Sam Dalrymple

South Asia in a time of the breaking of nations

Avinash Paliwal’s gripping tale of espionage opens in 1949, with newly independent India, Pakistan and Burma racked by rivalries in one of the most intricately partitioned areas on Earth

Sheik Mujibur Rahman, President of Bangladesh, in London in 1972. [Keystone/Getty Images] 
issue 16 November 2024

Early on Christmas morning in 1962, the Indian diplomat S.S. Banerjee heard a mysterious knock on his door in Dacca, East Pakistan. Standing outside in the darkness was a 14-year-old boy, who beckoned to him to follow, and minutes later Banerjee found himself opposite the firebrand politician Mujibur Rahman, a pipe-smoking Bengali activist who had recently transformed from a Pakistani nationalist into one of the country’s fiercest critics.

For the next hour, the two men engaged in small talk, with Banerjee growing increasingly mystified as to why he had been summoned. Then, just as he was about to go home, he was handed a small envelope intended for the Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

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