While reading the book I couldn’t help but think of a very disturbing image from news this year when a part of the roof at Delhi airport’s Terminal 1 collapsed, killing a cab driver waiting for passengers and injuring several others. Compensations were announced and allegations and counter allegations between the ruling government and the opposition followed.
Anup Shekjhar Chakraborty looks at the phenomenon of ‘notices’ in the Northeast which are handed out as local communitarian commands. Here the community replaces the state as the focal point of governance. Pratip Chattopadhyay analyses how debates are conducted in Indian tele-media. He calls for a more participatory model of debating to ensure more meaningful participation of the new generation. Vinod Pavarala draws our attention to a now forgotten medium of political communication
Chapters five, ‘Can Umbrella Parties Survive? The Decline of the Indian National Congress’, and seven, ‘Coalition Strategies and the BJP’s Expansion 1989-2004’ provide a long-term perspective on the two largest parties: the Congress and the BJP. Chapter five, coauthored with Adnan Farooqui, provides a critical assessment of Congress’s diminished capacity to act as an ‘umbrella party’ based on electoral rules
Coming to the limitations of the book, the author’s desire to give a simple and accessible introduction to the idea/ideal of secularism does not get involved with the various intellectual critiques of secularism as a western hegemonic ideology particularly put forth by Islamists and decoloniality theorists.
The most moving section in the entire book is the concluding part, ‘Suffering’. The four chapters in this portion are important in that they narrate in detail the miseries which were inflicted on the families of the sixteen ‘conspirators’. The uniqueness of this portion of the book lies in the fact that problems which the victims and their families faced are retold in their own voices.
Fazal problematizes the contradictory government stand vis-à-vis ban on cow slaughter and a rise in beef exports almost at the same time. The steps which cater to divisive populism fell short of engaging with the impact it had on the livelihood issues of farmers as well as people engaged in subsidiary industries. The pitiable condition of Gaushalas which fail to provide decent living conditions to the cows question the actual commitment of the government.