing the country’s majority Shiites – has been fought behind the scenes as well as in dueling protests in the legislative building and the streets. Fears of a civil war are high with a potential to disrupt the Middle East.

In recent days, Mr. Sistani reportedly met with the leader of one political bloc, firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. His bloc, which rejects meddling by Iran, won the most seats in the election. The meeting fits Mr. Sistani’s long insistence that Iraqis act responsibly as a nation to avoid the “abyss of chaos and political obstruction.”

Unlike top Muslim clerics in neighboring Iran, Mr. Sistani believes Islam calls for clerics to largely stay away from ruling a country. He seeks a strong Iraqi identity rooted in democratic values that bind the country’s religious diversity. Yet in times of crisis, the still-divided Iraqis look to him for what he calls “caretaking” and “guidance.”

As in the past, he again walks a fine line between mosque and state. In many ways, though, he speaks for Iraqi youth. Their mass protests in 2019 altered the political landscape with demands for a government based on the common good, not the current power-sharing system that divvies up national resources by sects and ethnicity – with a high dose of corruption.

“The people and [Shiite religious authority Sistani] will reject any scenario of a Shia/Shia conflict, and any attempt will be defused,” Luay al-Khatteeb, Iraq’s former minister of energy, told Le Monde newspaper.

Delicate guidance now by Mr. Sistani fits his call for a corruption-free “civic state,” one based on political compromise rather than zero-sum competition. His calming effect comes as Iraq plans to host an international conference on interfaith dialogue scheduled for October.

The event, according to organizers, will emphasize equality in citizenship and guarantees of respect for all religions. After the near dismemberment of Iraq by the militant group Islamic State between 2014 and 2017, that is a message many Iraqis take to heart.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Even when things get scary or difficult, we can yield to the power of God, divine Love, that brings confidence, wisdom, and safety.


A message of love

Ross D. Franklin/AP
Navajo Code Talker Thomas Begay (third from left) stands with the Ira H. Hayes American Legion Post 84 Honor Guard prior to the Arizona State Navajo Code Talkers Day ceremony, Aug. 14, 2022, in Phoenix. During WWII, Code Talkers provided the United States Marine Corps essential military communications encoded in the Navajo language, which the enemy could not decipher. Mr. Begay is one of three Code Talkers who are still alive.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Here’s a question for you: Who is Maryrose Wood? In tomorrow’s issue, Books Editor April Austin talks to the author, who writes for 8-to-12-year-olds. Ms. Woods says her stories are “animated by hope” – something that catches the eye of adults as well.

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