Writing a review of one hundred intricately crafted essays by an author who claims to ‘think timid, speak soft, and write mild’ is a challenge much like being asked to evaluate a cricket match played on an underprepared pitch, where every ball is a googly, the strokes flamboyant, the play subdued, and the scoreboard astonishing. Should the report be of the ultimate score or of each stroke, such as the essay on Indrajit Gupta, the CPI stalwart who, as Union Home Minister, rejected the Governor of Uttar Pradesh’s recommendation to dismiss the BJP government, or the essay on the Balasore tragedy, or should an overarching account be presented that ignores detail to manage space? The spectacle lies as much in flamboyant strokes as in piling up runs or wickets. An essay brings out somewhat quietly that our tribal population exceeds 100 million, with oft-ignored histories, perhaps going back over 5000 years. Each essay fascinates, and the problem of what to select and what to leave out places the reviewer on the mat, aware that the allure of the book lies as much in what is said as in how it is said and what is left unsaid, more so as the very narration itself raises at times a nagging doubt that while the author’s tongue may not be sharp or loose, it may well, at times, perhaps have been kept deliberately in cheek.
The book begins with an introduction that is, in truth, itself an essay on the art of essays, carrying within it word pictures that vividly bring to life some of the teachers who first inculcated in him a fondness for using the essay as a form of communication. The essay has long been celebrated as a quiet instrument of thought—plain in style yet deep in reach, brief in length yet lasting in effect. It is neither a polemic nor a treatise, but a way of thinking aloud with discipline. Francis Bacon called his essays ‘dispersed meditations’, showing how a short piece could hold a lifetime of reflection. George Orwell demonstrated how plain language could carry moral urgency. Virginia Woolf turned everyday observation into meditation, as in Street Haunting, where a walk through London became a reflection on identity. Nirad C Chaudhuri blended memory with sharp commentary, while RK Narayan revealed how the ordinary rhythms of Indian life could be turned into quiet reflection. More recently, Vikram Seth, in his prose outside the novel, has shown how brevity can carry thought with elegance. It is this lineage that Gopalkrishna Gandhi’s India and Her Futures seeks to extend.
Organized into seven parts, it is a self-curated selection of one hundred essays, mostly written in the last four decades. Some sketch the lives of individuals who shaped public life, others dwell on the workings of institutions, many explore ideas and values, several draw on experiences gained during his diplomatic postings abroad, and a final set turns inward to personal memory and meditation. What binds them together is not only the variety of subjects but the consistency of tone—measured, restrained, and quietly persuasive. That voice, honed through years in administration and diplomacy, carries into the essays a calm authority, reminding us that Gandhi treats the essay less as a display and more as conversation. The composition of the book itself seems to carry a message: though divided into parts, the essays broadly fall into themes of global resonances, ideas, portraits, institutions and meditations, yet they overlap and intermingle. It is a way of showing continuities and contrasts, how one theme flows into another, how the voice moves without strain from sketch to reflection, from argument to memory.
Essays in the theme of global resonances were shaped by the author’s diplomatic postings: South Africa, Sri Lanka, Norway, and Iceland. The essay form lets the writer move from the local to the global without losing balance. South Africa is treated not only as a story of apartheid but as the echo of nonviolence across continents. Sri Lanka is written about with restraint, attentive to the human cost of conflict. Norway and Iceland, smaller contexts, become occasions to show how listening is part of diplomacy. Reflections on Mandela and the Dalai Lama extend this arc, showing how global currents shape India’s moral imagination. A separate essay brings out Africa’s self-image as continental before national, captured in the South African anthem that ends not with ‘God bless South Africa’ but ‘God bless Africa’—and that identity finally got universalized when India, using its G20 Presidency, gave Africa its seat as a continent seen whole.
The cluster of ideas is where the essay form shows its strength. Nonviolence, secularism, language, memory—each is treated not as an abstraction but as a lived reality. Secularism is written as something felt in everyday life, not argued in theory. The essay on language moves from Hindi and English to the deeper question of how words shape thought. Memory appears both personal and collective, anchoring identity in a society that changes quickly. These reflections were deepened by the London posting at the Nehru Centre, where debates on cultural representation and language abroad sharpened the sense of how ideas travel. The essays are brief yet layered, showing how a thought can be opened without being exhausted.
The portraits of individuals are a varied assortment which, taken together, remind us that India’s future was shaped not only by men in politics but also by women whose dissent and creativity carried equal weight. The depictions of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, JB Kripalani and Jayaprakash Narayan are not conventional biographies but meditations on dissent and nonviolence. Ghaffar Khan’s steadfastness in the Pashtun context becomes a reflection of courage without aggression. Kripalani emerges as principled yet unpredictable—Gandhian in spirit but never bound by orthodoxy, willing to challenge power and unsettle complacency. Jayaprakash Narayan, though not given a dedicated essay, recurs in references to the Emergency and ‘total revolution’, standing less as a narrated life than as a symbol of moral resistance. On the other hand, Rajaji is drawn as sharp and independent, a statesman whose wit carried Gandhian inheritance into politics.
Alongside these political dissenters are the cultural and intellectual figures. MS Subbulakshmi is portrayed not as a dissenter but more as a celestial artist whose music embodied devotion and discipline, showing how cultural life could persuade without polemic. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay appears as a reformer who widened the Gandhian frame, bringing it into women’s rights, social movements, and the revival of crafts, where dissent became creativity. Pupul Jayakar is drawn as a cultural interlocutor, bridging tradition and modernity; her engagement with art and spirituality emblematic of India’s search for meaning beyond politics. Taken together, these portraits reveal Gandhi’s preference for reflection over narration: he distils from lives not chronology but themes—dissent, creativity, devotion—each a different register of India’s moral imagination.
Gopal Gandhi’s essays on institutions show the same method. Having spent many years in State administration, in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, and as Governor, he knows how public offices tick from within. Yet he writes not as an insider but as an observer of their meaning. Presidency is described as a symbol of restraint; the civil service as a framework that must hold neutrality; the Governor’s office as a post that must balance dignity with discretion. His West Bengal years sharpened his reflections on federalism and Centre-State relations. The beauty lies in the understatement—he lets the institution speak through its role rather than through anecdote.
Several essays are personal. They include reflections on family, age, and the passage of time. Gandhi writes about his grandfather not as a monument but as a presence in daily life. He writes about the loss of friends with quiet dignity. These contemplative meditations close the book with a softer cadence, showing that public thought is inseparable from private reflection. The link to career is subtle: the passage of time marked by postings and responsibilities becomes the backdrop for these reflections.
India and Her Futures uses the essay form to reflect on India itself. It illuminates the dilemmas of a nation across the turn of the century and into the present. The strength of the book lies not only in its subjects but in its craft, for Gandhi shows how the essay can carry memory, argument, and meditation without excess, persuading by understatement.
TCA Ranganathan, former CMD of Export Import Bank of India and former Non-Executive Chairman of Indian Overseas Bank, is the co-author of All the Wrong Turns: Perspectives on the Indian Economy (Westland, 2019).