Police matters: the everyday state and caste politics in South India, 1900–1975 by Radha Kumar
This book theories the ways police framed definitions of criminality based on knowledge of caste to make rural subjects legible to state and deployed violence against subaltern subjects to maintain casted order in the villages. Through extensive fieldwork and scrutinising of unexplored documents collected in police stations, Radha Kumar explored the rise of popular politics in the countryside as a response to state policing and demonstrated the usefulness of station records in understanding the casted police gaze and shifting power dynamics between castes in the villages. Covering both colonial and postcolonial periods leading to emergency in India, this book makes a valuable contribution to the study of the intersection of caste politics and state policing in India.
Full review: 10.1080/09584935.2022.2100122
Farewell, Mahatma by Devibharathi
One short story collection I would recommend everyone to read for sure. It is rare that one could love every single short story in a collection. This is one such a book where I have enjoyed all the stories. They are deeply thought provoking, disturbing, and creative. Devibharathi is not bound by any one style. Each story is a new experiment, exploring rural and urban realities, women-men relationships, prison life, secret love, violence in modern societies, folklore, changing morphology of caste, love, lust and desire. These story exemplify the power of creative fiction in modern society to bring change through proving one’s thought. Grateful to Kalyan Raman for binging these stories to larger audience by translating them from Tamil.
Brexit: Join the F*cking Dots by Jamie Whyte
I enjoyed reading the quotes and joining the dots in this book for months. Whyte really did an amazing job in illustrating the reader about the hypocrisy and unclear thoughts of who is who of British politics and this account could be a classic in terms of its aim and form. This work offers a bright example and need of many such works to expose the disastrous polity and policies of politicians across the world, in a form accessible, at the same time arousing the curiosity in the reader to engage more with the subject in question.
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists – he a photographer, she a dancer – trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.
The Law of Force: The Violent Heart of Indian Politics by Thomas Blom Hansen
This book is based on the experiences of the author in his fieldwork and an extensive review of literature on the nature of politics in India. The main aim of this book is to expose the public violence in India, and its implications to Indian politics, practical governance and policing. Hasen argues the gap between constitutional promise and reality of India’s situation where ‘force of law’ is subverted by ‘law of force’ used by the majoritarian and Hindu nationalist forces for political gains. This book also explores the idioms of sacrifice and death associated with multiple publics, i.e., upper casters, Muslims and Dalits. Using the data on criminal records and conviction rates, Hasen argues how the police institution and colonial Indian Penal Code (IPC) are used by ruling parties to victimise minorities. This book makes a significant contribution towards violence studies and politics in South Asia.
The Vigilante by John Steinbeck
Extremely disappointed by this collection of three stories. Except the first story in the collection ‘The Vigilante’, other two stories ‘The Snake’ and ‘The Chrysanthemums’ are not as gripping. I had to look up online to know what those stories even meant and most of the analysis on these stories is about symbolism and ambiguous metaphors. May be for a literature student, but not for a inquisitive reader.
The Exercise of Freedom: An Introduction to Dalit Writing by K. Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu
Unputdownable…A gripping anthology bringing together writings of more than 20 Dalit scholars, dealing with various literary forms like essays, speeches, interviews, poems, short stories, newspaper columns and criticisms. It is a perfect introduction to those seeking to make themselves aware of the Dalits, Dalit literature, Dalit consciousness, and the array of sensitiveness that is required to write on Dalits. It explores the various forms of discrimination, open and subtle, which the Dalits are subjected to, historically and in the contemporary world, the dark side of modernity and religious discrimination faced by Dalits who are Hindus as well as Christians. This work could have been enriched if it had included the problems faced by Dalits who got converted into other religions other than Christianity. It is recommended that those who want to read this text, read the introduction only after finishing all the chapters to make greater sense of the Introductory chapter.
Democrats and Dissenters by Ramachandra Guha
A significant contribution to the comparative studies, especially among the nations in South Asia- India, China, Pakistan, and Srilanka. The protagonist of this book is ‘Nehruvian India’ and the villain is chauvinisms and impositions of homogeneity of all kinds- linguistic, religions, culture or intellectual. The essay on China and Pakistan are unique because they are written in such a way that evokes nostalgia and shared common diversities with India, away from all the political ups and downs, they are personal and polemical. The second part of the work contains marvellous biographical essays of some of the significant intellectuals- Andre Beteille, Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm, Dharma Kumar, U R Ananthamurthy (also Amartya Sen and E P Thomspon). The most significant of the essays in this collection are one on the tribal tragedies in Independent India and finally, an essay on why there are no conservative intellectuals in India. Overall, a much delightful read in times of trouble on all sides.
Azadi: Freedom. Fascism, Fiction by Arundhati Roy
‘What lies ahead?
Reimagining the world. Only that.’
With these above lines, Arundhati Roy ended her introduction and they reflect what Roy set out to do in the book ‘Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction’. In the nine essays in this book, most of which are previously published or given as lectures between 2018 and 2020, Roy explores the important events of this time occurring in India, which are culminating towards, what Roy calls, ‘The Rise and Rise of Hindu Nation’, whose influences are “spreading like an epidemic and blossoming in the popular imagination like a brain-deadening malignancy”. She captures this complex malignancy and the difficulties it poses to the language in order to explore it in its totality.
Roy wrote vividly on events that are happening in India which are having a devastating impact of certain sections of the population, particularly Muslims, Dalits, student activists and intellectuals voicing against those in power, like the Delhi riots whose real perpetrators, eventhough caught on camara delivering inflammatory speeches, are not even listed in the FIR and never will, arrests of the intellectuals and activists who are voices of poor and marginalised like Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreria, Veron Gonsalves, Varavara Rao, Gautam Navlakha and many others in connection with plotting violence at Bhima-Koregaon and further plotting to kill Prime Minister, abrogation of Article 370 and 35A, complete lockdown in Kashmir valley and brutality of armed forces against their own citizenry that followed, Assam’s NRC and planned national wide CAA and NPR, arrests of people under draconic Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, and inaction of the state towards anarchic sloganeering by members of the ruling party, some of them in central ministries like ‘Mussalman ka ek ki sthan, Kabristan ya Pakistan!’-Only one place for the Mussalman, the graveyard or Pakistan. She also delves into exploring the impact of demonetisation and GST, which had a devastating impact on the small and medium scale industries, benefitting big capitalists.
According to Roy, all the issues that are stated above and many more are used by the ruling party to incite fear and win the power. She writes, “In order to consolidate their political gains, the RSS and BJP’s main strategy is to generate long-lasting chaos on an industrial scale. They have stocked their kitchen with a set of simmering cauldrons that can, whenever necessary, be quickly brought to the boil”.
Apart from writing about the language of politics, Roy also reflects on the politics of language. In the first essay in this collection titled ‘In What Language Does Rain Fall over Tormented Cities’, she wrote about her growing up in different regions of India, and growing up with different languages. This awareness of beauty and limits of different languages, Roy assets the threats that are posed by the Hindutva forces by imposing a single language on whole India, a nation of ‘multiple mutinies’, a term used by VS Naipaul to describe the diverse subcontinent. This reminds the reader of George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘1984’ in which Orwell describes how in his imaginary country ‘Oceania’, words in the language are removed every single moment to cut the conception of people because individual’s consciousness is limited by their language. Roy finds a similar project ongoing in India. But the Indian case is more complex than Orwell’s Oceania. In order to comprehend the threats posed to language in India, Roy uses the phrase the ‘Project of Unseeing’.
This ‘Project of Unseeing’, Roy argues, works in myriad ways. One one side, with continuous repression of people by the state using the colonial time’s laws, the state induced fear in the people, thus forcing them not to speak the truth and live in an illusion of believing the myths proclaimed by those in power. Secondly, we are trapped into believing the lies promulgated by the Hindu nationalists. Roy observed that “the history being paddled by Hindu nationalists, that hackneyed tale of spurious valour and exaggerated victimhood in which history is turned into mythology and mythology into history”. Hindu nationalists want to rewrite the history and juxtapose the past realities with nonsensical fiction. This reflects the fear of those mythmakers to face the truths of the past. “The only good thing to be said of this contemporary mob tradition is that it understands the dangers posed by art” and it tries to do anything to destroy the truth-speaking art.
Reflecting on the responsibilities of literature, Roy claims that in order to counter the opposition posed by the hegemonic, authors have to make the new language. She writes, “For me, or for most contemporary writers working in these parts, language can never be a given. It has to be made. It has to be cooked. Slow-cooked”. Arundhati Roy wrote only two works of fiction till date and her focus has been in nonfiction writing. But to disseminate and comprehend the complexities in India, Roy emphasises on the importance of fiction. For Roy, it is fiction that “has the capaciousness, the freedom and latitude, to hold out a universe of infinite complexity”. In her essay, ‘The Graveyard Talks Back’, she reflected on her idea of fiction and how she uses it to capture things which haunt her and things that can’t be expressed through numbers and facts. Roy took the case of Kashmir, a beautiful valley which is now “covered with graveyards, and in this way has become, literally, almost a graveyard itself”. The story of Kashmir and Kashmiris, particularly in the past thirty years in general, as shown in the media is not just the story of curfew, terror, deaths, rigged elections and human right violations. It is a story of “love and poetry, too. It cannot be flattened into news”. This truth about Kashmir can be told only through fiction “because only can tell about air that is so thick with fear and loss, with pride and mad courage, and with unimaginable cruelty. Only fiction can try to describe the transactions that take place in such a climate”.
Roy culminates all her thoughts in her final essay in this collection, which is about the hope to enter a new world. Roy sees the present global pandemic as a portal, “a gateway between one world and the next”. This pandemic brought out the fragile and inhuman nature of the world order. Though the virus is egalitarian, which does not differentiate between people it wants to attack, the system dealt with the pandemic by duly respecting all the religious, caste and class prejudices. But this pandemic offers hope, a chance to reimagine the world. Roy places her in the people “who are prepared to be unpopular. Who are prepared to put themselves in danger. Who are prepared to tell the truth” to lead the nation into the newer world taking it away from evil forces that are trying to damage the vibrancy of plural, secular and democratic India.
Walter Benjamin once said, “The storyteller is the figure in which the righteous man encounters himself”. Roy is one such a storyteller. Her essays are reflective, introspective, critical and provoke the readers to think anew about the world we are living in. We may agree or disagree with her opinions. But they will inevitably paint new colours to our imagination and equips the readers for their journey in ‘reimagining the world’.
Before ending, Arundhati Roy leaves her readers with a note of hope and despair- “We can only hope that, someday soon, the streets in India will throng with people who realize that unless they make their move, the end is close. If that doesn’t happen, consider these words to be intimations of an ending from one who lived through these times”.
(First Published in Countercurrents: https://countercurrents.org/2020/11/reimagining-the-world/)
Why I am not a Hindu woman: a personal story by Wandana Sonalkar
Wandana Sonalkar is a self-proclaimed atheist and in this autobiographical account titled ‘Why I am not a Hindu Woman’, Sonalkar critically reflects on her position on why she has chosen to renounce her religion. This work adds to the list of works where authors are writing to declare their religious positions like Kancha Illaiah’s ‘Why I am Not a Hindu’, Shashi Tharoor’s ‘Why I am a Hindu’, Bertrand Russell’s ‘Why I am not a Christian’ and Ibn Farraq ‘Why I am not a Muslim’. But this work stands unique in two ways. Firstly, Sonalkar was a Hindu woman born in an upper caste, but not a Brahmin. She belongs to Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu, who performs the upanayana ceremony and has the right to perform the Vedic rituals. Her caste community is small but economically well-off. In such conditions, her rejection of religion came from experiences of Brahmanical patriarchy within the family and the society.
Secondly, this book is not merely a critique of patriarchal Hinduism, but also the forces of Hindutva, which she describes as ‘political Hinduism’. Sonalkar declares that she does not want to call herself a Hindu woman because “caste hierarchy, is Brahminical power and patriarchy, are integral to Hinduism as it is practised in our society” (p 6) and because Hindutva that bases its political ideology “on hatred of other religions and on reinforcing the caste hierarchy among Hindus” (p 8). The emergence of Hindutva led to an upsurge of moral policing, mob violence, murder, and increasing social tolerance of violence against women. The phenomena of hate speech that is unleashed by political Hinduism is “heavily laced with a venomously misogynistic declaration of patriarchal power” (p 20). Sonalkar postulated that the rise of Hindutva is impossible without the inequities perpetuated by Hindu society and sustained by caste.
Sonalkar also critiques the limitation of leftist writing in India. Declaring herself as Marxist and Feminist, she states that “liberal Left in India has generally been silent on Hinduism, on the actual daily practices of faith, while being critical of ‘fundamentalism’ or virulent Hindutva” (p 17). She aims at covering this gap by attacking the discriminatory structures of Hinduism and misogynist sensibilities of Political Hinduism.
Being born in an upper caste, there is innate responsibility for their family to stay a ‘happy family’ which is “nested within moral boundaries and the social and sexual regulations of patriarchal hetero-normative religiosity” (p 31). In Hindu society, a happy family is epitomised by Brahmin families. This preceding notion is popularised through scriptures in which brahmin male is shown an embodiment as purity and virtue, and brahmin women as completely dependent on their husbands, and obediently following the orders of the men. Women are “not expected to be independent, so their only morality is to obey the men of the family” (p 32). Severe punishments are placed on women if they choose to act independently. But altogether different rules are applied for men- “When the patriarchy is the lynchpin that holds the family together, how does a Hindu family cops when he himself strays? The first reaction is to brush everything under the carpet, to pretend that nothing is amiss” (p 49).
These regulations found within the family structures don’t stop with the family but extend to the whole society. In Hindu society, the “relationships outside the family, in the workplace or in civil and political life, are spoken of, and thought of, in terms of relationships within the family” (p 86). This is done through the imposition of caste patriarchy using the dichotomy of purity and pollution. What is unique about contemporary times is that many “Brahmins among Hindus are eating more meat now, some pollution-related beliefs and restrictions based on them are conveniently relaxed” (p 99) and in this condition, to protect the caste purity, the idea of ‘polluting Other’ is professed. Women are considered as ‘polluting Other’ from within the Hindu society and they are denied equality by reinforcing a variety of exclusions like “social death of the widow and her exclusion from auspicious ceremonies; the exclusion of the (polluting) menstruating girl from the temple and the hearth; the exclusion of women of reproductive age and of Dalit from the temple” (p 114).
Sonalkar extends her analysis of patriarchy to other religions and she identifies the distinctive nature of patriarchy within Hinduism. In religions other than Hinduism, it is possible to “talk of moral laws for all mankind, of a universal ethics, even though that ethics, too, is patriarchal in the last instance” (p 88), but for Hinduism, there is no single undisputed text or overarching central authority that has the final word on the norms of the religion. It is completely based on “relationships between people; it lays down norms, and leaves it to us to censure each other if we do not follow them” (p 11). This gave the opportunity to upper-caste males and Brahmin males to impose and censure the caste and patriarchal rules in Hindu society.
Further extending her analysis to the varied lived experiences of upper caste, Dalit and Adivasi women, Sonalkar emphasises the need for understanding the women’s conditions with the idea of ‘intersectionality by acknowledging multiple “structures of exploitation, subjugation and Othering” (p 166) that women are caught up in.
Sonalkar concludes her text by highlighting the need for foregrounding the analysis of women’s question in India in terms of intersectionality and the necessity of critiquing the violence of both Hinduism and Hindutva alike because they reinforce each other. This text reflects how an upper-caste woman experiences exclusion and violence at a subconscious level within the family and in society. This polemical text is certainly an important contribution to feminist studies in India and fills the gaps left by texts that came in this genre.
(First published in Countercurrents: https://countercurrents.org/2021/04/why-i-am-not-a-hindu-woman-a-personal-story/)
Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai
Shyam Selvadurai’s ‘Funny boy’, written in 1994, is a complex tale of love and loss, separation and betrayal, violence and injustice, story of families being forced to leave their countries just because they are not a part of the majority. This novel, just like Khushwant Singh’s ‘Train to Pakistan’ (that is about violence and displacement of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims that followed the partition of India) and Taslima Nasrin’s ‘Lajja’ (that captures the violence towards Hindu Minority in Bangladesh), is the story of violence that is directed towards Tamilians in Sri Lanka. This is also a story of sexual awakening and how its protagonist Arjie Chelvaratnam come to deal with being homosexual in a country and in a time when it is unacceptable.
Set in postcolonial Sri Lanka, in the background of 1983 riots between Tamils and Sinhala people, narrated in the first person by its protagonist Arjie, this novel shows the plight of a subaltern in terms of both race and sexuality. This novel explored the notion of injustice in terms of those who hold power and powerless. Injustice is bestowed to powerless by those who have power. Powerless are made victims of whims and mindlessness of those in power. Selvadurai evocatively portrays all these themes in this debut novel.
Pocket Piketty: An Explainer on the Biggest Economics Book of the Century by Jesper Roine
Engaging, short and sharp companion to Thomas Piketty’s ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’. Spread across three sections, this book explains the data and underlying research on the global distribution of Income over the twentieth century, summary of the Piketty’s Capital, and major contentions on Piketty’s methodology and conclusions. Piketty’s complex dissection of the capital based on historical trends shows how development is majorly ‘top one percent phenomena’, that sharply increases the inequalities across countries. He believes that to undo this process, there is a need for increased diffusion of knowledge and skills, and a global progressive tax on capital. An essential read to understand the working of global capitalism.
(Wrote for @amartya.christ instagram page)
Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJA0t9mDXZZ/
AZADI: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction. by Arundhati Roy
‘What lies ahead?
Reimagining the world. Only that.’
With these above lines, Arundhati Roy ended her introduction and they reflect what Roy set out to do in the book ‘Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction’. In the nine essays in this book, most of which are previously published or given as lectures between 2018 and 2020, Roy explores the important events of this time occurring in India, which are culminating towards, what Roy calls, ‘The Rise and Rise of Hindu Nation’, whose influences are “spreading like an epidemic and blossoming in the popular imagination like a brain-deadening malignancy”. She captures this complex malignancy and the difficulties it poses to the language in order to explore it in its totality. Reflective, Introspective and critical, Roy writes about her encounters with harsh realities of the Indian state and its people.
We may agree or disagree with everything Roy said. But she will certainly leave the readers with tough questions.
To read detailed review, click the following link: https://countercurrents.org/2020/11/reimagining-the-world/
Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism by Dinyar Patel
Dadabhai Naoroji is a colossal figure in India’s Freedom Movement, who successfully epitomised British India and the ruthless exploitation of its people into the ‘preeminent symbol of the wrongs inflicted by European Imperialism’. He anticipated a century ago the need to measure poverty based on the fundamental capability of being able to live, a formulation now popularised as ‘capability approach’ by Amartya Sen. His scholarship on poverty in India, and the solutions expounded by him fuelled the rise and growth of economic nationalism in India. Naoroji was a pioneer of girl education, fighting against racism and colonialism, an advocate of women’s suffrage movement, and certainly the most significant pan-Indian nationalist leader before Gandhi. Long ignored by biographers, Dinar Patel finally delivered a beautifully crafted biography of Naoroji. To all those interested in the economic history of colonialism, this book will be a fascinating read.
(Wrote for @amartya.christ instagram page)
Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGpySQLDY9J/)
Indira by Devapriya Roy and Priya Kuriyan
A beautiful graphic biography of Indira Gandhi written and illustrated by Devapriya Roy and Priya Kuriyan.This book is filled with many anecdotes that give insight into charisma and will power of Indira. Indira Gandhi made herself into a great power, transforming herself from ‘Goongi Gudiya’ to ‘Durga’. A wonderful account, well researched and clear illustrated…. one point to be critical about this book is that it is biased, rather I would say it doesn’t critically ponder upon controversial legacies of her… Emergency, her relationship with Sanjay Gandhi, Menaka Gandhi, Haksar, etc. Apart from this, it’s clearly made graphic biography that will give a needed insights about her life.
There’s Gunpowder in the Air by Manoranjan Byapari
Will surely make the readers blood boil… one of the most riveting work that explores the Naxal ideology for contemporary times to erase the misconceptions and present how rational the ideology is. . . “The hero’s blood, the mother’s precious tears: will they all go dry in the dust at our feet.” . “This education system was set up by the British for the people of this country to their servants, so that we consider slavery honourable.The British have left, but the educational system has not changed. Lok at the number of fine young boys and girls studying madly day and night. But to what end? To get a job. To serve. Which is what servants do. And this service has been glorified so much that everyone believes securing a job is the ultimate achievement of life”. . “Wherever there is injustice, there is resistance, and death is a daily occurrence there” . “There was no greater enemy than an empty stomach. Hunger could rob a person of all love and affection and sympathy and make them inhuman. Could a mother abandon her baby’s otherwise?”.
Pyre by Perumal Murugan
Marvellous novel by Perumal Murugan. Murugan narrates a terrifying tale of intolerance through this devastating story of an innocent young love pitted against chilling savagery. This is a story of how marrying outside the caste can be a greatest sin, which may result in a situation where once own village, once own family members will conspire against you. This is a story of an young women, who claims to have nothing but her husband had to face brutality in his absence. This is a story of how the ghost of CASTE still lives and laughs in our mind, in the image we form about the world around and in our actions. Most interesting thing about this book is that the novelist captures every aspect, small or big, trivial or important, of caste discrimination. Easy but a sensitive read.
Patriots and Partisans: From Nehru to Hindutva and Beyond by Ramachandra Guha
Another amazing collection of essays by Ramachandra Guha. Themes for the essays are myriad…. Nehru’s reputation, Gandhi’s Faith, What Anna Hazare isn’t, Past and Future of Indian Left, Conflicts between Indian and China, Destruction of pluralism in Indian Universities, Fall of Bilingual Intellectuals, Biographical essays on NMML, OUP, EPW and Premier Bookstall…….certainly broadens the ability to view polemically about the things and people whose legacy and failures we have taken for granted. It tries to expand the contours of liberal thinking and offers what needs to be done to keep alive the liberal thought, so that Indian liberals, as pointed out by Dharma Kumar, will not become ‘a supine lot’, who don’t fight their corner vigourously enough. One of the most interesting quote which Guha cited is by E P Thompson: “India is not an important country, but perhaps the most important country for the future of the world. Here is a country that merits no one’s condescension. All the convergent influences of the world run through this society: Hindu,Moslem, Christian, secular; Stalinist, liberal, Maoist, Democratic socialist, Gandhian. There is not a thought that is being fought in the West or East which is not active in some Indian mind”. This quote really captures the complete diversity in Indian thinking and living. I want to end here by expressing my greatest fear that by looking at what’s happening in the country currently, the diversity of thought in India, as expressed by Thompson in the above quote, is under serious threat.
Khushwant Singh by G.J.V. Prasad
I came to know about Khushwant Singh 3 years ago when I read a short story ’A portrait of a lady’ written by him in CBSE English textbook. This story is very dear to my heart because it reminds me of my grand father who played an important role in my upbringing. Two years ago, I read his novel ‘Train to Pakistan’ and I couldn’t stop myself from shedding tears for the sacrifice made by the lover for his love. Again I landed at him and this time at a biographer of Khushwant Singh. I couldn’t stop reading it after I begin…. so elegantly written. This is surely not a conventional biography that will delve into every inch matter of his life, but a precise one which focus more on his fictional writings and various aspects of it. Surely will impress its readers who are more interested in knowing how Khushwant Singh was able to attain three major objectives of his life set by himself: to “INFORM, AMUSE, IRRITATE” his readers throughout his life and live beyond his mortal life.
Things that Can and Cannot be Said: Essays and Conversations by Arundhati Roy and John Cusack
I picked up this book after seeing its back cover which carries a photo of four extraordinary figures together: Danial Ellsberg, Arundhati Roy, Edward Snowden and John Cusack. This is perhaps an ‘incongruous gathering’. The best books are those which pose forthrightly, with no obscurantism, questions which we fail to ask or fear to ask or never even thought about. This is one such a book which fires questions at its reader from all direction. It questions the boundaries of our imagination, questions everything that we have taken for granted, questions we may never ask ourselves, but certainly they are most important ones. One of the questions that is asked in this book is ‘What Shall We Love?’. Roy writes, “What sort of love is that love that we have for countries? What sort of country is it that will ever live up to our dreams? What sort of dreams were these that have been broken? Isn’t the greatness of great nations directly proportional to the ability to be ruthless genocidal? Doesn’t the height of a country’s “success” usually also mark the depths of a moral failure? And what about our failures? What of the failure of our imaginations? What of our failure to replace the idea of flags and countries with a less lethal Object of Love? Human being seen unable to live without war? But they were also unable to live without love. So the question is, what shall we love?” These are all the powerful questions which go unanswered, but no doubt, answering these questions or least pondering over them will expose the shades of grey in the world that is surrounding us. This book makes a point to inform its reader that in this age of surveillance, we are no more free and obediently submit ourselves to the propaganda of elite and powerful. Walter Benjamin once said, “Humankind has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as aesthetic pleasure of the first order” and this book shows us how. This book which will surely blow up the mind of its reader and provoke and disturb him. Pick it up to know more.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
“The silver trumpet of freedom had wakened my soul. Freedom now appeared, and would never disappear again. It was heard in every sound, and seen in everything. It was ever present, tormenting me with a sense of my miserable condition. It looked from every star, it smiled I n every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm. I often found myself wishing myself dead. Except for the hope of being free, I no doubt would have killed myself, or done something for which I would have been killed” writes Frederick Douglass in this autobiography. There are two main takeaways from this book. Firstly, we get a evocative description about life of slaves, how they are humiliated, dehumanised and their life never matter. Killing a slave is not a crime at all in his times. Secondly, about what freedom meant to him or for every slave and how it can be achieved. This is the story of a man, who was born a slave, denied education, and tied to chains of slavery. This is the story of a man who in spite of his fate at birth, developed a spirit for freedom and finally become free. It is a story that shocked the world with its first hand account of the horror and brutality of slavery. Surely, a captivating read that embody suffering, horror, adventure and freedom in its pages and evoke in its readers sympathy and value for freedom.
The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable by Amitav Ghosh
‘As we watch the sun go down, evening after evening, through the smog across the poisoned waters of our native earth, we must ask ourselves seriously whether we really wish some future universal historian on another planet to say about us: “With all their genius and with all their skill, they ran out of foresight and air and food and water and ideas: they went on playing politics until their world collapsed around them”’ said U Thant in 1971. What Ghosh does in this work is to explore why will all the skill we posses, we still turned a blind eye on climate crisis: ‘If there is one thing that global warming has made perfectly clear it is that to think about the world only as it is amounts to a formula for collective suicide. We need, rather, to envision what it might be. But, as with much else that is uncanny about climate change, this challenge has appeared before us at the very moment when the form of imagining that is best suited to answering it- fiction, history and politics- has turned in a radically different direction’. In Literature, Politics and History, as three main pillars, Ghosh argues how and to what extent they failed in accounting for catastrophic climate change. This work is almost like a warning of mass extinction that awaits for humanity. But, with hope, Ghosh concludes that, if today, we begin to fight against climate crisis, when we are already too late to avoid some serious disruption of the global climate, may be out of our struggle ‘will be born a generation that will be able to look upon the world with clearer eyes than those that preceded it’. This is must read for everyone who wants to equip yourself with understanding about arrogance and ignorance of Anthropocene.
The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh
I picked up to read this book after reading what Khushwant Singh said about this work: ‘This is how the language should be used… This is how a novel should be written’. In this Sahitya Academy winning novel, Amitav Ghosh sets out to narrate ‘a complex web of memories relationships and images’ in a very provocative style which almost forces the reader to pause at times, reread what he read and close his eyes to introspect about it for a while to comprehend Ghosh’s words and the images he creates with them. This novel exposes the ‘idea of the nation state as an illusion, and arbitrary dissection of people’. It compels its reader to realise about the boundaries we created around ourselves, knowingly or unknowingly, and the violence that follows because of those narrow boundaries. We will realise this only when we have real desire, not greed or lust, ‘a pure, painful and primitive desire, a longing for everything that was not in oneself, a torment of the flesh, that carried one beyond the limits of one’s mind to other times and other places, and even, if one was lucky, to a place where there was no border between oneself and one’s image in the mirror’, a real desire to ‘invent’. We could not see without inventing what we saw, and if we don’t invent, we would never be free of other people’s inventions. To be free is to be free of boundaries of mind, to invent and to imagine. Until and unless we free ourselves from boundaries and limits of thought, mankind is bound to inflict violence on itself, explicitly or implicitly. A story of love, exhilaration, separation, memory, violence, longing, desire…. indispensable read.
Jallianwala Bagh by Bhisham Sahni
A short account on ‘Jallianwala Bagh’ massacre written by Bhisham Sahni, famous writer and actor, clearly explains how British deliberately tried to infuriate people for violent action through inhuman laws and what are the course of events that took place that finally led to Massacre: arresting top leadership in Punjab Satyapal and Kitchlew, imposing Rowlatt act, arresting Gandhi, and firing on masses leading a peaceful possession etc. The massacre took place on 13th April, 1919. Nearly 3 decades after that, India won Independence. But stains of victims killed in Jallianwala Bagh are still afresh. If British have any sense of Morality and Shame, at least now, their Prime Minister should visit the site of Massacre and offer an apology just like Willy Brandt, former German Chancellor, who in 1970 falls to his knees in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, in order to beg forgiveness for the crimes of the Nazi era.
Current Show by Perumal Murugan
An year after reading Perumal Murugan’s ‘Poonachi: or the story of a Black Goat’, I read this novel. One thing common in both is the way Murugan tries to narrate the story through the eyes of Subalterns. In this novel, Murugan tries to capture and narrates the life of young children who got caught up in vicious circles of poverty. The story revolves around Sathi, young soda seller and his friends, who involve themselves in continuous quarrels, thievery, marijuana and toddy. Simple to read and vivid description will make readers feel as if they are seeing this in front of their eyes.
Netaji: A Biography for the Young by Krishna Bose
Most gripping Biography of Netaji written by Krishna Bose, three time MP and widow of Netaji’s nephew Sisir Kumar Bose(he drove Netaji in car for latter’s escape from Calcutta to Kabul in 1941, the time when Netaji was under continuous British radar). Written with passion and in simple language , It explored major ideological stands of Netaji and also showed how he was able to attract masses with his charisma. One incident that epitomise his charisma is his meeting with Japan Prime Minister Tojo, who wasn’t very enthusiastic about the question of India’s independence before meeting Netaji. A few days after meeting, Tojo made a historic declaration in the Japanese parliament assuring all support to Indian freedom movement. He was also a great orator. On July 5th 1943, addressing 13,000 soldiers of Indian National Army in Singapore, he said, “For the present I can offer you nothing except hunger, thirst, privation, forced marches and death. But if you follow me in life and in death as I am confident you will, I shall lead you to victory and freedom”. Speaking to Habeeb-ur-Rahaman in the military Hospital, where he was taken after the plane crash, he told,”When you go back to the motherland, tell my countrymen that I have been fighting for the liberation of my country till the last breath of my life; they must continue the struggle, India shall be free and before long. No power can keep India enslaved any longer”. Netaji left behind grand legacy and ideals for rebuilding this country. It was Netaji’s belief: ‘In this mortal world everything perishes and will perish – but ideas, ideals and dreams do not…the ideas, ideals and dreams of one generation are bequeathed to the next’. This book is must read for everyone who are enthusiastic and are trying to generate enthusiasm on this man and his ideals.
The Political Economy of Development in India by Pranab Bardhan
Pranab Bardhan’s ‘The Political Economy of Development in India’ is a noteworthy work, sharp and controversial, that contributed to the understanding of the nature of the post-independent Indian state and its impact on the trajectory of economic development in India from 1951 to 1982. Bardhan deals particularly with ‘the political economy of constraints that seemed to have blocked the economy’s escape from a low-level equilibrium trap of slow growth’. His core argument is that a coalition of the ‘dominant proprietary classes’ composed of rich farmers, industrial capitalists and professionals, and their interactions with the Indian state played a decisive role in determining the degree of autonomy for the state and its role in the development of India. This work is an essential read for everyone seeking to explore the field of Indian political economy and it opens the avenue for further investigations in the field.
(Wrote for @amartya.chrsit Instagram Page)
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Half – Lion: How P.V Narasimha Rao Transformed India by Vinay Sitapati
Most pragmatic and paradoxical Prime Minister India can ever have. He is a man of many contradictions and a man to whom many changes in India should be attributed. Narasimha Rao’s politics employed Chanakya’s tactics, his vision for reforms can be compared to that of Irish Liberal Edmund Burke, and his Economic vision have parallels with Willy Brandt’s Social Democratic vision, where Growth and Redistribution stay side by side. He is pioneer of cultural diplomacy who reshaped India’s foreign policy. Under his rule, India begin to see itself as a rising power that must shape its external environment rather than just a non aligned country seeking mere strategic autonomy within the international system. He broke the stance of paternal pomposity in India’s dealing with third world countries. Opened up India’s Economy to the world and pushed India out of serious economic crisis. He is the true father of India’s nuclear programme who kept the bomb ready and waited to be exploded by Vajpayee. He is the first prime minister to run a minority government to full five years, facing five confidence motions in his term. He is a lion, who can fiercely attack his opponents, a fox who can recognise traps and a mouse who surely know a way out of maze to reach the cheese. Having said all this, it is important to remember that he is the man who didn’t get what he deserved in his life or after his death. His contributions left unhonoured. This gap is filled by this extraordinary biography of the man, P. V. Narasimha Rao. Vinay Sitapati ‘restores Rao to his rightful place in the modern Indian history’
rishvanth.com 