At a time when Bahubali of a cinematic kind has become the buzz word in India, there is another timely intervention on the topic of Bahubali, but of a political kind. Milan Vaishnav’s new book titled When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics, claims to be the first comprehensive study of the nexus between crime and democracy in India.
Pankaj Mishra’s work includes literary and non-fiction texts and essays that traverse a broad canvas, which could not possibly fit into a single, simple sentence: the present book fits into that description well. Age of Anger weaves across centuries and continents, thinkers and public figures, in an ambitious attempt to outline a genealogy of the present across seven chapters and in about four hundred pages.
Poverty and the Quest for Life: Spiritual and Material Striving in Rural India (2015), by Bhrigupati Singh first and foremost bears the proof of a successful ethnography. Besides detailed ethnographic data and archival material, it is his constant reflection on himself and his experiences that I have found as one of the most impressive and interesting aspects of the book.
Colone James Tod was unique in being one of the intellectual fathers of both, a benevolent Orientalism, and a romantic, militarized, Indian nationalism, especially the variety clothed in Rajput valour and pride that continues to inspire people across caste, religion and region.
Centestations and Accommodations is a discussion on the social, economic and political history of the Mewat region of north India spanning the period thirteenth to the early eighteenth centuries.
This is an important historical publication rendered in an engaging narrative style that will entertain the reader. More importantly, it also brings into focus, true to its title, an aspect of a vital historical period otherwise unattended to in such detail.