Sound Bite
A medical doctor and political activist traces his life from India at partition to graduate work and practice in the UK and America, comparing health standards, economic well-being, race relations, and the political atmosphere on three continents during the socially-conscious 1960s and later under bare-knuckle capitalism.He includes a brief synopsis of PakistanÃ??'s tumultuous history, including the role played by superpowers with an interest in the region.
About the Author
S. Akhtar Ehtisham was born in India in 1939 and in 1951, when he was in the ninth grade, moved to the newly-formed Pakistan. There he completed his studies including university and medical school. Postgraduate work took him to the UK in 1965, then to Nova Scotia, and then to Bath, New York. In this work he contrasts health standards, economic well-being, race relations, and the political atmosphere on three continents during the socially-conscious 1960s and later under bare-knuckle capitalism. In the 1980s he returned to Pakistan to repay his debt to his country, building a hospital and encouraging international contacts to support professional development in the medical field. He also became involved in the international anti-nuclear war movement. Anarchic conditions in Karachi drove him back to Bath, New York by 1991. He remains active in Indian–Pakistani physicians’ groups, human rights, and peace organizations.
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About the Book
This sweeping narrative sketches the political and economic realities of the past fifty years while tracing an eventful life from the turmoil following the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan to the present day. Discussing politics,...
This sweeping narrative sketches the political and economic realities of the past fifty years while tracing an eventful life from the turmoil following the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan to the present day. Discussing politics, government policies, and popular movements, Dr. Ehtisham shows how nations as well as individual lives are shaped by historical events, economic changes, religious fundamentalism, class systems and racial divides. Through his own experience as a doctor and hospital director, he compares the advanced social safety net state of the post-war UK with regimes that are determined to see people "stand on their own two feet" Ã??' even when the economic system has already cut them off at the knees.
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WATANDOST: Inside News About Pakistan and its Neighborhood | More »
WATANDOST: Inside News About Pakistan and its Neighborhood
Link to Book Review: A splash of civilizations ...The book is a journey through four different civilizations and an analysis of three political economic systems. It is an engrossing story of the ancient civilization of India, forced to live side by side with a Turko-Persian and Arab Muslim civilization, and then reborn by way of vivisection as two modern nation-states. Ehtisham introduces his readers to the minimalistic culture of Indian village life mixed with the complexities involved, in the followers of two religions living live side by side. He takes us from the days of relative communal harmony and acceptance of diversity in the united India, through the British colonial policy of divide et impera to the culmination of religious fundamentalist indoctrination on September 11, 2001. In providing the audience with a superb distillation of his lifetime's learning, Ehtisham evaluates the post-1947 nation-states struggling for their political, cultural and economic identity. As a doctor he makes acute observations about the impact of economic system of a country on its healthcare system and whether healthcare is a social service or a commodity.
Dr. Mohammad Taqi
Book News
Leftist physician and peace activist Ehtisham reflects on his experiences over six decades in India, Pakistan, the UK, Canada, and the United States, combining memoir — of a life that has spanned witnessing the founding of Pakistan and the attendant Hindu-Muslim communal violence sparked by the partition of South Asia to worrying about the fate of his daughter, who worked next door to the World Trade Center, on September 11th, 2001 — with political observations concerning the world he has lived through. Within these observations, he is particularly focused on national health care systems and the question of political Islam. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
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Pages 214 Year: 2008 LC Classification: E184.P28E35 2008 Dewey code: 909.82092--dc22 BISAC: HIS017000 HISTORY / Asia / India & South Asia BISAC: SOC007000 SOCIAL SCIENCE / Emigration & Immigration
Soft Cover ISBN: 978-0-87586-633-8
Price: USD 22.95
Hard Cover ISBN: 978-0-87586-634-5
Price: USD 32.95
eBook ISBN: 978-0-87586-635-2
Price: USD 22.95
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