Indira Gandhi and the Years that Transformed India: A Review. Author: Srinath Raghavan, Publisher: Penguin Random House

Srinath Raghavan's Indira Gandhi and the Years that Transformed India, published by Penguin Random House in 2025, is a masterful dissection of one of modern India's most pivotal eras. Raghavan, a distinguished historian known for works like 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh, turns his analytical lens to the "long 1970s"—roughly 1966 to 1984—when Indira Gandhi, India's first female prime minister, navigated a maelstrom of crises to forge a new national template. Far from a hagiographic portrait or a polemic, the book posits a nuanced thesis: India's transformation was not the product of a singular visionary's blueprint but the volatile interplay between Gandhi's opportunistic leadership and structural upheavals—domestic disarray, global realignments, and institutional erosions. Drawing on archives, epistolary evidence, and international relations theory, Raghavan argues that this period marked the death of the Nehruvian order and the birth of a more centralised, charismatic, and contested democracy. In an age of polarised narratives—where Gandhi is either demonised as an autocrat or romanticised as a saviour—Raghavan's work stands as a timely corrective, urging readers to view her through the prism of compulsion rather than conspiracy.

The narrative opens with a Gramscian prologue on crises as interstices where "the old is dying and the new cannot be born," setting the stage for the post-Nehru vacuum. Jawaharlal Nehru's death in 1964, followed by Lal Bahadur Shastri's abrupt exit in 1966, plunged India into uncertainty: Congress's hegemony crumbled amid factional infighting (the "Syndicate" versus the rising Indira), economic stagnation loomed, and external threats simmered. Raghavan chronicles Gandhi's ascent as an "innate politician," evolving from the derided "gungi gudiya" (dumb doll) under her father's shadow to a ruthless strategist. By 1969, she orchestrated a party split, aligning with leftist forces to purge rivals, a move that presaged her 1971 electoral triumph. The "Garibi Hatao" (Eradicate Poverty) slogan galvanised the poor, youth, and middle class, demolishing opposition backed by big business and the RSS, while the Bangladesh War—sparked by East Pakistan's refugee deluge—cemented her as a wartime icon. Raghavan's account debunks myths of her prescience; her diplomacy, including the Indo-Soviet Treaty, was improvisatory, shaped by Nixon's tilt toward Pakistan and domestic communal tensions fuelled by Hindu nationalists.

Economic policies form the book's analytical core, revealing a leftward lurch born of necessity, not ideology. Bank nationalisation in 1969, the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, and privy purse abolition targeted inequality but entrenched the license-quota raj, stifling growth. Raghavan illuminates the political economy: five-year plans shifted from Nehru's growth obsession to redistribution, yet global shocks—the 1973 oil crisis, Vietnam's fallout, and IMF-World Bank double standards—exacerbated inflation, shortages, and "ship-to-mouth" existence. Subaltern movements, like Naxalbari's peasant uprising and Gujarat's Navnirman student protests, exposed Congress's disconnect, blending class politics with anti-corruption fervour. Internationally, Raghavan weaves in Kissinger's disdain and U.S. covert ops, underscoring how external pressures amplified internal fractures.

The Emergency of 1975 emerges not as an aberration but a logical culmination. Raghavan traces its roots to judicial skirmishes—the Kesavananda Bharati case curbing executive overreach—and Jayaprakash Narayan's "Total Revolution," a chaotic call that masked opportunism. Gandhi's Caesarist rule—charismatic, plebiscitary—concentrated power in the Prime Minister's Office, sidelining cabinet and Parliament. Coercion supplanted consent in quelling Northeast insurgencies and Naxalism, while Sanjay Gandhi's unmentioned shadow (a notable lacuna) loomed over forced sterilisations. Yet, post-Emergency, the Janata interregnum's factionalism underscored the system's resilience; Gandhi's 1980 landslide, near-cultic in fervour, signalled her enduring grip. Raghavan extends the arc to liberalisation's seeds: her mid-1970s flirtations with deregulation, amid flailing socialism, prefigured 1991 reforms, though unrealised due to fiscal woes.

Analytically, Raghavan excels in applying international relations frameworks to domestic tumult, echoing Kenneth Waltz's "systems" theory: India's polity, like an anarchic global order, unraveled through disequilibrium among executive, judiciary, and legislature. This structural lens demystifies Gandhi's "ruthlessness"—her contempt for norms in the 1969 presidential farce or Sikkim's 1975 annexation (curiously omitted)—as adaptive responses to hegemony's triple crisis: representation (caste-class realignments eroding Congress's elite base), governance (strikes, shortages), and legitimacy (youth radicalism). The book astutely foregrounds subaltern agency: 1971's victory shattered feudal Congress roots, empowering marginalised voices and foreshadowing the BJP's RSS-forged discipline. Yet, charisma's dark side prevails—Weberian institutionalisation failed, birthing dynastic politics and a roughened public sphere, where hostility supplanted deliberation. Economically, Raghavan's dissection of "deficit-financed populism" reveals a paradigm shift: from output to equity, wrecking productivity but yielding short-term gains, with poverty's persistence (ignored under Nehru) exploding into militancy.

Raghavan's prose is crisp, unhurried, laced with uncommon vocabulary that rewards close reading. He humanises Gandhi via letters revealing insecurities—patriarchal barbs, widowhood's toll—without excusing authoritarian drifts. Unique insights abound: the refugee crisis's communalisation by the Hindu right; Nixon-era realpolitik's hypocrisy; and the 1970s as Asia's microcosm, where decolonisation's "patience" waned into volatility. This holistic weave—political, economic, global—fills voids in polarised scholarship, where post-2014 critiques sacrifice facts for ideology. The book's archival rigour, though leaning on secondaries for peripheral fronts like Punjab or Assam, debunks hearsay: Gandhi's 1971 "foresight" was tentative; Emergency, a Gramscian interregnum of coercion.

Strengths are manifold: its timeliness, amid resurgent strongmen, warns of democracy's fragility—messy politics birthing authoritarianism via popular mandate. Comprehensive yet concise at 384 pages, it priorities implications over minutiae, making it accessible yet profound. Weaknesses? Over-reliance on secondary sources limits primary freshness; the Waltzian analogy falters in domestic "anarchy," where norms persist, suggesting a constructivist pivot to ideas might enrich. Omissions—Sanjay's machinations, fuller Northeast probes—slight the canvas, potentially extending length unduly. Still, these quibbles pale against its balance: excoriating faults (Emergency's lawlessness) while crediting grit (overcoming gendered disdain).

In sum, Raghavan's tome is indispensable for grasping modern India's DNA: a resilient yet scarred democracy, where crises birthed centralisation and contestation. It humanises a colossus whose shadow lingers—from PMO dominance to anti-poverty legacies—reminding us that transformation is seldom tidy. Four decades on, as India grapples with inequality and institutional strain, this book isn't mere history; it's a mirror, urging vigilance against charisma's seductions. 

A Non-Savarna’s Dalit-Bahujan Perspective

Ravikant Kisana’s Meet the Savarnas is an angry, provocative, and deliberately unsettling book. It announces its intent clearly from the title itself: this is not a polite sociological inquiry but a polemical intervention aimed at exposing how caste privilege—especially among urban, English-speaking, upper-caste Indian millennials—has shaped politics, culture, and public discourse while remaining largely invisible to those who benefit from it.

Core Argument and Strengths

At its best, the book performs an important function: it forces savarna privilege into the spotlight. Kisana argues that India’s post-liberalisation elite—journalists, academics, activists, startup founders, and cultural commentators—often speak the language of progressivism while remaining deeply insulated from the structural realities of caste. According to him, this group has failed not because it is overtly reactionary, but because it is mediocre, self-referential, and complacent, mistaking moral posturing for real political or social transformation.

One of the book’s strongest aspects is its unapologetic Dalit-Bahujan perspective. Kisana refuses to dilute his critique for elite comfort. He challenges savarna dominance in publishing, activism, and media spaces, arguing that these spheres routinely marginalise non-savarna voices while claiming inclusivity. This refusal to seek validation from the very structures he critiques gives the book moral clarity and political urgency.

The writing is accessible, contemporary, and conversational, making complex ideas about caste, power, and representation readable for a non-academic audience. Kisana’s use of satire, sarcasm, and cultural references—especially from social media discourse—helps the book resonate with younger readers familiar with online debates around caste and privilege.

Where the Book Falters

However, the book’s greatest strength is also its biggest weakness. Its polemical tone, while emotionally compelling, sometimes collapses nuance. The category of “savarnas” is often treated as a monolith, flattening differences of ideology, dissent, and internal contradiction within upper-caste groups. This risks replacing one form of essentialism with another.

At times, the argument leans heavily on moral indictment rather than empirical depth. While anecdotal examples and cultural critique are effective rhetorically, the book could have benefited from more sustained engagement with data, institutional histories, or counter-arguments. Readers looking for a rigorous sociological framework may find the analysis uneven or impressionistic.

There is also a tendency toward overgeneralisation. Not all failures of Indian liberalism or millennial politics can be convincingly attributed to savarna mediocrity alone. Factors such as neoliberal economic structures, state repression, global political shifts, and technological disruption receive comparatively limited attention. As a result, the causal net sometimes feels too tightly drawn.

Political Impact and Reception

Meet the Savarnas is unlikely to persuade readers who are already defensive about caste privilege. In fact, its confrontational style may harden resistance among precisely those it seeks to provoke. Yet that may not be a flaw so much as a strategic choice. The book is less interested in consensus-building than in disrupting complacency.

For Dalit-Bahujan readers, the book offers something rare in mainstream Indian publishing: recognition, rage, and articulation of long-silenced frustrations. For savarna readers willing to engage honestly, it can function as an uncomfortable but necessary mirror.

Conclusion

Meet the Savarnas is not a balanced book—and it does not pretend to be. But it demands a balanced reading. It is a sharp, partisan critique that succeeds in unsettling dominant narratives about merit, progressivism, and Indian modernity, even as it sometimes sacrifices complexity for force.

As a political intervention, it is effective and timely. As an analytical work, it is uneven but thought-provoking. One may disagree with its tone, scope, or conclusions, but dismissing it outright would mean ignoring one of the most candid challenges to savarna self-image in contemporary Indian discourse.

In that sense, the book may not “break everything”—but it certainly breaks the silence.

The Idea of Ancient India by Upinder Singh. Published by: Penguin Books

Just finished reading this book. I expected a typical history book filled with kings and wars. This uniquely investigates India’s historical archeological wealth. It’s a collection of essays on evolving understandings of ancient India.

She shows how popular stories about ancient India are often too simple or wrong. She wants to fix history by removing false ideas. Both British colonial rulers and Indian nationalists created their own versions of India’s past. Singh wants to bring back real historical study based on facts and evidence.

The first part of the book talks about how different people wrote about ancient India’s history.

British colonial writers often made India’s past look either good or bad. They did this to justify ruling over India. Indian nationalist historians fought back. They created stories about a great and united ancient Indian civilisation.

Singh rejects both approaches. The truth is hidden in these simple stories. India’s ancient past was intricate. It boasted diverse regions, groups, and ideas.

One learns of the extent to which Buddhism had spread in the Subcontinent even as it gained widespread acceptance beyond. Singh meticulously explores the various archeological artefacts to present as comprehensive as possible narration of Buddhist influence on the Subcontinent’s royalty, nobility and general public.

Upinder Singh examines famous texts such as the Mahabharata and Arthashastra. Singh highlights textual debates and differing opinions. They avoid simple answers about kingship and civic duty. I was most interested in her comparison of the Nitisara and Arthashastra. These ancient Indian political texts have different focuses and styles. The Arthashastra (c. 3rd century BCE) is a practical guide to statecraft, economics, law, and warfare. It is known for its realistic and sometimes ruthless approach to governance. In contrast, the Nitisara, composed several centuries later, is more focused on political ethics and ideal conduct for rulers. It presents similar ideas, such as the mandala theory of diplomacy, but with a more moral and poetic tone. While Arthashastra serves as a handbook for administrators, Nitisara offers guidance with an emphasis on virtue and duty. Kalidasa’s Raghuvansham hides harsh realities behind poetic aesthetics.

Singh’s writing is clear and accessible. Even though her research is deep and detailed, her writing is easy to follow. She uses original sources like stone inscriptions, archaeological finds, and old texts. This shows readers how historians piece together the past from small fragments.

This book isn’t solely about ancient history. It’s also about how we think about history today. This makes it relevant to modern readers. The book reminds readers that ancient India was not one single thing. It was very culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse. It is an honest and open engagement with our past.

Indeed, The Idea of Ancient India is an important book that comes at the right time. It challenges readers to think carefully about history. It asks: How do we write history? Why does history matter? Who gets to control the story?

This book is essential reading for history students, teachers, and anyone who wants to understand India’s past beyond simple slogans and quick soundbites. Singh’s work is scholarly, brave, and needed.

Dr Mod. Ayyub Khan: The poet’s journey towards brilliance. Reviewed by Amar Nath Wadehra

 

Title: Ghazal Darpan

Author: Dr Muhammad Ayyub Khan

Publisher: Brar Sons, Malerkotla

Pages: 112; Price: Rs. 250/-

I have been following Dr Ayyub Khan’s evolution as an Urdu scholar and litterateur of substance.

As is his wont, Dr Khan begins even in his latest book – an anthology of ghazals – with prayers:

Ho raza teri to majhdharon mein bedey paar ho/teri marzi kay bina aab-e-rawaan kuchh bhi nahin. (Ships cross the midwaters with your approval/The flowing water is nothing without your consent).

After his foray into the spiritual, Dr Khan transitions to the contemplation of the temporal. This is a vast field comprising materialism, consumerism etc. But the poet dwells on human relationships, including unrequited love.

Dekha na kabhi usne mujhe apna samajhkar/Dali jo nazar bhi to ehsan ki soorat. (She never looked upon me as her own/If ever she cast a glance it was patronising).

He goes on to lament:

Zuban se kuchh-na-kuchh iqraar bhi ho/Mohabbat hai to phir izhaar bhi ho. (Let there be vocal commitment/If there is love, let it be declared).

He then points out how Time and Mind can be cruel:

Beetey huey lamhon ko guzarne bhi nahin deta/Dil zakhm judaee kay bharney bhi nahin deta. (It doesn’t allow the spent moments to go away/The heart doesn’t allow the wounds of separation to heal).

Ojhal bhi nahin karta merey haal-e-shikasta ko/Ye waqt ka aaina sanwarney bhi nahin deta. (It doesn’t make my misery disappear/The mirror of time doesn’t allow me to spruce up either).

He looks back at his life’s journey:

Gumnaam sahilon pe utarna pada mujhe/Mausam kay saath badalna pada mujhe. (I had to disembark upon unknown shores/I had to change with the change in weather).

Apart from being a gold medallist in MA Urdu and MA in Persian from Punjabi University, he is an M.Phil. in Urdu and PhD in Persian. He is presently working as a Program In-charge with the Haryana Urdu Akademi. He has also taught Urdu and Persian to undergraduate and postgraduate students.

He already has five published books and scores of articles to his credit. His published books include Aag Ka Dariyaa – Tafheem-o-Tajzia, Mausam, Punjab Mein Pharsi Ghazal, Safar-Dar-Safar, Ghazal Darpan, Punjab Mein Farsi Ghazal Ba-hawala Nasir Ali Sirhandi, and Reg-e-Rawaan. Five more books are in the process of getting published. He has already edited more than a dozen books. Dr Khan is quite active in the literary field. He has appeared in over fifty seminars, mushairas, radio and TV programs.

Dr Khan is a much-acclaimed personality. He has been honoured with several awards within and outside the state.

But he is still young and has a lot of potential to exploit. He is maturing with time. I see a brilliant future for him.

 

Dadabhai Naoroji: Gandhiji called him “Father of the Nation”

YOUTUBE

The other day I came across a book excerpt in The Scroll wherein it was mentioned that Mahatma Gandhi had described Dadabhai Naoroji as “Father of the Nation”. I was intrigued because right from my childhood I had been taught that Naoroji was the Grand Old Man of India and Mahatma Gandhi the Father of the Nation. But this book ‘Dadabhai Naoroji: Selected Private Papers’ by S.R. Mehrotra and Dinyar Patel states otherwise.

I decided to do some reading. And I came across some fascinating details about the man who has been gradually disappearing from our collective consciousness. No political outfit found it profitable to lionise him or adopt him as their principal icon; our mainstream media is too busy toadying up to the powers that be. After all, he belongs to the tiny Parsi community, whose votes cannot tip the balance at hustings for or against any political party. And given the level of enlightenment of today’s generation of rulers, he has been most probably clubbed with the Muslim community.

Dadabhai Naoroji was born to a Parsi family in Navsari in Gujarat on September 4, 1825. His academic brilliance at the Elphinstone College fetched him the prestigious Clare Scholarship.

Although he had business interests in London, he remained resolutely nationalist in his lifetime. He had realised much before the establishment of the Indian National Congress in 1885 the importance of carrying out political activity in England to remove the layers of misunderstanding and ignorance from the minds of the British people about India and its people. He was a firm believer in parliamentary democracy. He founded several important organisations and belonged to many leading societies and institutions, both in India and the UK. Prominent among these were the Indian National Congress, the East India Association of London, and the Royal Asiatic Society of Bombay.

After a brief stint in 1874 as the Dewan of Baroda, he started a newspaper called the ‘Voice of India’. He took a leading part in the founding of the Indian National Congress and became its president on three occasions, in 1886, 1893 and 1906. During the third term, he prevented a split between the moderates and extremists in the party. For the first time, he publicly articulated the demand for Swaraj in his Presidential Address during the Congress Party’s 1906 session. Only self-government, he declared, could stop the drain of wealth.  He publicly established Swaraj as the Congress Party’s central and ultimate goal. “Self-government is the only and chief remedy”, he declared. “In self-government lies our hope, strength and greatness.”

Earlier, in 1892, when he became the first Asian elected to the British House of Commons, Dadabhai Naoroji got a resolution passed in the British Parliament for holding preliminary examinations for the ICS in India and England simultaneously. Further, he forcefully established how India was bearing the burden of British empire-building efforts, paying the salaries of the civil administration and footing the bill of the occupational army. He got the Royal Commission on India Expenditure to acknowledge the need for uniform distribution of administrative and military expenditure between India and England.

Dadabhai Naoroji was the first to understand the mechanics of India’s economic exploitation. He propounded the Drain Theory that focused on the drain of wealth from India into England. In his book, “Poverty and Un-British Rule in India,” he did pioneering work on estimating the Net National Profit of India and the effect colonisation had on the country’s economy. He sought to prove that Britain was draining money out of India and pouring it into its domestic economy. For example, the money being earned by the railways did not belong to India, which supported his assessment that India was giving too much to Britain. He established that India was losing between 200 million to 300 million pounds in revenues to Britain every year. He called this phenomenon vampirism as money is the bloodstream of any economy. He pointed out that the process of income formation in India was such that it left the masses of India at a static poverty level and its population periodically decimated by famines. Naoroji advocated stopping the economic drain by establishing industries in India.

Naoroji’s Drain Theory was later adopted by other nationalist leaders, such as Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who declared in 1907, “When the Mohammedan rulers came they settled in the country and there was no question of any foreign drain.” Gokhale added that the British rule established the “industrial domination” which worked “in a more insidious manner”.

Naoroji’s pioneering work in the field of the Indian Economy had a lasting and powerful influence on the development of the nationalist movement in India. It fuelled the Independence Movement under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership later on. Naoroji’s words turned prophetic when he remarked that once India rallied behind self-government and realised the drain was the ultimate cause of its miseries, “the British will have either to leave precipitately or be destroyed in India or if they see the danger of the disaster in good time and apply the remedy, to save the empire by putting an end to the drain”.

The Calcutta Congress was Naoroji’s last major political undertaking. On June 30, 1917, he passed away at the age of 92 years, appropriately enough, a short distance from the Tejpal Hall in Gowalia Tank Maidan, the venue where, in 1885, he helped inaugurate the first meeting of the Congress. Now it is known as the August Kranti Maidan in Mumbai as a tribute to Gandhiji’s Quit India call in 1942, exhorting Indians to do or die. During the last three decades of his life, Naoroji had been at the forefront of the Indian National Congress. He presided over its institutional growth and, in 1906, established Swaraj as the ultimate objective of the INC.

A true patriot that he was, Dadabhai Naoroji said in his Presidential Address to the Indian National Congress’s 1893 Lahore session, “Let us always remember that we are all children of our mother country. Indeed, I have never worked in any other spirit than that I am an Indian, and owe a duty to my country and all my countrymen. Whether I am a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Parsi, a Christian, or any other creed, I am above all an Indian.”  He was a prominent nationalist with progressive views. Although he was a champion of Swadeshi, he was not against the use of machines for organising key industries in the country. He urged Jamshedji Tata to raise Indian capital for his iron and steel plants.

Writing in Hind Swaraj, Gandhiji declared Naoroji to be both “the author of nationalism” and “the Father of the Nation”. “Had not the Grand Old Man of India prepared the soil,” concluded Gandhiji, “our young men could not have even spoken about Home Rule.”

How true!

A handbook for aspiring editors and indie authors

A handbook for aspiring editors and indie authors

Reviewed By Randeep Wadehra

Editing Bootcamp Part 1 (Writer’s Toolkit Series)

Author: Dola Basu Singh 

The Book Club

Pages: 46

Price: Rs. 180/-

Available on Amazon

We are living in a world where professional excellence is routinely expected in every field of work. Writing is no different. In fact, whether you are writing a novel, a dissertation or an analytical article for a publication, you have to go beyond excellence to catch the publisher’s eye and hold the reader’s attention. This is where an editor’s role comes into play.

Before talking of this slim volume, I would like to emphasise that an editor does not merely check grammar and spellings, although these two elements are indispensable to quality writing. An editor’s role is far more sophisticated. She has to have the knowledge of the subject she is editing, should be thorough with structuring of sentences and the narrative. Creative inputs that add substance to the narrative have become indispensable today – something that no editing or writing software can provide. In fiction writing, the editor’s role includes polishing of characters, plot, dialogues and overall structure of a story. Since fiction comes in a wide range of genres – romance, chic-lit, thrillers, historical novels etc, we get a fair idea of the importance of quality editing.

Dola Basu Singh has kept the above in mind while coming up with this slim but invaluable volume on editing of fiction. Aspiring editors and indie authors of fiction will find chapters on the types and processes of editing useful. The volume provides useful information on genre and structure. It takes into account what readers expect from the author and seeks to equip the authors to meet those expectations by focusing on various elements in a novel. The editing checklist for a novel’s structure is an extremely useful addendum.

Singh’s chapters on treatment of characters, POVs, plot, setting of a story, conflict and its resolution, dialogues along with their respective checklists offer lucid and useful insights into the art and craft of writing and editing.

This volume is a must read for every aspiring author and editor, whether they want to self-publish or go through the traditional publishing process. If you aim at becoming a professional editor, this volume ought to be a part of your reading collection. 

I can personally vouch for the usefulness of this volume because I have availed of Singh’s editing services via her firm, the Shiuli Editing Services. The benefits to my novel were immense.

Rejuvenating the Urban India

Book Review

By

Randeep Wadehra

Founder-Editor, Smart Scholars

Urban Renewal in India by SK Kulshreshtha

Sage Publications

Pages: xxv + 276. Price: Rs. 950/-

Urban renewal has a hoary past. During the 1870s, efforts to rejuvenate Mysore led to decongestion of its Fort area. Similarly, Calcutta, Shahjehanabad (Delhi) etc. came in for various degrees of renewal efforts. After India’s independence, there has been a phenomenal growth in the number of urban areas, with more than 7,000 cities and towns in the country today. As per the UN’s projections, India’s share in the world’s urban population will reach about 13% by 2030; this translates to 600 million Indians, or 40% of the country’s population. However, despite Chandigarh and a couple of other honourable exceptions, urban growth has been largely haphazard. Consequently, the country has witnessed a sharp rise in the number of unplanned townships and slums – Mumbai’s Dharavi is not the only such instance. According to estimates, more than 3.6 crore children (in the age group of 0 to 6 years) live in urban areas, of whom more than 80 lakhs live in slums. It has been a fact that people migrating to urban areas in search of livelihoods and a better quality of life invariably find shelter in slums.

One does not really have to go for extensive research to know the state of our towns and cities. Polluted air and water, rain-flooded streets and traffic snarls are the salient features of almost every urban centre. Utilities and infrastructure are inadequate quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Thanks to carbon dioxide emissions, industrial effluents and firecrackers, Delhi’s pollution levels are among the highest in the world. This becomes worse during winters when the air becomes more toxic. Bengaluru’s transport system was never ideal even during its more tranquil past. Today, it has miserably failed to meet the people’s needs. Its roads are choked with almost eighty lakh motorized vehicles, a rise of more than 6500% since the 1970s! The consequences are there for all to see in the form of traffic snarls, heavy emissions of greenhouse gases and choked public utilities. Mumbai has become a symbol of inefficient urban governance and a highly irresponsible and corrupt system. Every year even moderate rains cause flooding of its roads and rail tracks. Deaths due to open manholes, potholes and low hanging wires are common. One regularly hears of dilapidated buildings collapsing and killing hundreds of residents. Kolkata is another metro where life is becoming extremely difficult, if not hazardous, for common people; the civic amenities are pathetic. Its water and electricity distribution systems are anachronistic, to put it politely. Chennai too suffers from similar drawbacks but on a smaller scale. However, its utilities are coming under increasing strain, thanks to chaotic urbanization. Over the past two years, Chennai has witnessed avoidable ‘natural disasters’ like the flooding of residential areas causing loss of life and property. Obviously, these ‘natural disasters’ are man-made and a result of corruption and bad town planning.

Clearly, there is an urgent need for planned urbanization. This urgency is not only from the point of view of meeting the challenge caused by the burgeoning figures of migration to urban areas but also because India has been striving to achieve double-digit growth, realise its ambitious target of becoming a $10 trillion economy and be counted among the world’s developed countries by 2030. For this, it is imperative to take up urban renewal with a clear vision and due sincerity.

According to expert estimates, about 900 million square metres of well-designed residential and commercial areas will have to be built over fifteen years to realise the target of urban renewal, with special emphasis on smaller towns and cities since 68% of India’s urban population lives in towns that have a population of less than 100,000.

Therefore, several flagship missions have been launched for urban renewal; for instance, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, PM Awas Yojna and Smart Cities Mission. The government has obviously realized that, for reaping the demographic dividend, it is essential to focus on urban governance, health, nutrition, water, sanitation and education. This entails re-imagining of the basic designs of most of our cities and upgrading the basic infrastructure and services, including transport, rejuvenation of heritage buildings and sites as well as redesigning the commercial areas.

Kulshreshtha has painstakingly presented relevant statistics to underscore the state of India’s urban areas. He has also detailed the various efforts being put in by the government for rejuvenating the Urban India. It goes without saying, most of the urban renewal projects are of long gestation periods. Nonetheless, at least an earnest effort has begun.

This book presents a lucid analysis of the process and problems related to the renewal of Urban India, which should interest students, research scholars and policymakers alike.

Sri Lanka: A Masterful Account of the Tamil Struggle & After

Elephant Complex: By John Gimlette

Publisher: Quercus/Hachette

Pages: 518+ix

Price: Rs. 650/-

Sri Lanka is an ancient civilization with a recorded history of over 3000 years and pre-historic remains dating back to several millennia (some, arguably, as old as 1,50,000 years). It is a multi-ethnic society having diverse languages and religions. Although Gimlette does not find any ethnic difference between Sinhalas and Tamils, both these major communities have been intensely proud of their respective cultural and linguistic identities. Other ethnic groups like Moors, Malays, Burghers etc too have a presence in this tiny island. While Buddhism and Hinduism are the island’s major religions, Islam and Christianity too have sizeable following. This plurality has enriched Sri Lanka’s culture but also created political fault-lines that have kept widening after the British left in 1948.

Tamils had a privileged status under the British, which began to wilt during the colonial rule’s last years and ended with the island nation’s freedom. With the advent of independence ethnicity based politics began to gather strength and momentum, although there were leftist rebellions by the likes of JVP. However, the LTTE led insurrection proved the costliest and bloodiest of all civil wars. It lasted almost thirty years, starting in 1983 and ending in 2009 with complete annihilation of the LTTE. 

Gimlette begins the narrative with a trip to Tooting, London, where Sri Lankan Tamil expatriates live. It is essentially a ghetto, which has its own rules and laws governing Tamils living there. And yes, they have their own criminal gangs and crime syndicates/mafias too. He learns of various political aspects of the Tamil Eelam movement, and meets some ex-LTTE cadres too.

In his accounts, Sri Lanka comes across as a society divided essentially on class lines, and dominated by ‘Brown Brits’ whose snobbery is as breathtaking as their disconnect from the masses. They live in the world of their own with a firm belief in their (divine?) right to rule. When he talks of political dynasties of Sri Lanka, viz., Senanayakes, Jayawardenes, Bandaranaikes and Rajapaksas (please note, all of these are Sinhala and none Tamil), we in India are reminded of our political dynasties viz., Nehru-Gandhis, Badals, Yadavs of Bihar and UP, Patnaiks of Orissa, the DMK Parivar in Tamil Nadu, and the umpteen Chavans, Pawars et al of Maharashtra. However, there is a difference. While none of the Indian dynasts is a diehard ‘Brown Brit’ most of the Sri Lankan dynasts are.

But Gimlette does not confine himself to these ‘elite’ classes. He interacts with a wide spectrum of the populace that comprises Buddhist Monks, Muslims, Christian padres, former Tamil Tigers, farmers, slum dwellers, politicians, generals and Vedda forest dwellers among others.

You love to accompany Gimlette as he delves into the isle’s mythology and history, marvels at its magnificent past as exemplified by Anuradhapura, lingers while taking in the scenic beauty and the lure of its wildlife. You are confused when told of the Sri Lankan Tamils' high-nosed attitude towards ‘Indian Tamils’ who have been living there for long enough to be considered naturalised Sri Lankans. But it is the ugliness of violence, the destruction wrought by it that leaves you pained and stunned. You learn of the Tamil ingenuity in fashioning mini-submarines, improvised bombs and booby traps, their daring suicide bombers (prototypes for the Jihadi suicide bombers who followed their example in later years). But there were internecine wars among various Tamil groups that ended in Prabhakaran alias Thambi led LTTE emerging as the strongest of all the insurgent groups. The LTTE’s cruelties perpetrated on fellow Tamils are matched by the Sri Lankan military’s unspeakable atrocities and compounded by the IPKF’s follies as well as mindless violence and greed. Consequently, women and children were the greatest sufferers. As if this suffering was not enough. The tsunami wrought further havoc on the hapless in 2004, sweeping away scores of villages and killing hundreds. 

In this masterful account of an eminently avoidable tragedy the Tamil insurgency proved to be, Gimlette dwells on the various shades of post-insurgency Sri Lanka with sensitivity and humour. A humour that appears to be tinged with the average Sri Lankan’s ability to take the tragedies in their stride, even get philosophically indifferent towards them.