India After Gandhi

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India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest DemocracyIndia After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, that was a painstaking read, but completely worth the effort. The book copiously fills the unforgivable lacunae created in our history text books by the most respectable Indian governments of yesteryear's, today, and the days to come.

Though, in the beginning, I felt the author was simply hero-worshiping Jawaharlal Nehru, only further into the book did I actually realize the greatness of Nehru. Well, may be he is truly worthy ofhero-worship.

This one, by Nehru, particularly impressed me:
‘I do not seem to remember men being reminded in the same manner of Ramachandra and Satyavan, and urged to behave like them. It is only the women who have to behave like Sita and Savitri; the men may behave as they like.’

And a few more interesting quotes from the book:

‘Forget the dead, count the votes, said Rustomji in a withering but not in accurate characterization of the political purpose of those fanatics and demagogues. Then he added, ‘In a few years even the votes may not be worth counting because we may have killed democracy by then.'

To the argument that more Indians spoke Hindi than any other language, Anna sarcastically answered: ‘If we had to accept the principle of numerical superiority while selecting our national bird, the choice would have fallen not on the peacock but on the common crow.’


Another content that greatly alarmed me was the murder of Lal Bahudur Shastri. That such a great leader was murdered while serving as the PM of India; and yet India chose to remain silent, and simply close the case, took me almost a week to believe. And then, finally, yes I did believe.

Though the book is pretty long, it still gives a very high level and bird's eye view on the issues mainly faced by the Indian Government at the center, without giving much importance to local politics.

Why India Survives is truly an interesting question to ponder over after such an enlightening read. Thank you Ramachandra Guha. :)


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