Eighty Years Ago This Week

   The Aga Khan, leader of the world's Ismaili Shia muslim community, was ceremonially weighed on the sixtieth anniversary of his accession in front of 70,000 Indian Ismailis gathered in Bombay's Brabourne Stadium. He was presented with his weight in diamonds, 243lb (107kg) worth  £640,000 at the time. The diamonds had been bought by his followers but he returned the gift for the betterment of the community. He had played a part in the ultimately unsuccessful "round table" conferences on reforming the Raj in the early 1930s but he played no serious part in discussions with the British Cabinet Mission then in India to create a framework for independence. General Mihailovic, the former leader of the mainly Serbian Cetnik movement in Yugoslvia was captured  after two years in hiding. Mihailovic had gone from being the acknowledged Royalist leader of resistance to Axis occupation to the head of one faction in a virtual civil war. In 1943 he had lost British backing which...