Ramachandra Guha re-kindled my schoolday fear of big, fat books, particularly history text books. When I did my first survey of the book I was to review I was struck by the mass of detail on every event of note in India since Independence. A ninety-page glossary and list of the sources from which he had mobilised information was mind-boggling.

Guha has always been a keen student of whatever catches his interest whether it be cricket, history or even Arundhati Roy (with whom he had a divergence of views on the Narmada Dam agitation).

He is a glutton for researched information and the evidence is seen in India after Gandhi. Almost every stage of the evolution of India from Independence to recent days has been traced in detail.

Admittedly the different themes that constitute the structure of the book have themselves, over the years, been the subject of many separate books by expert and not-so-expert authors. However Guha has, with his characteristic skill, chronicled all these themes and bolstered them with massive information.

The manipulation and manouvering that preceded India’s acquisition of its freedom, the posturing of the parties involved, the struggle within the British Government and Parliament, the pressures caused by the hopes and aspirations of individual leaders such as Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Jinnah, Mountbatten and a few of the princely rulers have all been described in considerable but engaging detail.

The Hyderabad and Kashmir episodes in particular, have been traced from beginning to end with copious references to statements, newspaper reports, letters etc which certainly held my interest. The blood-laden transmigration between India and Pakistan and the scars which lasted a long while have been effectively narrated.

The setting-up of the Constituent Assembly and the writing of the Constitution have laid the foundation of our democracy. The patriotism and wisdom of the authors of the Constitution, unfortunately, did not foresee the possibility of their historic document and its instruments being threatened with distortion and manipulation by later politicians for serving their own narrow purposes.

The Emergency was a classic example of this but it was the strength of the democracy envisaged in the Constitution that penalised Mrs Gandhi in the next election.

The Constitution has been amended several times for various reasons but, by and large, the institutions such as the higher judiciary and Election Commission have been able to protect the essentials of a democracy and keep the unholy aspirations of the politicians reasonably in check.

The transition of the country from a totally Congress governed one to a situation in which coalitions of national and regional parties govern the States has been well narrated by Guha. While this has created new and more stake-holders in the interests at the centre and the States it has undoubtedly been a speed-breaker in the matter of progress.

Splinter parties have acquired an unexpected power to form and influence governments. It is almost comical that the Leftists in India wield so much power in affairs of state and oppose any change when they have tilted to the right everywhere else in the world.

Good and the bad

Guha has been at pains to find the logic behind the many regional disputes and problems that dog the country today.

The Naxalites, dissidents in the North Eastern states, the seemingly eternal problem of Kashmir are all diverting the attention of the top-level political and civil service functionaries from developmental work to fire-fighting activities. Yet, there has been progress on the economic front and the country has succeeded in capturing the attention of the developed world.

It goes to the credit of our founding fathers and their wisdom that India has not seen political and military coups, ethnic cleansing etc which have taken place around us.

I cannot do better to end my review than by quoting Guha’s words in concluding the Epilogue.
He says, “Speaking now of India, the nation-state, one must insist that the future lies not in the hands of God but in the mundane works of men. So long as the Constitution is not amended beyond recognition, so long as elections are held regularly and fairly and the ethos of secularism broadly prevails, so long as citizens can speak and write in the language of their choosing, so long as there is an integrated market and a moderately efficient civil service and army... India will survive.”

I commend his book to those who need a book of reference or who have a deep interest— and plenty of time— to read a readable version of the history of post-independent India. 

India After Gandhi — The History of the World’s Largest Democracy
Ramachandra Guha
Picador, 2007, pp 900, Rs 695.