1979
This is a terribly disappointing novel. Updike has carved a niche for himself in the hall of literary fame as the map¬maker, non-pareil, of the peaks, valleys and uncharted fissures of suburban/middle¬class America.
Another clutch of Redbirds from the Writers’ Workshop aviary, this time trans¬lations of foreign poets, or ‘transcreations’ as P. Lal prefers to call them. The check¬list at the back of each ‘Birdbook’ shows a cartoon of a pair of eyes struggling to remain above a line, and the note ‘Simply submerged’.
India! Down the ages, travellers of every description, monks and missionaries, traders and merchants, poets and novelists; soldiers and administrators, plenipotentiaries and proconsuls have sought to describe something of the beauty and the pity, the squalor and the splendour of this country.
A national movement requires organi¬zation, funds, leadership and popular support. If one or the other is lacking or weak, the movement becomes not only lop-sided but ineffective. It was Gandhi’s great achievement in India that he ensured all four basic elements, even though he left to others the reconciling of the contradiction in the manner in which he provided these essential ingredients.
Through the pages of this book which number about two hundred and seventy, Devaki Jain and her associates Nalini Singh and Malini Chand describe to us five different endeavours in which women have an important role. They are mainly in western and eastern India.
One of the indicators given importance in assessing the status of women in a nation is the presence of women in the politica arena. Percentages are given against total membership in representative councils or politburos or political parties and the higher the percentage the more the marks given to the country for having moved women up the ladder.
The declining sex ratio and the status of women in India are questions which should concern specialists and non-special¬ists alike. The Women’s Studies Program¬me of the ICSSR has’ taken up and funded a number of studies on women, but to inform the general reading public they have issued a number of pamphlets high¬lighting the main issues.
Both these books deal with issues relating to poverty and inequality in the context of socio-economic development in India, but their perspectives and methods of analysis are quite different. The value of the first book ·lies in its detailed quantitative analysis of the process of income generation and distribution in India
It is not really with India’s economy that Francine Frankel is concerned in her book as its title might suggest as with the political pressures and motivations behind its progress or retardation since Indepen¬dence—at the Central and State levels, and the party and governmental levels. he book could appropriately have been titled the ‘Politics of Indian Economy’.
It would not be amiss to say that Dadabhai Naoroji has been languishing for a long time in the lounge of history, waiting to be ushered into the hall of fame. The near absence of Naoroji’s memory from the political landscape of today is a rude reminder of the injustice done…
More verbiage has been expended, on a global scale, on MK Gandhi’s 1930 Salt Satyagraha than on any other event of national importance in the 20th century. To this day, analysts continue to pore over the why and wherefore of the Gandhian satyagraha (literally, ‘soul-force’) movement…
The book foregrounds the ‘multitudinous dialectics’ (p. 215) at the core of the political, defying borders and hierarchies of disciplines and minds, and most fabulously, replete with the volumes of counterintuitive ideas. The book delivers in text as well as subtext…
This book is a romantic narrative about overcoming the centrifugal forces unleashed by various Indian Princely States during the tumultuous years leading up to and shortly after Independence. Like all romantic narratives, the tone of the book is heroic…
Stretching her observations across some 200 pages, Naomi Appleton has managed, in her book, to fence in a scholarly enclosure into which she has herded not only the three major dharmas of the subcontinent but also some of their most important deities and heroes…
Litigating the past in the manner of the British created a new reality for India. It gave shape to religion and provided the bases for many a confrontation between religions and the religious-minded in this country of hundreds of personalized religions…
Vinay Sitapati’s Jugalbandi is an absorbing account of the growth and development of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before 2004. The story is about the Party when it was on the fringes, nowhere near capturing a plurality of the votes, and had no realistic chance of becoming the ruling party on its own…
Books such as Making India Great Again: Learning from Our History are meant to have a long life. However, books are also reflective of a particular time and a milieu. Context does have an influence on what is written and when it is written…
Ananth Krishnan’s book is a refreshing take on a topic India has grossly underinvested in. It is well known that dealing with its neighbour has been one of the most significant challenges confronting India’s foreign policy-makers; however, a very honest and sincere attempt to understand China from multiple lenses has been elusive. Discourses on China in India have been captive to the ghosts…
Undercover: My Journey into the Darkness of Hindutva gives a chronological account of the events, testimonies, and use of state machinery in the execution of what culminated into a cold-blooded extermination of the Muslims in Gujarat. Ashish Khetan, a journalist by profession, presents…
Electoral politics in India, particularly in the Indian States, has acquired its own dynamism and complexity. While it gets impacted by socio-economic factors—local, State level and national—it also impacts the society and polity through social and political alliances as well as voting patterns…