General In Command
As the US attack on Afghanistan continues, the divergent pulls of pro-Taliban Islamists and pro-West "pragmatists" heighten tensions in Pakistan, forcing President Pervez Musharraf to sack some of his most powerful deputies.

Gains And Losses
The war in Afghanistan changed all the regional equations. The Taliban and the jehadis were abandoned by Pakistan and India got a chance to regain a foothold in Afghanistan. A report on the diplomatic balance sheet.

A Prize For Sir Vidia
The new Nobel laureate in literature is a civilisational man who travels in great style.

BOOKS

AUTHORSPEAK
MAINA CHAWLA SINGH

Soul Sister

Remember the straight-backed lady in a starched habit who taught you to say "please" and "thank you" apart from music and mathematics? Generations of Indian women have studied in convent schools and colleges under the strict guidance of missionary women from across the seven seas. Today their numbers and influence may have lessened but Maina Chawla Singh's scholarly work Gender, Religion and "Heathen Lands": American Missionary Women in South Asia (Garland Publishing) focuses on a period (1860s-1940s) when these "Bible workers" almost singlehandedly championed the cause of women's education in India.

Singh, 46, who teaches English at Delhi University, has based her work on a very specific entity-the American missionary woman, relegated to invisibility compared to her British counterpart. "This is a gap in academic research. When I looked through missionary archives, I realised that American missionary women played a significant role as teachers and doctors, but it hadn't been written about. They set up institutions like Vellore's Christian Medical College, Lucknow's Isabella Thoburn College and Lahore's Kinnaird College," says Singh.

So what made this English literature post-graduate switch to gender issues? The articulate author could easily pass off for the stereotypical feminist-perfectly starched sari and a graceful gesture. Personal experience more than feminist discourse led to this work's germination. Singh's book looks at the intriguing contradiction between the notion of these women as "cultural imperialists" converting girls of so-called "heathen" lands, and the fondly remembered experiences of women like Singh's mother who studied at Kinnaird College before Independence. The book explores the challenges inherent in the lives of American evangelist women who worked in India despite the "dismal" conversion rates. The book's best feature is its in-depth analysis of the motives that made these women cross continents to do "God's work". Says Singh: "We've been taught to see the missionaries the way they once saw us: a falsely homogeneous picture. This book tries to show that the picture is textured."

-Shuchi Sinha

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