Stanley Wolpert

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This article is about a Indologist. For the mathematician, see Scott A. Wolpert.
Stanley Wolpert
Born(1927-12-23)December 23, 1927
Indologist
Notable workMorley and India Nineteen Six to Nineteen Ten (1967)
Jinnah of Pakistan (1984)

Stanley Albert Wolpert (December 23, 1927 – February 19, 2019)

Indologist, and author on the political and intellectual history of modern India and Pakistan[2][3] and wrote fiction and nonfiction books on the topics. He taught at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), from 1959 to 2002.[4]

Biography

Early life

Stanley Albert Wolpert was born on December 23, 1927, in

dissertation (published as Tilak and Gokhale)[8] on the revolutionary and reform wings of the Indian National Congress.[6] The dissertation was one of the two books selected for the now discontinued biennial Watumull Prize of the American Historical Association in 1962, a prize recognizing "the best book on the history of India originally published in the United States."[10]

Career

Wolpert began his academic career in 1959, when he took a job as an instructor in the Department of History at UCLA. He was promoted in 1960–63 to

emeritus professor
.

Recognition

In 1975 Wolpert was awarded UCLA's Distinguished Teaching Award.[4]

Wolpert was a guest on Connie Martinson Talks Books in 2011, promoting his 2010 book, India and Pakistan: Continued Conflict or Cooperation.[11][12]

Personal life and death

He married Dorothy Wolpert (née Guberman) on June 12, 1953. They met in an American government class at City College of New York. She went on to become a senior partner in a

Century City law firm, and made several visits to India with her husband. They had two sons and three grandchildren.[9] His book Nine Hours to Rama
was adapted to a feature film in 1963. Wolpert died on February 19, 2019.

Bibliography

Jinnah of Pakistan

Among Wolpert's famed works is Jinnah of Pakistan (1982), a biography compiled on Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan. Wolpert described his subject thus:

Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Muhammad Ali Jinnah did all three.

The book is regarded as one of the best biographical books on the life of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Congress and Indian Nationalism: The Pre-independence Phase

Wolpert served as editor alongside Richard Sisson of the volume of papers presented at the University of California, Los Angeles March 1984 international conference on the pre Independent phase of the Indian National Congress and published by the University of California Press.[13][14][15][16][17]

Participating scholars in the conference include

Barbara N. Ramusack, Rajat Kanta Ray, Peter Reeves, Damodar Sardesai, Sumit Sarkar, Lawrence L. Shrader, William Vanderbok and Eleanor Zelliot.[13]

Gandhi's Passion: The Life and the Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi

Published in 2001, Gandhi's Passion is a biography of Mahatma Gandhi. Wolpert describes the subject thus:

"Mahatma Gandhi proved the strength of invisible soul-force. By so passionately embracing suffering all his mature life and fearlessly following his inner voice wherever it led him, Gandhi lived the message of Love and Truth he believed to be twin faces of God. His greatest luxury was to serve those who needed him: the sick, the hungry, people without work or pride or hope. He never gave up his quest to liberate India from imperial bonds of exploitation and to liberate humankind from the shackles of prejudice, fear, and hatred, and from the terrors of brutal racial and religious, class and caste conflict. He courted pain as most men did pleasure, welcomed sorrow as others greeted joy, and was always ready to face any opponent or his own death with a disarming smile of love. He lived to the full his mantra, “Do or die!” Still, he failed to convert most of modern India to his faith in the ancient yogic powers of Tapas and Ahimsa as superior to the atom bomb. He was not, of course, the first or only prophet of peace murdered by a self-righteous killer, nor, most unfortunately, would he be the last. But he was the greatest Indian since the fifth-century B.C. “Enlightened One,” the Buddha."[18]

Delhi University historian Shahid Amin in his review for the Outlook, called it an "empathetic and meticulous biography". He observed, "Wolpert's attempt is to demonstrate through a close reading of Gandhi's own voluminous writings the unique combination of yogic tapas and Christian passion (the suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross") that the Mahatma embodied in his body-polity."[19] The biography was severely criticised by columnist Swapan Dasgupta, who wrote in India Today, "Wolpert's biography is not the work of a professional historian.... it is essentially a sympathetic assessment, a study of Gandhi the saint that only tangentially — and with some glaring factual inaccuracies (like describing the Jallianwala Bagh meeting in Amritsar as a gathering of peasants 'celebrating their spring harvest') and sweeping over-generalisations takes into account the environment he operated in." [20]

Pankaj Mishra, in his review for The New York Times, described it as a "somewhat perfunctory biography". He wrote, "the best that can be said about Wolpert's book is that while it tells you nothing about Gandhi that hasn't been said before, it doesn't oversimplify its subject." Further adding, "Wolpert mentions Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela as having drawn inspiration from Gandhi's methods. Disappointingly, he doesn't go into the manifold ways Gandhi's distrust of modernity has found echoes among many political and environmental movements around the world."[21]

Ahmed Abbas in his review for

British India had moved its capital to Delhi in 1911.... Wolpert gives us the saint, but the shrewd politician is little in evidence in this book. And yet Wolpert gets all the essentials right, and he does so in lucid and lively prose."[23]

Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India

Published in 2006, Shameful Flight is a chronological study of the last days of the British Empire in India from the fall of Singapore in 1942 to the Jammu and Kashmir war of 1947–48.[24][25]

Columnist

Mountbatten for all the opprobrium'. Furthermore, 'On Wolpert's suggestion that a united, independent Bengal would have prevented the tragedy in the east ignores cruel ground realities'.[26]

Publications

Non-fiction

Fiction

  • Aboard the Flying Swan (1954)
  • Nine Hours to Rama (1962)
  • The Expedition: A Novel (1967)
  • An Error of Judgment (1970)

References

  1. ^ Stanley Wolpert (1927-2019)
  2. ^ a b Dr. Stanley Wolpert's UCLA Faculty homepage "Welcome to UCLA's History Department". Archived from the original on 2012-09-30. Retrieved 2012-10-01.
  3. ^ "UCLA History". www.history.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2018-05-02.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Professor Stanley Wolpert's academic career and short biography http://www.oac.cdlib.org/data/13030/vz/kt400005vz/files/kt400005vz.pdf
  5. ^ 2005 UCLA International Institute blog reporting on the publication of Wolpert's 2002 book, Gandhi's Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=30808 Archived September 20, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ a b c 1997 UCLA Today article on Wolpert's academic background "DEATH OF GANDHI SET SCHOLAR ON PATH / UCLA Today". Archived from the original on 2011-06-04. Retrieved 2010-01-24.
  7. ^ Wolpert, Stanley (2001). Gandhi's Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. Oxford University Press. pp. vii
  8. ^ a b "Rediff On The NeT: Rajeev Srinivasan interviews Stanley Wolpert, Nehru's biographer". www.rediff.com. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
  9. ^ a b Long, Roger D. (editor) (2004).Charisma and Commitment in South Asian History: Essays presented to Stanley Wolpert. pp. 6-35.
  10. ^ "Discontinued Awards: Watumull Prize (1946–1982)". American Historical Association. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
  11. ^ Stanley Wolpert - India and Pakistan - Part 1, retrieved 2022-10-07
  12. ^ Stanley Wolpert - India and Pakistan - Part 2, retrieved 2022-10-07
  13. ^
    ISBN 978-0-520-06041-8
    .
  14. JSTOR 2760602
    .
  15. JSTOR 204875
    .
  16. JSTOR 2163915
    .
  17. JSTOR 41930730
    .
  18. ISBN 978-0-19-515634-8
    .
  19. ^ http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?211146 | Shahid Amin's review in Outlook
  20. ^ http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20010326/books.shtml | Swapan Dasgupta's review in India Today
  21. ^ "Ex-Father of the Nation". archive.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
  22. JSTOR 45242617
    . Retrieved 2023-03-18.
  23. ^ Greenway, Phil (2021-07-02). "UKMoney.net and Indianembassy.org". UK Money. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
  24. JSTOR 20108446
    .
  25. JSTOR 40110902
    .
  26. ^ SWAPAN DASGUPTA (Dec 24, 2006). "Operation Scuttle". The Times of India. Retrieved 2022-10-07.

External links

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