This was not collateral damage of Partition. It was a calculated attempt to permanently alter the demographic character of Rajouri through terror and extermination.

The need for a strong external intelligence agency became clear after India faced serious challenges during the 1962 Sino-Indian War and the 1965 Indo-Pak War.

Bankim’s novel Anandamath is set during the devastating Bengal famine of 1770, a tragic event that claimed nearly 10 million lives.

RNP Singh in Nehru: A Troubled Legacy quoted Nehru as saying that the nation could defend itself with “lathis [sticks] and stones if need be.”

The treaty, deciding India’s water control and farmers’ fate, was signed without Parliament’s confidence and given just two hours of debate.

Culturally and ethnically, these hill peoples had closer affinities with the tribes of India’s northeast (e.g. Tripura, Assam) than with the Bengali Muslim majority of the adjacent plains of East Bengal.

Following the supreme sacrifice of Laxmibai, her adopted son Damodar Rao spent 46 years in Indore under the custody of British rulers.

They were not there to fight—they came to speak. Many wore their best traditional clothes, some even sang tribal songs as they walked.

In May 1974, India conducted its inaugural nuclear test, named Operation Smiling Buddha. This move shook the region and effectively rattled Pakistan.

The ethno-religious violence in Tripura did not stop at Mandai. Terrorists belonging to the banned Christian Tripuri outfit NLFT gunned down Bengali Hindu refugees during the 2000 Bagber massacre.