Rajeev Bhargava

Hind Swaraj is one of those key texts published in the twentieth century, which on the one hand, were denounced by many critics, and on the other hand, attracted many scholars and activists, who have been working for an alternative model of modernism. The book was criticized by many scholars, including the first Prime Minister of India due to its so-called ‘outdated’ ideas. However, in this book, Gandhi critically evaluates modern civilization and technologies related to it and questions the modern conception of religion, nationalism, and the prevalent violence-based method to counter the unjust and exploitative system.


Reviewed by: Kamal Nayan Choubey
Yatindra Singh Sisodiya

The book under review, written in Hindi, is a compilation of research papers that were presented as part of a two-day national seminar held to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi at the M.P. Institute of Social Science Research. Titled, ‘Mahatma Gandhi: 21vi Sadi ka Bharatiya evam Vaishvik Pariprekshya’, the seminar was held in Ujjain. There are twenty essays in this book written by various Gandhi scholars. Each article focuses on a particular facet related to Gandhi and his world view.


Reviewed by: Amol Saghar
Vijay Gokhale

China’s unprecedented rise has forced the world to restudy and refocus on the major factors behind this development. The Deng Xiaoping era is considered to be the time when China moved out of the trap of a low-income agrarian society to becoming the factory of the world and the second largest economy. The reform and opening up announced by Deng in late 1978 gave China the direction which it needed to gain momentum.


Reviewed by: Gunjan Singh
Manoj Joshi

Both the authors need no introduction to the public attentive to strategic matters. Between them, they have fifty years of engagement with strategic affairs. Both have past publications that place them in good standing as readers appraise whether they should pick up their latest wares. While Joshi’s landmark book was on Kashmir—The Lost Rebellion—in the nineties, Sawhney’s co-authored one—The War Unfinished—was on the India-Pakistan crisis of early this century.


Reviewed by: Ali Ahmed
Jayita Sarkar

Jayita Sarkar’s book traces the origins and development of India’s nuclear weapons programme in the context of overlapping narratives of postcolonial modernity, developmentalism and geopolitics. Sarkar achieves this explanation by way of highlighting the technopolitics binding developmentalism and national security in the vision of its technopolitical elite which conceived and ran India’s nuclear programme.


Reviewed by: Mujeeb Kanth
Jeffrey Witsoe

First published in 2013 from the University of Chicago Press, this book is one of the most important interventions into comprehending Bihar, an eastern Indian province. With reference to post-1947 Bihar, among the western scholars, Francine R Frankel’s essay (1989), many long essays of Harry W Blair, and Paul Brass, too, in his book, Language, Religion and Politics in North India, and also his essay, ‘Political Uses of Crisis: The Famine of 1966-67’ (Asian Survey, 1986)


Reviewed by: Mohammad Sajjad