Seven new non-fiction books that narrate histories, previous and up to date, of India and its folks

A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir After Article 370, Anuradha Bhasin

On August 5, 2019, the standing of Jammu and Kashmir was altered by revoking Articles 370 and 35A, constitutional clauses that gave the area a sliver of autonomy since its accession to India in 1947. On the bottom within the erstwhile state, the future of 1.4 crore Indian residents had been determined whereas they have been cocooned of their houses, trapped between concertina wires and barricades.

The house minister introduced, “Not a drop of blood was shed,” whilst officers outlined Kashmir’s deafening silence as “keen acceptance.” The silence was accompanied by elevated navy presence in what was already some of the militarised zones of the world. Roads have been sealed, the web suspended and communication delivered to a halt. Kashmir grew to become a struggle zone at nighttime.

Considered one of Kashmir’s foremost journalists brings readers the true image of what occurred within the Kashmir Valley after August 2019. Traversing historical past and geographies, and based mostly on eyewitness accounts from a variety of individuals, it tells the story of a land India desperately needs to make its personal.

The Final Heroes: Foot Troopers of Indian Freedom, P Sainath

So who actually spearheaded India’s freedom wrestle? The lesser identified reality is that thousands and thousands of bizarre folks – farmers, labourers, homemakers – stood as much as the British. Individuals who by no means went on to be ministers, governors, presidents. Nor did they maintain different excessive public workplaces. That is what that they had in widespread: their opposition to Empire was uncompromising.

In The Final Heroes, these footsoldiers of Indian freedom inform us their tales. The boys, ladies, and kids featured on this ebook are Adivasis, Dalits, OBCs, Brahmins, Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus. They hail from totally different areas, communicate totally different languages and embody atheists and believers, Leftists, Gandhians and Ambedkarites.

The folks featured pose the intriguing query, “What’s freedom?” and what it means to be actually impartial.

Don’t Ahead That Textual content!: Confronting Thirty Items of Historic Misinformation: Separating Myths from Historical past on Social Media, Amit Schandillia

With entry to huge quantities of data only a click on away, it’s changing into more and more troublesome to tell apart verifiable info from faux information and made-up historical past. The sheer quantity of untrustworthy info on the market usually overwhelms even probably the most earnest diligent fact-checkers. The road between historical past and delusion is being intentionally – and sometimes maliciously – blurred. Outdated superstitions are making a comeback and new ones are being manufactured on an industrial scale – a harmful development that has far-reaching ramifications.

Don’t Ahead That Textual content! makes an attempt to stanch this phenomenon with logic, purpose and irrefutable analysis.

Indian Christmas: Essays, Reminiscences, Hymns, edited by Jerry Pinto and Madhulika Liddle

Few international locations rejoice spiritual and cultural festivals with better ardour, creativeness and pleasure than India. And among the many many festivals of this gloriously numerous, multicultural nation is Christmas. The Christian communities of India rejoice the delivery of Christ with meals, music, lights, prayer, household gatherings, charity, and different age-old traditions, a few of which have developed over virtually two millennia. And for hundreds of years, different communities have additionally participated within the celebration of this Indian competition – its cheer and spirit of affection as resilient, even in occasions of division, as India itself.

This anthology captures the distinctive magic of Christmas in India. Damodar Mauzo, Vivek Menezes, Easterine Kire, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, Elizabeth Kuruvilla, Jane Borges, and Mary Sushma Kindo, amongst others, write about Christmas traditions and celebrations in Goa, Nagaland, Kerala, Delhi, Ranchi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Shillong, and rural Jharkhand. Arul Cellaturai writes tender poems within the Pillaitamil custom to the moon about Child Jesus, and Punjabi singers compose tappe-boliyan about Mary and her toddler. There are Mughal miniatures depicting the delivery of Jesus, and work by Jyoti Sahi and Sister Marie Claire impressed by folks artwork. And photographers seize photographs of Christmas time in Aizawl, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Kochi. It is a homage to India’s ‘chutnified’ Christmas celebrations.

The Fractured Himalaya: India, Tibet, China, 1949-62, Nirupama Rao

Why did India and China go to struggle in 1962? What propelled Jawaharlal Nehru’s “imaginative and prescient” of China? Why is it vital to know the trans-Himalayan energy play of India and China within the formative interval of their nationhoods? The previous shadows the current on this relationship and shapes present coverage choices, strongly influencing public debate in India to today.

Nirupama Rao, a former International Secretary of India, unknots this intensely advanced saga of the early years of the India-China relationship. As a diplomat-practitioner, Rao’s telling is predicated not solely on archival materials from India, China, Britain and america, but in addition on a deep private data of China, the place she served as India’s Ambassador. As well as, she brings a practitioner’s eager eye to the labyrinth of negotiations and official interactions that befell between the 2 international locations from 1949 to 1962.

For, ln Your Tongue, l Can’t Match: Encounters with Jail, edited by Shilpa Gupta and Salil Tripathi

Conceived in dialogue with artist Shilpa Gupta’s multimedia set up, the ebook brings collectively most of the poets featured within the set up – each considered one of them persecuted for his or her phrases. It’s an immersive expertise, that includes illustrations and pictures alongside the written items. This anthology that speaks reality to energy and is a testomony to resilience and the eternal energy of phrases.

The Tech Phoenix: Satyam’s 100-Day Turnaround, TN Manoharan and V Pattabhi Ram

On the morning of January 7, 2009, India and the worldwide IT group watched in horror as a letter written by the chairman of Satyam Computer systems, B Ramalinga Raju, flashed on all information channels.
The tech czar confessed to fixing the books for years collectively, audits however. This led to a number of penalties – Satyam inventory costs crashed, its massive worker base was deeply affected, and most significantly, India’s status as a premier IT service supplier was sullied.

Nonetheless, the story doesn’t finish there. The truth is, in some methods, the story solely begins at this level. The federal government swiftly stepped in and nominated a board, with main figures from numerous fields. TN Manoharan, considered one of these board members, narrates the occasions of the tumultuous 100 days instantly following Raju’s letter, in what’s the quickest turnaround in company historical past.