AVANTIKA MEHTA
Pis an independent journalist. She lives in New Delhi
rayaag Akbar’s Leila was my favourite read from all the Indian books published this year. It chronicled the story of an upper caste Hindu woman’s journey to find her daughter from a mixed-religion marriage. Deftly written, Leila called out Hindu fundamentalists who appear to have taken over our country, but it didn’t let liberals off the hook either.
This year, when atrocities against minorities have risen to the point of becoming everyday news, Leila is never far from my mind.
The other book I cannot leave out is a collection of essays
Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which was published two months ago. The book does not contain new work. But when placed together and bound by a red and white cover, the context, and your awareness of the writer’s powers of observation is heightened. Coates always came across as a cool journalist — he quotes Jay-Z, he trolls back on Twitter using video game references. We Were Eight Years In Power made me see him as a ruthless realist.
The essays are about America and its first black President, but it is also about the backlash to Obama’s years in the Oval Office. It’s also about Trump, whom Coates calls America’s first white President. But it wasn’t the hip-hop references or the clearcut writing in those essays that moved me. His words about America are relatable to our situation in India. We were 60 years in power, and by ‘we’, I mean the elite, the well-heeled, the ‘Lutyen residents’ of India. And that time was squandered. Our liberal politicians played on the hopes of minorities and delivered nothing. In the process, they alienated a majority of Indians. What we are witnessing is the backlash. These books hold up mirrors to our society. We would be wise to take a good look at ourselves before it is too late.
We Were Eight Years in
Tis a Kashmiri journalist. He lives in Srinagar.
his year, I reread Polish journalist Mariusz Szczygiel’s
Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia.
This is a collection of subtle portraits, a look at the politics in a country that long suffered under authoritarianism. The book’s appeal was enhanced after I, as editor of a newspaper that was banned last year, had a nasty encounter with state power. At a time when a man was hacked and burnt alive simply for being who he was, reading Nirad Chaudhuri’s
The Continent of Circe: An Essay on the Peoples of India
offered insights into the causes of such hatred. About Muslims, he says, “Judged by the position they hold in relation to their strength they might be said to be the least of the minorities. Perhaps in the eye of their Hindu rulers they have even less importance than the Goanese Christians with Portuguese names. He wrote this when the Socialist Congress ruled India. His diagnosis of the Muslim community’s ailments are unbiased. The thought that springs in his mind at the sight of a burqa-clad woman in Delhi is: “‘Sister! You are the symbol of your community in India’. The entire body of the Muslims are under a black veil.”
Iwould urge readers to look at Talking History. Based on a conversation between historian Romila Thapar, Ramin Jehanbegloo and Neeladri Bhattacharya, it could be hailed as the intellectual biography of Professor Thapar. The book addresses themes such as the function of a historian, the ongoing conflict with religious fundamentalists, and the polymorphous nature of
Hinduism. Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo Da Vinci:
The Biography is fabulous. In fiction, I would recommend Paul Auster’s
4321. His detailed portrayal of four accounts of growing up in America is everything a reader hopes for. Tishani
Joshi’s Girls Are Coming Out of
The Woods has revived my interest in poetry. Everyone should read Upinder Singh’s Political Violence in Ancient India, a book suggests that the idea of violence was deeply rooted in the preIslamic Hindu mind. At a time when the idea of nationalism is evoked so fiercely, Sugato Bose’s The Nation as Mother enlightens readers about the multiple visions of nationhood and the limits of majoritarianism.