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A few bloody months in South Asia during the summer of 1947 explain the world that troubles us today. Nobody expected the liberation of India and birth of Pakistan to be so bloody - it was supposed to be an answer to the dreams of Muslims and Hindus who had been ruled by the British for centuries. Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi's protg and the political leader of India, believed Indians were an inherently nonviolent, peaceful people. Pakistan's founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a secular lawyer, not a firebrand. But in August 1946, exactly a year before Independence, Calcutta erupted in street-gang fighting. A cycle of riots - targeting Hindus, then Muslims, then Sikhs - spiraled out of control. As the summer of 1947 approached, all three groups were heavily armed and on edge, and the British rushed to leave.
About the Author
NISID HAJARI is Asia Editor for Bloomberg View, the editorial board of Bloomberg News. He writes columns on Asian politics, history and economics, and edits Bloomberg's commentary from the region. "Midnight's Furies" is his first book.
Prior to Bloomberg, Hajari spent 10 years as a top editor at Newsweek International and Newsweek magazine in New York. He was responsible for the day-to-day running of the print magazines, overseeing Newsweek's global team of correspondents and editors. During his tenure, the magazine won over 50 awards for its foreign coverage, which included the first exhaustive investigation of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and several critically-lauded special issues on China, Iran and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
From 1997 to 2001, Hajari worked as a writer and editor for TIME magazine in Hong Kong. There he helped build up TIME's fledgling Asian edition, winning two General Excellence awards from the Society of Publishers in Asia. Before moving to Asia, he spent time as a rock critic for Entertainment Weekly and a book critic for the Village Voice Literary Supplement.
Hajari helped edit the best-selling 2014 essay collection "Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia's Next Superpower." He has written for the New York Times, Financial Times, Esquire and Conde Nast Traveler, among other publications. He has also appeared as a commentator on foreign affairs for CNN, BBC, NBC, MSNBC, CBC and National Public Radio. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former East-West Center Fellow.
Hajari graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1990 and earned a Master's in Comparative Literature from Columbia University in 1996. He has lived in Seattle, New York, Hong Kong, New Delhi and London. He and his wife, Melinda Page, currently live in Singapore.
