Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

I started reading Saraswati Park because it was shortlisted for a prize, which, as we know now, it didnt win. The loss means nothing. Having been on one of the early juries for another prize, I should not have too many issues with literary prizes but I do feel that such prizes force people to compare books which are quite different from each other…

Fali S. Nariman is an eminent Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India with a legal career spanning six decades. Having come into practice immediately after the adoption of the Indian Constitution he has grown with it to be one of its foremost experts. The book is styled as an autobiography and one starts with the hope that it…

Fali S. Nariman is an eminent Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India with a legal career spanning six decades. Having come into practice immediately after the adoption of the Indian Constitution he has grown with it to be one of its foremost experts. The book is styled as an autobiography and one starts with the hope that it..

In the summer of 1988, Jana Natya Manch, under Safdar Hashmis leadership, decided to return to proscenium theatre after a decade of doing only street theatre. Habib Tanvir accepted our request to direct the play, which Safdar was to write, based on a story by Munshi Premchand. The story eventually selected was the farcical Satyagraha…

This remarkable work is an intellectual attempt to analyse the experience of socially, culturally, economically and politically dominated and marginalized dalit and tribal Christians. Dalits and tribal Christians constitute approximately 70% of the Indian Christian population. Christianity is an egalitarian religion, but the caste system has found its way into it in India…

Maurice Castle, aged 62, works for ‘a department of the Foreign Office’­—namely MIS. Even though he has· been with the ‘firm’ for 30 years, Castle is obviously not a successful spy as he is what appears to be, a rather lowly placed functionary in a two-man section devoted to South African affairs.

Walter Schweppe, a former lecturer in German at the University of Dacca, has translated sixteen German poems for this volume. As the title indicates, they range from the 18th to the 20th century.

This remarkable work is an intellectual attempt to analyse the experience of socially, culturally, economically and politically dominated and marginalized dalit and tribal Christians. Dalits and tribal Christians constitute approximately 70% of the Indian Christian population.

In this ambitious and empirically rich study Sudha Pai attempts to make sense of the Congress Government policies in Madhya Pradesh (MP) towards dalits and tribals between 1993 and 2003. It draws insights from three fields of scholarship that Pai has distinguished herself in comparative politics, state politics…

Each dawn, in recent times, has found the nation bemoaning a fresh scam perpetrated by those who had been charged with the responsibility of providing good governance and unlocking the gates of El Dorado, outside which stood the mass of the Indian people all eager to pursue the emerging Indian dream.

This is a high impact low fuss book. Within its covers the authors provide a remarkably comprehensive and lucidly written survey of the three geographical zones where armed conflicts are currently taking place within IndiaJ&K, the Northeast trouble spots of Nagaland, Manipur, Assam, Bodoland, and the Maoist resistance in the central forested regions…

Islam was the first pillar on which Pakistan was built and its leaders’ search for a new identity was the other virulent non-Indian non-Hindu pillar. While both were understand-able from Pakistan’s perspective, Jinnah’s version of a moderate Pakistan began to change soon enough…

The perennial question which arises in the mind of anyone even generally familiar with the PalestineIsraeli issue is the reason a solution has bedevilled the many attempts during the 65 years since the Second World War. Talmiz Ahmeds splendid, well-researched, and cogent analysis of the root causes of the issue goes…

The relationship between sexuality and empire in the context of South Asia is one that has received much, and muchneeded, scholarly attention in recent years. Since one kind of archive or another is used by scholars and activists in the field of sexuality studies to form and/or legitimize their case, Arondekar finds it necessary…

The period 17071857 is one of the most fascinating in the history of India. It in effect laid the foundation for colonial modernity and had a profound impact on the making of modern India. As such, when a noted cultural historian writes a survey book on this period ones expectations are of a different kind. Lakshmi Subramanian is also a wellknown…

This anthology brings together 14 invaluable essays by Harbans Mukhia which had earlier been published in different journals and collected works. Some of these essays date back to the 1970s but there are many others more recent ones and some are still in press. Focusing on three themes: the intellectual and cultural milieu; economy…

THIS is a book about the immediate past and the distant future of mankind. It looks at the recent development ex­perience of the world, particularly Taiwan and South Korea, and goes on to make predictions and give advice. But that is not all, for this is a book of disconcert­ing diversity.

The volume under review is geared towards describing and analysing the practical implications and policy imperatives of deepening democracy beyond its institutional parameters and the role of civil society interventions in creating a culture of democratic engagement, accountability, and transparency (p. 3)…

This is an important volume of Nehrus selected works and deals with the initial months of the year 1958. There are two major themes that pervade the entire volume. The first consists of the problems of national unity and Nehrus deep commitment to Indian nationalism. The second consists of the complexities involved…

The versatile personality of the author finds reflection in this little ‘bunch called BOOK’—as the author himself calls it. Whether it is sangeet or social work or social justice, costs or crimes or com­munalism, or corporate sector, religions and revolution—the author has some­thing to say, some thought to exchange with others.