Soham Chakraborty
Sanjay Baru comes from the kind of pedigree that ruled the roost in old India. With a grandfather who served in the Indian Civil Service, a father who served in the Indian Administrative Service and his own role as advisor to PM Manmohan Singh firmly places him in the old power elite. This books tries to weave together a narrative, sometimes successfully - sometimes clumsily - about the rise of a new power elite in India that doesn't seek to integrate but abolish the old order. While providing a window into the transition, Baru periodically feels the need to enter the historical background of India as a nation-state, in a cavalier, opinion-editor manner that wasn't necessary for the purposes of this book.
Aakar Patel's book is timely, and the deep dive into the Disturbed Areas Act in Gujarat was undoubtedly the most insightful portion of the book for me. It explains how segregated and ghettoised Gujarat really has become for Muslims- and the ghettoization is enforced under the draconian Disturbed Areas Act which among other things allows the State to prohibit property sales in certain areas notified under the Act, on the basis of “demographic balance” and “public order”. Mr. Patel writes forcefully on how this has adversely impacted major centres of population in Gujarat like Ahmedabad- which by some accounts is now the most segregated city in India. Throughout the book Mr. Patel relies on examples, actual data, and case studies of the marginalization of minorities that are reported in newspaper everyday but end up being forgotten statistics in the larger political discourse. Another portion of the book which is particularly insightful is how judicial pronouncements, often given obiter dicta from the benches in the early years of our republic, have helped provide immaculate legal cover for the worst aspects of religious majoritarianism in the country. The weakest link in his book is undoubtedly the one on Jinnah and Pakistan, specifically in how he deals with the causes of Partition, the role of Congress and how it all eventually played out. Mr. Patel puts the entirety of the blame on a muscular and arrogant Congress which was “refusing Muslims its rightful share” in the political future of the country . This is an incomplete view that doesn't account for the historical nuances at play. I would suggest to readers that they read [b:The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League, and the Demand for Pakistan 73902 The Sole Spokesman Jinnah, the Muslim League, and the Demand for Pakistan Ayesha Jalal https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348865917l/73902.SY75.jpg 71499] to instead understand the internal dynamics of the Muslim Leauge, the compulsions and motivation of Jinnah better.
Karan Thapar belongs to a generation of gentlemen journalists who had the tenacity (some may say audacity) to ask difficult questions and the necessary charm to maintain personal relationships. Sometimes his chamrs weren't enough- case in point being the 2007 interview with Narendra Modi which consequently made him persona non grata with the current establishment in power. Yet, this hasn't doomed KT (as he recounts being called by his classmates at Doon) - his recent interviews for The Wire still draw critical praise as the high watermark of the journalistic trade. For someone unfamiliar with the entirety of Mr. Thapar's social background, it often seems like he name-drops a lot, but then he really does have that man names to drop so its tough to hold that against him. The chapter on his friendships with Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Benazir Bhutto and Aung Sang Suu Kyi provide interesting insights into the character of both Karan and the leaders concerned, making for a worthwhile read. In contrast some of his other chapters seem more like an attempt at retrospective throat clearing, rather than a genuine attempt to engage the readers- a prime example being the chapter dedicated to Lal Krishna Advani. At times the reader can be found wondering where exactly does Mr. Thapar draw the lines of journalistic integrity. To give an example: he is often arbitrarily willing to ‘redo' caustic interviews for the sake of maintaining relationships, yet just as often seems to put his foot down and refuse to do se. Where are the lines drawn exactly? The book could have benefitted from Mr. Thapar taking the reader through his journalistic calculus for making such calls.
This book in the end is a “what” book- full of little details that a reader would find interesting and insightful, but not a “why” book. Perhaps that's too much to expect from a journalist who still has many years left in his public profession, but it does count towards the three-stars i rate the book at.
This book infuriated me, for more reasons than one. This fury was compounded by the realization that this it's conclusions will successfully appeal to the woolly-mammoth sized prejudices of the average college-educated person. Bergman's sanitized narrative of a idyllic prehistorical utopia is not just inaccurate and simplistic- its is an actively harmful outlook for understanding human nature. Bergman's core argument is that human beings are fundamentally ‘good' (that is, egalitarian, cosmopolitan, feminist, and opposed to violence)—unless or until their minds happened to be poisoned by property ownership or corrupt leaders, which Bregman claims were lacking for most of human history since humans lived in hunter-gatherer societies. To back this core thesis Bergman presents historical and anthropological ‘evidence' that comes badly undone after the most basic amount of topical research on the subject.
Following is an example of why selectively reading your preferred values and rationalizations into history is bad: Bergman claims that “in prehistory women had been free to come and go as they pleased,” and that it was only with the rise of agriculture that we began to see arranged marriages and male control over female sexuality, but this is pure fiction. Among the !Kung hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari, anthropologist Richard Lee—a source Bregman selectively references for his claims about hunter-gatherer's inherent peacefulness–notes that “All first marriages are arranged by parents, and the girls have little say in the matter.” Among the Kaska nomadic foragers of British Colombia, anthropologist John Honigmann writes that, “Ideally a man feels entitled to beat his wife if he suspects that she has been untrue to him,” although “not all men avail themselves of this permitted behavior.” Arranged marriages are customary across the majority of hunter-gatherer societies, and violence, directed towards one's wife and/or another man, is a common male response to actual or suspected infidelity.”
Speaking of “war against the enemy”, Bregman claims that it was the beginnings of sedentism and property ownership that led to the origins of warfare, “Scholars think there were at least two causes. One, we now had belongings to fight over, starting with land. And two, settled life made us more distrustful of strangers. Foraging nomads had a fairly laid-back membership policy: you crossed paths with new people all the time and could easily join up with another group.”
In fact, however, in every region of the world where there is evidence of different nomadic forager groups neighboring each other, there are cases of intergroup violence. This pattern is thoroughly reviewed in a 2012 paper by anthropologists Richard Wrangham and Luke Glowacki, who write that, “External war has been described in each of the areas we reviewed based on evidence of intergroup killing, explicit fear of strangers, and/or avoidance of border zones,” and adding that the “cases of hunter-gatherers living with different societies of hunter-gatherers as neighbors show that the threat of violence was never far away.”
Keep in mind there are a hundred such claims that are easily falsifiable, scattered throughout the book. Moreover they have been carelessly presented for an audience uninterested in probing the opposite case- making the text a mammoth disservice to society.
Foundational to understanding why the Indian Republic functions the way it does today, is understanding the build up to the First Amendment. To give an example, I found this interesting nugget in the book ‘Sixteen Stormy Days'- Jawaharlal Nehru in his Letter to Chief Ministers on 18th December 1950, talking about Sikhs: “... they have repeatedly allowed themselves to be misled and unfortunately even past experience does not teach wisdom”
Fascinating how much continuity remains in the view from Delhi. ‘Sixteen Stormy Days' by Tripurdaman Singh is my 80th and final book of the year, highly recommend this brilliant new history of Nehru's original sin- The First Amendment to the Indian Constitution. The First Amendment in India, unlike its counterpart on America- meant the gutting of fundamental rights and individual liberty. How did the very same Nehru & Congress which had framed the Constitution, find it post-independence to be roadblock to their political vision? You will get the answers in this book.
Tim Marshall paints with broad brush strokes the overwhelming influence of geography on nation building, trade, security and conflict in the international arena. Sometimes, he does overemphasize the geographical limitations and tends to underemphasize how geography works within feedback loops of culture and ethnicity- which results in a bleaker picture than is necessary of global conflict. However he should get credit for succinctly morphing a “intro to geopolitics 101” lecture into a handy book.
Life altering book from the greatest Japanese writer of the 20th Century. Beginning in the Pre-WWI years of the incredible Meji Restoration in Japan, Mishima traces the changing nature of the Japanese milieu through the micro-lens of an adolescent boy- Kiyoaki Matsugae, the son of a rising nouveau-riche family which who were once lower-tier samurais, and Satoko Ayakura, the daughter of an aristocratic family fallen on hard times.
Tldr; ‘Burnt Sugar' is the worst ‘highly recommended' book I read in 2020. Stay far away.
‘Burnt Sugar' is a mediocre, choppily written (no it isn't ‘crisp') novel that masquerades as a deep dive into the mother-daughter but ends up sacrificing plot, insight, storytelling (and basically every other ingredient) for the banal commitment to ‘caustic humor' that rarely ever lands. Though the book is readable in the first dozen pages, it soon becomes a tiring slog of dislikable characters trashing each other for no apparent reason. Finally, it culminates in a rather unsatisfying ending which made me regret ever-picking up this book. Something is broken in our literary scene when an author for the sake of being ‘subversive' can ramble on about the most jarring aspects of bodily fluids and human waste, without utilizing that rambling for any literary purpose or insight. At various points throughout the story, the author integrates a ‘hot topic' as a through-line in the narrative (dementia, post-partum depression, infidelity etc.) and then explores it in the most superficial way possible- mediated by the most obvious stock stereotypes like that of the dislikable ‘Indian-American aunty', the ‘NRI husband' and the ‘crazy hippie'. Nuance is so shockingly non-existent and the narration through these caricatures so impersonal that it impedes actual understanding of the novel. Unless you enjoy reading vulgarity and filth for its own sake- this isn't for you.
In conclusion, ‘Burnt Sugar' represent peak formulaic fiction in the literary genre where zero insights + enough ‘themes' that are ‘important' coming from the ‘right' quarters equal award nominations. Please stay far away
This is a book about an audaciously imagined decolonization, different from every other movement the world would ever see. Aimé Césaire (Martinique) and Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal) promoted the ambitious idea self-determination without state sovereignty- i.e a French Empire transitioning into a democratic federation, with former colonies as autonomous members of a transcontinental polity. This dream was never realized, and there is a tragic tone to the retelling of their lost perspectives. But from tragedy let us imagine re-imagined futures.
If you have time to read only 70 odd-pages today and yet you want to understand what lies at the root of the seemingly endless (and often frustrating) debate of re-distributionists vs fiscal conservatives in United States, you must read this lucid book written in the kind of accessible language that Tyler Cowen prefers on his marvelous blog ‘Marginal Revolution' (which I must admit I have followed for years). Tyler, one the sharpest heterodox thinkers of our times postulates that the United States has entered a period of ‘Great Stagnation' since the 1970s, wherein despite superficial and marginal improvements in living standards, wide-ranging availability of free/cheap online pleasure and accessibility to information on the internet- technological progress has largely plateaued because the national economy has already picked the ‘low hanging fruits' to their fullest, and as a consequence median incomes remain stagnant. He further clarifies that the fiscal-stimulus driven minimal growth that has accompanied the post-financial crisis recovery has also largely been ‘jobless' and the country is looking toward a future where the most dynamic sectors of its economy are employing historically minuscule numbers of people (i.e digital companies) while at the same time the sectors of the US economy where government spending is increasing the most are displaying worse-than expected levels of productivity/ return on investment. If any of you follow Eric Weinstein's Portal you would know that what Tyler is essentially articulating in this book is what Weinstein calls the EGO (Embedded Growth Obligations) of institutions that were designed and premised to function in a world where growth is endless, and so is technological progress. Every line of this book is a cold hard wake-up call for an obsolete gamut of politics that surrounds the kind of wishful thinking surrounding ‘economic growth'.
Brideshead Revisited is without doubt the glorious English prose at its fullest; it envelops and transforms you with its complexity, like the embrace of a once mighty ocean now resigned to its violent decay. At the center of this violent decay are the Flytes, an aristocratic family of wealthy English Catholics who live in a palatial mansion called Brideshead; with whose dysfunction and romances, the protagonist's (i.e Charles Ryder's) fortunes are inextricably wound up right from his days at Oxford, where he meets Sebastian Flyte and his coterie of fashionable young men, thereby laying the foundations of relationship that defies easy categorization- because beyond its obvious homosexual insinuations, there is a surreal romantic male friendship at the heart of this cultural mosaic. Looming large over the litany of spiritual dysfunction among Flytes, is of course Catholic theology, which is omnipresent in a story precisely in the strange moments when we least expect it to be. Is Brideshead unabashed, unreserved nostalgia for an age of gentle nobility, its myths and social values that it sees slipping away or is it the an honest obituary for the lost prose of cultural delight? The answer, like everything else in Brideshead is complicated.