"...And so from the very start India was a place made up of land and people from somewhere else..."
[Chapter 2, 'Time and Space in India' from her book 'The Hindus: An Alternative History', 2009]
(notice the word: 'land' in the quote above)
The Times of India reported on December 10 2009 that Dr. Dwarkanath Shantaram Kotnis (द्वारकानाथ शांताराम कोटणीस) is in the list of China's top ten foreigners who made exceptional contributions to the country in the past 100 years.
What an honour!
Very few native Marathi speaking persons have been feted on such a scale on the global stage.
What about top ten foreigners, not necessarily friends or well-wishers, who have visited India since Alexander the great and shaped India's destiny for the better or the worse?
Here a foreigner means someone who was not borne or raised in the subcontinent.
Here is an attempt:
Alexander the great 356–323 BCE
Mahmud of Ghazni 971-1030
Vasco da Gama 1460/1469–1524
Babur 1483-1531
Ahmad Shah Durrani/Abdali 1722–1773
Robert Clive 1725–1774
William Jones 1746-1794
Thomas Babington Macaulay 1800–1859
The Lord Curzon of Kedleston 1859–1925
Mother Teresa 1910–1997
Artist: Mischa Richter, The New Yorker, 9 October 1965
Let me add one and only one name to your list. It is Samuel Evans Stokes Jr. He brought apples to Himachal Pradesh, i.e. India, also participated India's freedom movement. Mahatma Gandhi took note of his activities. He became Hindu and renamed himself as Satyanand.
ReplyDeleteसत्यानंद स्टोक्स यांचे चरित्र आणखी जाणून घेण्यासाठी त्यांची नात आशा शर्मा यांनी लिहिलेले त्यांचे चरित्र वाचावे लागेल. त्याचे भारतात
"An American in Khadi" या नावाने आणि अमेरिकेत " An American in Gandhi's India" या नावाने प्रसिद्ध झाले आहे. अमेरिकेतील पुस्तकाला दलाई लामा यांची प्रस्तावना लाभली आहे. यापुढे "शिमला सफरचंद" समोर आले तर त्याची चव घेताना आपल्याला अशा एका अमेरिकनाची आठवण येईल ना, की ज्याने आपले आयुष्य भारताच्या स्वातंत्र्यासाठी वेचले होते. तो मूळचा अमेरिकन न राहता सच्चा भारतीय देशभक्त बनला होता.
Mangesh Nabar
Thanks Mangesh.
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