Discovery of Asia

Dr. Kalidas Nag’s Discovery of Asia is a colourful panorama of Asian history and culture. It is unique in conception and encyclopaedic in dimension. Between two covers it presents a broad spectrum of the life of Man in Asia, with its spill-over in Egypt in the West and Indonesia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia in the South and the East. This work is a veritable kernel of the Encyclopaedia Asiana, which the author wisely proposed for publication. Since at the turn of this century tiny Japan’s military victory over mighty Russia, Asia shook off her torpor. She was no longer at the receiving end, being a conglomeration of colonial and semi-colonial countries under the domination of the imperial powers of the West. Japan became strong enough to wage protracted war against the Chinese and later overthrew the American, the French, the Dutch and the British imperial powers in the South-East Asia during the World War II, while earlier Kemal Ataturk modernised Turkey and modern Iran frustrated imperial machinations on her soil. India waged a relentless non-violent struggle against the British, resulting in her independence in 1947. Many other Asian countries shook off the foreign yoke. China was liberated by the communists. Already on 6 November 1943 Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose thundered over the Tokyo Radio, "Asiatic peoples have been dreaming of a United Asia and a Free Asia and we in India since 1905 have been dreaming of a Free and United Asia". While Asia has since been virtually free, she is definitely not united. Netaji’s proclamation of a Pan-Asiatic Federation is yet to fructify. Still Asia is awake, resurgent and vibrant. To mark this stupendous change, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru called the Asian Relations Conference on 23 March 1947, a few months before India’s independence. In his inaugural speech he emotionally proclaimed. "This dynamic Asia from which great streams of culture flowed in all directions gradually became static and unchanging. Other peoples and other continents came to the fore and with their new dynamism spread out and took possession of great parts of the world. This mighty continent became just a field for rival imperialisms of Europe, and Europe became the centre of history and progress in human affairs. A change is coming over the scene now and Asia is again finding herself".