In this collection of articles and speeches made by Romesh Thapar during the course of the last three or four years, he tries to sketch an Indian future. He seeks an under¬standing of India’s present and casts critical glances at her past. A careful perusal of these writings makes it amp¬ly clear that this vision of India’s future, where it is not vague and confused, is fanci¬ful, quixotic and unconvinc-ing. Contemporary India is too much with him and he finds it difficult to form a consistent opinion on her multidimensional complex problems. This difficulty is compounded by his imperfect understanding of India’s past. One leaves this book in a very bewildered and confused state of mind. And this response is due to the fact that the author himself has not been able to form a firm, consistent and unambiguous opinion on the various issues that he discusses in these articles. His predica¬ment is acute. He would like India to develop in some uni¬que way of her own. But he also realizes that in the modern interdependent world no country, let alone a country of India’s size, can develop behind closed doors in an ex¬clusive, unique way of its own.
Nov-Dec 1982, volume 7, No 3