India After Gandhi (181 page)
Read India After Gandhi Online
Authors: Ramachandra Guha
Tags: #History, #Asia, #General, #General Fiction
White Revolution
ref 1
Wint, Guy
ref 1
Wired
magazine
ref 1
abduction
ref 1
and the
burqa
,
ref 1
and the Constitution
ref 1
employment
ref 1
falling sex ratio
ref 1
franchise
ref 1
names
ref 1
refugees
ref 1
violence against
ref 1
Woodcock, George
ref 1
Woolf, Leonard
ref 1
Wordsworth162
World Council of Churches
ref 1
World Cup 1982
ref 1
World Economic Forum 2006
ref 1
Yadav, Akhilesh
ref 1
Yadav, Mulayam Singh
ref 1
,
ref 2
,
ref 3
,
ref 4
,
ref 5
,
ref 6
,
ref 7
,
ref 8
Yadav, Yogendra
ref 1
Yarkand
ref 1
yatras
(processions)
ref 1
Yi, Chen
ref 1
Young India
(Gandhi)
ref 1
Zaheer, Sajjad
ref 1
zamindars
see
landlords
Zeitgeist
,
ref 1
Zia-ul-Haq, General
ref 1
Ziegler, Philip
ref 1
Zinkin, Maurice
ref 1
Zinkin, Taya
ref 1
Zoramthanga
ref 1
A Note on Place Names
In recent years, the names of several towns and cities in India have been modified or changed – thus Bombay has become Mumbai, Madras has become Chennai and Calcutta has become Kolkata. Likewise, the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, was formuch of the period covered by this book known as Dacca, while the Chinese capital, Beijing, was until the 1980s referred to as Peking. The usage in this book conforms to historical convention rather than linguistic precision. For example, the capital of Maharashtra is referred to as Bombay until we come to the time when its name was officially changed to Mumbai.
Praise for
I
NDIA
A
FTER
G
ANDHI
‘Finally, here is a history of democratic India that is every bit as sweeping as the country itself . . . [A] magisterial work’
E
DWARD
L
UCE
,
Financial Times
‘A formidable undertaking . . . As comprehensive, balanced and elegantly crafted as any reasonable reader could expect’
P
HILIP
Z
IEGLER
,
Spectator
‘[A] dazzling book’
London Review of Books
‘Guha is a scholar of astounding energy and ingenuity, and his book triumphantly dismisses an often-made plea: that India’s contemporary history cannot be written because (as a result of government pigheadedness) the sources are not available. He seems to have visited every archive from Alabama to Allahabad, Calcutta to California, delving into a sea of private correspondence, news reports, pamphlet ephemera, as well as state papers. The result is a fascinating, kaleidoscopic narrative’
Daily Telegraph
‘Insightful, spirited and elegantly crafted’
Times Literary Supplement
‘Superb, gloriously detailed . . . a brilliant and beautifully balanced book. It is impeccably researched and documented, but Guha is no dry-as-dust academic historian. He presents his facts objectively but never hides his patriotism or cosmopolitan, Nehruvian ethos. He avoids self congratulation and celebrates the survival of democratic India without overlooking the nation’s countless failings and shortcomings’
Independent
‘A riveting narrative . . .
India After Gandhi
is a balanced and unfailingly insightful work’
Sunday Times
‘No brief review could convey the astonishing range of this remarkable and capacious book . . . Guha marshals his facts and figures brilliantly . . . There will undoubtedly be other books covering the extraordinary and exhilarating story of post-independence India, but it is hard to imagine there will be a better one’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Combining academic rigour with the readability of a thriller,
India After Gandhi
is a breathtaking survey’
Time Out Mumbai
‘Magnificently told . . . A riveting story with unforgettable characters and towering challenges, immense greatness and extraordinary venality, soaring hopes and profound disappointment’
India Today
‘It’s not often that you want a 771 page book to be longer. But as you race – yes, race – through
India After Gandhi
. . . you keep feeling that way. Guha writes lucidly,with unobtrusively readable prose, covers most bases, paints characters in with apposite quote or wry comment, points to broad themes, but also picks fascinating small details and in general keeps things going at an excellent pace’
The Economic Times
Chosen as a Book of the Year by the
Economist,
Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, San Franciso Chronicle, Time Out
and
Outlook
R
AMACHANDRA
G
UHA
was born in Dehradun in 1958, and educated in Delhi and Calcutta. He has taught at the universities of Oslo, Stanford and Yale, and at the Indian Institute of Science. He has been a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and also served as the Indo-American Community Chair Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
After a peripatetic academic career, with five jobs in ten years in three continents, Guha settled down to become a full-time writer, based in Bangalore. His books cover a wide range of themes: they include a global history of environmentalism, a biography of an anthropologist-activist, a social history of Indian cricket, and a social history of Himalayan peasants. His entire career, he says, seems in retrospect to have been an extended (and painful) preparation for the writing of
India After Gandhi.
Guha’s books and essays have been translated into more than twenty languages. The prizes they have won include the UK Cricket Society’s Literary Award and the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History.
A
LSO
BY
R
AMACHANDRA
G
UHA
The Unquiet Woods:
Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya
Savaging the Civilized:
Verrier Elwin, His Tribals and India
Environmentalism:
A Global History
The Use and Abuse of Nature
(with Madhav Gadgil)
An Anthropologist among the Marxists and Other Essays
The Picador Book of Cricket
(editor)
A Corner of a Foreign Field:
The Indian History of a British Sport
First published 2007 by Macmillan
First published in paperback 2008 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2010 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-330-54022-3 PDF
ISBN 978-0-330-54020-9 EPUB
Copyright © Ramachandra Guha 2007
The right of Ramachandra Guha to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Picture Acknowledgements
The Hindu
– 1, 4, 8, 9, 29, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 47.
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library – 2, 3, 12, 17, 19, 20, 21.
Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos – 5.
Press Information Bureau – 6, 13, 14, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 37.
Ananda Bazaar Patrika
– 7, 11, 24, 25, 34, 44.
R. K. Laxman – 10. Author's collection – 15, 16, 18, 49.
Prashant Panjiar/
Outlook
– 40. Nasreen Munni Kabir – 48. AFP – 46.
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