LONDON: Author and historian Zareer Masani who died on Friday aged 75 in Switzerland, was a quintessential upper-class Bombay boy. He studied at Cathedral and John Connon and Elphinstone College before moving to Oxford where he finished his doctorate in History and embarked upon a successful career as author, historian, and broadcaster. Born in the lap of luxury, his parents’ marriage symbolised the city’s famed cosmopolitanism.
Zareer’s father Minoo Masani was a leading light of the Swatantra Party, which was established in 1959 and espoused classical liberalism in response to Jawaharlal Nehru’s socialist policies. His mother Shakuntala was the daughter of Sir Jwala Prasad Srivastava, a wealthy industrialist from Kanpur who was a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council in the 1940s. Shakuntala and Masani got married amid parental opposition from both sides.
He was senior to her by a decade, twice divorced and a Parsi. To those who knew Zareer, defiance came naturally to him. When his grandfather Sir Rustom Masani became the first Indian Municipal Commissioner of Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC), Minoo rebelled against the pro-British atmosphere at home.
Minoo became a prominent leader of the Congress Socialist Party before Independence, only to later emerge as an eminent face of parliamentary opposition to Congress and Nehru, who was a personal friend. Similarly, Zareer’s mother, despite Sir Jwala’s proximity to top British officials, took part in the Quit .