The RSS is the most influential cultural organization in India today, with affiliates in fields as varied as politics, education and trade. This book fundamentally addresses three key questions: Why has the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates expanded so rapidly over the past twenty-five years? How have they evolved in response to India’s new socio-economic milieu? How does their rapid growth impact the country’s politics and policy?
With unprecedented access, Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle lift the curtains to help us understand the inner workings of the Sangh.
Backed by deep research and case studies, this book explores the evolution of the Sangh into its present form, its relationship with the ruling party, the BJP, their overseas affiliates and so much more.
Catagory: Non Fiction
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Rajneeti
Rajneeti mein “neeti” hai, to “aneeti” kyon?’ – Rajnath Singh
Rajnath Singh rose from a Swayamsevak in the RSS to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, and also served as a Cabinet Minister in the Vajpayee Government. Jailed during the Emergency, Singh was the president of the BJP’s youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. A two-term President, Singh saw the elevation of Narendra Modi as the party’s PM candidate and delivered BJP’s biggest elections victory in 2014. Since then, as India’s Home Minister, he has ushered in a new phase in the country’s security where both internal and external threats have been minimised. Under Singh, the Red menace from Naxalites and Maoists has been nearly wiped out, and the state of Jammu and Kashmir saw the first local body elections in over a decade.
Read on to know more about one of the tallest politicians in present-day India. In a career spanning nearly fifty years, Rajnath Singh has not only witnessed but also played a significant role in shaping the history of this country. Drawing from a vast amount of research and in-depth interviews, Gautam Chintamani’s engaging narrative reveals for the first-time a politician who never shied away from doing the right thing.
Do Better With Less
This groundbreaking book, by the bestselling authors of Jugaad Innovation, shows how India can harness the three megatrends — the sharing economy, the maker movement and the circular economy — and disruptive technologies such as AI and 3D printing to generate jobs and drive inclusive and sustainable growth in the decades to come.
The world faces a stark challenge: meeting the needs of over 7 billion people without bankrupting the planet. India, with its large population and limited resources, is at the very epicentre of this challenge. It also offers a creative way out. Its resilient jugaad mindset, dynamic ecosystem of start-ups and enterprises, and the practice of NGOs and governments working together promises not only to meet its own requirements in a sustainable way but also the needs of billions around the world.
Packed with over fifty case studies, Do Better with Less offers six proven principles that Indian entrepreneurs and businesses can use to co-create frugal solutions in education, energy, healthcare, food and finance that are highly relevant to India and the world.
This book is India’s guide to claiming global leadership in frugal innovation.
A Necklace of Skulls
Eunice de Souza wrote poetry for over three decades. Her poems in collections such as Fix (1979), Women in Dutch Painting (1988) and Ways of Belonging (1990) have been critically acclaimed and reflect a strong sense of individuality and feminism. Compelling and succinct, they dwell on the themes of love, relationships and family. Through her poetry Eunice explores the dependency of lovers and the fraught relationships between parents and their children. She also examines the Roman Catholic community she grew up in, exposing it for its hypocrisy and conservatism. Relying on sound and rhythm, her well-chosen, hard-hitting words bring out her sharp, clear imagery. A Necklace of Skulls contains all the verse Eunice de Souza has published during her illustrious career, as also unpublished new and early poems. This is a profoundly intimate and intensely personal collection.
Ladies Coupe
The story of a woman’s search for strength and independence Meet Akhilandeshwari, Akhila for short: forty-five and single, an income tax clerk and a woman who has never been allowed to live her own life—always the daughter, the sister, the aunt, the provider. Until the day she gets herself a one-way ticket to the seaside town of Kanyakumari, gloriously alone for the first time in her life and determined to break free of all that her conservative Tamil brahmin life has bound her to. In the intimate atmosphere of the ladies coupe which she shares with five other women, Akhila gets to know her fellow travellers: Janaki, pampered wife and confused mother; Margaret Shanti, a chemistry teacher married to the poetry of elements and an insensitive tyrant too self-absorbed to recognize her needs; Prabha Devi, the perfect daughter and wife, transformed for life by a glimpse of a swimming pool; fourteen-year-old Sheela, with her ability to perceive what others cannot; and Marikolanthu, whose innocence was destroyed by one night of lust. As she listens to the women’s stories, Akhila is drawn into the most private moments of their lives, seeking in them a solution to the question that has been with her all her life: Can a woman stay single and be happy, or does a woman need a man to feel complete?
The Lost Rebellion
The Lost Rebellion is an acclaimed classic on the rise of Kashmir militancy, which chronicles how a simple call for azadi by bands of disgruntled youth was transformed within a year into a full-scale jihad against India. It dwells at length on Pakistan’s proxy war against India, exposes the US position on Kashmir and unsparingly critiques the political bungling and bureaucratic ineptitude that hamstrung the fight against insurgency.
This updated edition includes an insightful foreword by Amitabh Mattoo, a new introduction and a detailed aftermath chapter on what has transpired in the new millennium. Manoj Joshi reveals that although violence has come down drastically, there has been no closure to the nearly three-decade-old conflict. The alienation of the Kashmiris has, if anything, grown and is now manifesting itself in violent civil protest.
Raw, compelling and meticulously researched, The Lost Rebellion is a riveting account of the human drama that lies at the heart of the crisis that is Kashmir.
‘In its sheer wealth of detail it far surpasses anything that has been written so far’-Prem Shankar Jha
‘A compelling and breathtaking account’-Sumit Ganguly
‘The best book on the Kashmir militancy’-Ashok Banker
India’s Struggle For Independence
The definitive book on the Indian struggle for freedom by some of the most authoritative historians of modern India by best-selling author Bipin Chandra. Over 3,50,000 copies sold.
“Indispensable for students and for all those who want to know our past in order to understand the present” – Indian Express
India’s Struggle for Independence is the first and most reliable study of India’s epic struggle for freedom. This classic work begins with the abortive revolt against the British in 1857 and culminates in Indian Independence in 1947. Based on years of research as well as personal interviews with hundreds of freedom fighters, it presents a lucid and enduring view of the history of the period.
In The Name Of Democracy
An unusual and insightful perspective of Indian democracy’s dark hour
‘When Jayaprakash Narayan, the leader of the JP movement in north India, pressed for the resignation of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, it prompted her to impose internal Emergency. In this fascinating account, Bipan Chandra traces the events that led up to this moment and makes some startling revelations. He finds that there was a real danger of the JP movement turning fascist, given the fuzzy ideology of Total Revolution, its confused leadership and dependence on the RSS for its organization. At the same time, despite the authoritarianism inherent in the Emergency, particularly with the rising power of Sanjay Gandhi and his Youth Congress brigade, Indira Gandhi did end it and call for elections.
Finely argued, incisive and original, this book offers significant insight into those turbulent years and joins the ever-relevant debate on the acceptable limits of popular protest in a democracy.
The Lost Decade (2008-18)
Before the global financial meltdown of 2008, India’s economy was thriving and its
GDP growth was cruising at an impressive 8.8 per cent. The economic boom impacted
a large section of Indians, even if unequally. With sustained high growth over an extended
period, India could have achieved what economists call a ‘take-off’ (rapid and
self-sustained GDP growth). The global financial meltdown disrupted this
momentum in 2008.
In the decade that followed, each time the country’s economy came close to returning
to that growth trajectory, political events knocked it off course.
In 2019, India’s GDP is growing at the rate of 7 per cent, making it the fastest-growing
major economy in the world, but little on the ground suggests that Indians are actually
better off. Economic discontent and insecurity are on the rise, farmers are restive and
land-owning classes are demanding quotas in government jobs. The middle
class is palpably disaffected, the informal economy is struggling and big businesses
are no longer expanding aggressively.
India is not the star it was in 2008 and in effect, the ‘India growth story’ has devolved
into ‘growth without a story’. The Lost Decade tells the story of the slide
and examines the political context in which the Indian economy failed to recover
lost momentum.
The Election That Changed India
‘Splendid . . . anyone who wants to understand Indian politics or think they do should read it’ -Indian Express
‘Delightfully written . . . he has a sharp eye for details, especially the actions of political leaders’ –
India Today
‘Captures the drama of 2014 and the men who powered it’-Open
‘Holds you to your seat, often on the edge . . . A procession of India’s colourful political characters-Lalu Yadav, Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi and many more come intimately close through the author’s accounts’ –The Hindu
‘Candid and forthright . . . and deliciously indiscreet’ –Hindustan Times
‘A racy narrative that goes beyond recording immediate political history’ –Tehelka
The 2014 Indian general elections has been regarded as the most important elections in Indian history since 1977. It saw the decimation of the ruling Congress party, a spectacular victory for the BJP and a new style of campaigning that broke every rule in the political game. But how and why? In his riveting book, Rajdeep Sardesai tracks the story of this pivotal election through all the key players and the big news stories. Beginning with 2012, when Narendra Modi won the state elections in Gujarat for a third time but set his sights on a bigger prize, to the scandals that crippled Manmohan Singh and UPA-II, and moving to the back-room strategies of Team Modi, the extraordinary missteps of Rahul Gandhi and the political dramas of election year, he draws a panoramic picture of the year that changed India.