Dissent has had a long and hoary history within India and outside. By definition, dissenters struggle against those in power and raise their voices in protest, while rallying others to do the same, thereby inspiring still others in eras yet to unfold.
In his new book, Jairam Ramesh transports us to a time of remarkable consequence for India today. While the author inserts a caveat that the book must be read as a biography of a committed and profoundly sagacious bureaucrat, the running commentary on the times that produced this man can hardly be ignored.
This is a very timely book. At one level, it offers discussions on banking related failures in Bengal Province during the 1940s and 1950s. A serious spate of bank failures had been experienced in the province in this period. It is oft stated that these failures left thousands of ordinary people, all of whom were politically invisible and mute, in financial ruin.
The city of Kolkata—and earlier Calcutta—has been the subject of a few visually rich books. Some readers may remember Desmond Doig’s amazing line drawings and tongue-in-cheek notes in Calcutta: An Artist’s Impression (1968), a rage when it came out, published by The Statesman for whom he worked.
Delhi has exuded an aura of mysticism and merriment since ancient days. With time it grew to be the nucleus of some mammoth structures of power. As it became the hub of multifarious cultural strains its magic grew. Mirza Sangin Beg’s Sair-ul Manazil in tandem with its translation by Shama Mitra Chenoy makes that invisible emanation visible.
This work of Catherine Asher is a remarkable contribution to the understanding of India’s heritage and India’s history. She studies Delhi’s Qutb Complex in its entirety that includes not only the minaret and the mosque but also the evolution of the village in its vicinity, now popularly known as Mehrauli.