The book’s four chapters examine four widely held social media theories in detail. Terms such as ‘Love Jihad’, ‘Population Jihad’, ‘Forced Conversions’ and ‘Muslim Appeasement’ have made their way into our everyday conversations. This book forces us to look closely at these words that have infiltrated our quotidian conversations and pushes us into asking the right questions.
For the last decade or so, 21st century India has been a confusing place. We are bombarded with triumphant messages of India’s rise as an economic superpower while simultaneously feeling the crunch of rising costs and diminishing earning capacities.
At first glance, it appears that the Punjab-Emilia Romagna migration corridor is a win-win proposition for the Italian dairy owners in dire need for workers in a rapidly aging population and the relatively low-skilled Punjabi emigrants to meet their economic and aspirational goals since the once-prosperous agricultural sector of Punjab has stagnated.
The anthology Concealing Caste: Passing and Personhood in Dalit Literature with an extensive introduction by K Satyanarayana and Joel Lee is a treasure-trove of Dalit literature.
India is the land of paradoxes. As the British economist Joan Robinson famously quipped, ‘Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true.’ This statement aptly captures the politics around the cow in India.
Harsh Mander, the author of this book, would be known to most readers of the The Book Review. He is a gadfly some might say, others might say the conscience of a nation that was India.