The concluding part brings together the book’s core themes through three chapters that examine India’s development journey with both hindsight and forward-looking insight. These chapters confront the paradoxes and pathologies that have emerged over decades—such as the coexistence of democratic vibrancy with institutional fragility
The Congress came back to power in 1980 and late in 1981 it took a huge IMF loan whose condition forced austerity on the two Finance Ministers it had, R Venkataraman and Pranab Mukherjee. All things considered they both had an easy time because there were no major crises.
The primary and secondary sources identified at the important archives listed in the book have been scrutinized, analysed and synthesized to arrive at these conclusions. They have been diligently recorded, and we provide a flavour here by illustratively mentioning a few authors:
The second section titled ‘Miracles and Devotees’ draws our attention to the shifting identities of Goddesses over the long centuries in the ramifications caused by potentates and political blocks.
The chapter, ‘India, Indophiles and Indenture’, analyses the roles played by western exponents as interlocutors between the British officials and the Indian labour classes. Andrews and Pearson proved successful in calling attention to the plight of labourers in Mauritius, Fiji, and South and East Africa.
While depicting the story of a visionary’s life in minute detail, the authors have paid careful attention not to reduce the personality to a straitjacket. For instance, even though Karve was a rationalist who led by example, engaging enthusiastically even with the staunchest critiques of his magazine