Abstract
India is a land of contradictions. The struggle between rural and urban, rich and poor, majority and minority, modernity and tradition, spiritualism and materialism, diversity and communalism and regionalism and nationalism, to mention just a few, have all been an integral part of the lived reality of an average Indian citizen. It is this contradiction that the author has tried to capture in the book, interestingly titled The Trishanku Nation, after the name of a mythological king who, in his quest for reaching heaven in his mortal body, had to settle for a place mid-air.
This state of ‘neither this nor that’ faced by Indian society stems from the peculiar experience of development in the Indian case, which keeps the citizens dangling between the seemingly contrary pulls of modernity, rationalisation, globalisation and secularism, on one hand, and tradition, spirituality, regionalism and fundamentalism, on the other hand. The book is written in the form of nine essays, each dealing with a particular set of paradoxes that contemporary Indian society faces.
The first two chapters trace the author’s journey from everyday life in a mofussil (neither urban nor rural, much like the Trishanku) to life in a metropolitan city (with the society here still in transition and resembling the rural more than the urban). Chapters 3–5 discuss the important events which have shaped India’s history ranging from the evolution of the constitution to development of the political system and the economic model of development. In the next three chapters, the author brings out the dichotomies of knowledge and education (chapter 6), religion and reason (chapter 7) and scientific advances and equitable development (chapter 8) which plague Indian society. In the final chapter, the author suggests ways and means for Indian society to come to terms with its realities.
At the outset Deepak Kumar states, ‘History need not always be instructive; it can be a fun way to unwind’ (p. x). This line describes in the best possible way what the book seeks to do and successfully achieves. Written in an engaging and witty tone, the author manages to seamlessly interweave his individual experiences with the social realities, political understandings and dominant international discourses of the time. He thereby provides the reader with more nuanced and engaging understandings of the oft-repeated history.
The book is thus an engaging read for both students and academics alike for the insights it offers into contemporary Indian society. Given the readable and gripping language, it would also be an interesting text for anyone interested in understanding contemporary Indian society in relation to its past.