(inter)nationalism, and questions of sovereignty. He is Professor of History, Human Rights, and Public Policy at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, the City University of New York, where he is also Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. At the undergraduate level he lectures on modern world history and on modern South Asian history, and offers seminars on Gandhi, modern India, and violence and ethnic conflict. His graduate classes focus on human rights, internationalism, and biography.
Bhagavan applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, The Remarkable Madame Pandit: Champion of India, Citizen of the World, and shared the following:
Page 99 of The Remarkable Madame Pandit deals with Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit’s extended thoughts on women’s rights, societal norms, patriarchy, and liberation. She observes that “Woman…must not try to see things as they are, or give expression to the urges within her…[Men and the women they have mesmerized] beg woman not to throw away her modesty and become unsexed and shameless. They entreat her in the name of India’s past glory not to discard those virtues which, it is said, made the woman of a past age great. What these people really wish to preserve is neither virtue nor chastity, but the ignorance which has kept woman enslaved through the ages and which is now giving place to the light of knowledge. Once that light spreads, no power can prevent its reaching women, and they will shake off all restraint and fear and go eagerly forward with men to establish a better order of things.” She then contrasts her treatment as a public figure with her brother’s, he also in a similar line of work. She laments the fact that stories about her focus on her looks and clothes while those about him deal with his ideas and actions.Visit Manu Bhagavan's website.
The Page 99 Test works! Madame Pandit (1900-1990) was a woman of many firsts, and one of the most important figures of the 20th century. Here she is reflecting on some of her early experiences, her observations ultimately capturing the very essence of her life, and hence of the work generally.
Born into an illustrious family, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit grew to be internationally recognized as one of the two greatest women in the world, widely admired for her brilliance and beauty. Her election as the first woman Cabinet minister in the British Empire to hold significant portfolios catapulted her to initial celebrity. She used her fame to further her country’s fight for freedom, facing repeated imprisonment for her efforts.
Steeled by painful personal loss, she launched a pioneering, globe-trotting career spanning Moscow, Washington, London, and New York, where, especially at the United Nations, she shaped the modern world order as her country’s premier diplomat. With wit and charm, Madame Pandit bridged East and West, defeated top lawyers in debate, advanced US civil rights and modern human rights, helped settle the Korean War and resolve the Suez Crisis, and championed world peace. She worked alongside the likes of Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell and won plaudits from Winston Churchill and Konrad Adenauer, while dominating the gossip pages and winning over everyday people. Marlon Brando named her the woman he most admired, and Eleanor Roosevelt called her “the most remarkable woman” she had ever met.
Then, in her country’s darkest hour, she came out of retirement to battle her own niece, Indira Gandhi, to stop an authoritarian takeover and save democracy.
The Remarkable Madame Pandit is a comprehensive biography based on continent-spanning, multi-lingual research. It recovers the story of one of the world’s most significant and celebrated women, while asking how even one such as she could be erased from history.
--Marshal Zeringue
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