My first and longest read of 2025.

I bought a kindle in June and started reading. Daily commutes helped get into the habit. First book I picked up was India after Gandhi by Ramchandra Guha.

Starting with this huge 900+ pages book while getting into a reading habit after couple years seems like a bad idea. But this book had been on the top of my TBR list for so long. And especially with all that is happening in the country today, I just had to read this.

One big lament I had with my school history curriculum is that - like cliche Indian movies it climaxed at Independence, switfly glanced over the formation of constitution saying: and they lived happily ever after...

Ramchandra Guha gives a brilliant potted history of India starting at just before 1947 all the way till almost 2015. This gave me an idea of what a herculean task it was to unite, build and grow such a varied mass of land. The book seems to jump at many different places because there was so much happening in the country and the writer tries to maintain chronological order of events. Partition, its aftermath, accession of princely states, building constitution, bringing the huge nation to vote in elections, regional conflicts in the north and north-east, foreign policies, political parties emerging, communal conflicts, industrialization, rise and fall of governments are few among a long list of events happening in the country.

On the negative side:

It was fascinating to see traces of some current happenings back in time:

We always worship our great leaders, right since the first general election in 1951-52. After architecting the Indian constitution (1950) B. R. Ambedkar chose to leave Congress and contest separately. Thanks to Nehru's aura, he lost to a milkman named Kajrolkar. On which P. K. Atre amusingly wrote:

कुठे तो घटनाकार आंबेडकर आणि कुठे हा लोणीविक्या कजरोळकर.

rougly translates to: where that great constitution maker Ambedkar and where this butter-seller Kajrolkar.

Someone remarked "even a lamp-post standing on the Congress ticket could have been elected". We see similar things even today.

There were petty acts of vindictiveness and bans on singer Kishore Kumar who refused to perform in a programme to raise money for the family planning drive.

The then famous movie Bobby was aired on national television at the exact same time a prominent opposition leader organized a huge rally.

Congress was split into two parties Congress (O) and Congress (R) - cough MH cough.

You can find many such examples in the book. Perhaps these days things have gone too far and further amplified by social media, but the roots were seen back in history.

On the positive side:

Right from independence, on every major issue, west proclaimed the country would fall apart. So many small princely states, religious hatred, inexperience, deaths of some leaders, wars, etc were proving their point beyond doubt. And yet miraculously India stood strong on all those obstacles and grew.

This is just a small glimpse, there is so much more in the book and I am so glad I read it.

I understand India better now.