After a long wait of almost sixty years a book is finally here to acquaint not only Indians but readers all over the world, to the history of India that took place after 1947. Most historians seem to draw a line and mark the end of Indian history soon after gaining independence. Ramachandra Guha for the first time writes compellingly of the myriad protests and conflicts that have augmented the history of free India.
Tuesday saw the release of Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi infront of a packed audience at the ITC Windsor Sheraton. The book was released by Nandan Nilekani, CEO, Infosys who was all praises for the author. He commended Guha’s hard work and the research that had gone into the writing of this book. He highlighted the fact that the book gives a panoramic view of the events that followed independence, in an indealogical manner.
Guha, has written on a wide array of subjects ranging from a social history on cricket, global history of environmentalism to biographies of an athropologist- activist. While writing this book,he was greatly influenced by the views of C S Venkatachar, one of India’s finest civil servants.
The book contains a sociological analysis of the events that lead to India becoming the world’s biggest democracy and the events that shaped it thereafter. It also discusses “the public lives of those figures who articulated and moderated India’s conflicts.” According to the author his entire career ,seems in retrospect to have been an extended preparation for the writing of India After Gandhi.