:O

There has been a whole lot of literature regarding the period of transition of our country after the independence gained in 1947, to the present globalization days – Gurcharan Das’s India Unbound, Ramachandra Guha’s India after Gandhi. Although it is not certainly possible to compress the entire socio-economic history of India, the politics, their causes and after effects to a brief 263 pages, given the diverse and amazing socio-economic and cultural landscape of India, Sunil Khilnani’s Idea of India lives up to it’s image of being a compelling and rousing read. Although it picks up only a few key ideas that played a significant role in Indian history, it does a good job of analyzing most of the ideas presented in a wonderful, smooth and crisp flow of prose and pace.

Khilnani, subtly makes use of his profound historical knowledge and talks about Nehruvian and Gandhian ideas and their implications in present day India. As an unashamed modernist who ends up defending Nehru and Gandhi and their ideas, Khilnani also subtly captures the brief portrayals of various prominent national leaders and characters and their roles in shaping the Indian post independent history. Though most of the analysis in the book tends to be brief, the book is absolutely a pleasant read compared to the banal Shashi Tharoor, who relies more on his metaphor abilities while writing books.

The book talks about Nehru’s tussles within the Indian national congress, Hindu nationalism, Indira Gandhi and her “garibi hatao ” movement, her radical departure from the conventional congress principles, the identity of being Indian (how Nehru, Tagore, Gandhi and others had to become Indians to start bringing changes), the vortex of thought processes being influenced by inquisitive western ideas, the anatomy and economic dynamic changes of Indian cities and their growth illustrated by few examples of Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Bengalooru, the emergence of regional parties in the Indian political space, industrialization and globalization of India, the concept of Indian state and opposition to the idea with in the congress, partition of India, as well as occasional interesting quotes to few other wonderful literature like R.K. Narayan’s The Malgudi days, the faux paus of H.D Devegowda who as the prime minister of India once said, “Please help me, I’m not an economist, give me concrete solutions.” etc.

To sum it up, after you finish this book, I’m sure that each one of you will have found a starting point to look deeply into India’s history as Khilnani further stresses in the epilogue. A bit of thinking and retrospection will also help you make sense of country’s most current problems, as I have discovered profoundly in the past few months. I will post them in coming blog posts. For now, grab this book, grab a pack of potato chips or whatever is that you like to munch on, and hit the most comfortable sofa or bed in your place.