Category: Book Review & Summary

Review of An era of Darkness

After finishing this book, I can say that it is true that the British era was really an Era of Darkness for India and its people. The British government did not do anything good for us. Whatever looked promising and progressive at that time, there has been hidden agenda behind that. Their only aim  was to extract as much as they can from India. It was really not a “British” but “Brutish” empire of India.

They have looted India, pushed it towards deindustrialization, impoverishment, famine and poverty. They have drained our resources to the extent that India is still not able to come out from the dreaded poverty.

They practiced the policy of ” Divide and Rule” to divide the diverse and fuzzy society of India. It ultimately led to partition of the country. Not only this, they have communalised our history. They divided us by identifying Indians through census, giving various identities to people when in India, people have multiple and complex identies. They helped in reinforcing the divisive identities among the people.

Though they were fair in skin,but they were never fair in their approach. They not only practiced extreme racism but also extreme brutality. For instance, The Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre is a grim reminder of this fact.

They have also contributed a lot in the colonization of Indian minds. They were like our ” intimate enemy” as said by various postcolonial authors. We have imbibed their ideas so much that when we oppose them, it seems that we are opposing to ourselves. We are overwhelmingly hegemonized by their ideas and beliefs that we are not able to see the dividing line. In fact, even after Independence, we have number of colonial legacies in the form of laws, attitude of bureaucracy, functioning of government etc.

However, In the last seven decades of Independence, Indians are turning their colonial legacies for their own advantages and taking the country towards prosperity and recognition. In the present time, manyIndians are established their mark and Indian has become the fastest growing economy of the world. Not only this we have become the first country to send Mars Mission in our maiden attempt. It is really astonishing that when India and its people becoming prosperous, UK is exiting European Union which is popularly known as “Brexit“. In fact, we could have progressed in different as well as better manner if British would have not colonized us for such a long time for their rapacious motives.

However, as author of the book also agrees that they were not the only who are responsible for our domination but our kings, nobles and other high class people did not stop them in effective manner to colonize us till the Indian National Movement was launched in the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. However, here we should not forget the role played by common masses in India’s struggle for Independence.

Land of the Seven Rivers by Sanjeev Sanyal

Started reading this book. I will post the review of the book after finishing the book.

Now  read almost half of the book. When I started reading this book, I didn’t know that this book is about history. I pre-judged this book by the title of the book. That is why it is said that don’t judge any book by its cover. Don’t judge any person by his outward manifestation. By the way, this book is about history from geographical point of view. He has thrown some interesting insights:

  • About the mythical sarawati. According to him, the saraswati and ghaggar were same rivers. And saraswati was one of the most revered rivers of the time.
  • Something more astonishing was that he argues that Harrapan and Vedic people were same on the basis of various factors.
  • According to him, the Harrapan civilisation declined because of the drying of River Ghaggar and other natural changes in the environment and climate including the tectonic shifts.
  • As agreed by various historians as well as archeologists, many traits of Harrapan culture have survived till today.
  • One interesting thing he also highlighted that migration in the continent was not only one sided but it was multi directional and for multi purposes.
  • And most insightful view was about lion and tiger. I never saw the history from the perspective of lions and tigers. We really studied about the Harrapan seals on which various animals were inscribed and also about Ashokan pillars full of lions. But seeing Lion as a symbol of royal power and bravery was new for me. In fact, they were important in the stories of mythical kings but if we closely observe they are still playing an important role in symbolising the civilisation values of our country through our national emblems.
  • He also says through this book that how geographical factors are important in shaping the history and culture of the people in the Indian subcontinent.
  • The mapping of India also play an important role in creating conditions for spreading the information about its prosperity.
  • He concludes his book talking about the issue of urbanisation and the most insightful for me was that his view about slums. According to him, slums are evolving ecosystem s and play an important role as routers in the urbanisation process. Slums are very much part of the dynamics of any burstling city since Harrapan civilisation. He gives example of Chandigarh and Gurgaon to explain the rigid planning excluding the poor people and the chaotic and dynamic city creating jobs respectively. Here Chandigarh is a well planned city but it has no space for poor migrants and the areas of slum. Another the city of Gurgaon,which is a dynamic city providing jobs and opportunities to the poor migrants and also create space for evolving slum areas.
  • After this he discussed about the Indian diaspora and shared civilisation identity of the people separated from long distances and time.

In fact, he has written a nice book summarising the whole history of India in few pages with personal touch.

Review of The Great Derangement: Climate Change and unthinkable by Amitav Ghosh

I decided to read this book when I was studying for mains examination. I read about the concept of radical ecology in the sections related to climate justice and problems related to the environment. In this concept, authors questioned the idea of capitalism itself and argued that contemporary capitalism is the cause of today’s climate change. In fact,  Noami Klien who calls capitalism as ” disaster capitalism ” argues strongly against the greed based capitalism of western countries which is responsible for the current crisis. In the same line, Amitav Ghosh also questions the basis of an idea which is a dominant narrative in the present world. He not only pinpoints the role of capitalism but also the role of imperialism and empire building in third world countries which spread the dominant narrative to other parts of the world. I really found one interesting thing that it is the thinking like we must have cars, sea-facing bungalow etc to become modern. It is changing the thinking of the Asian people who were earlier believed in living with harmony of nature.

In fact, he also indicates that the great derangement we have built in our life. The North-South divide is a reflection as well as the cause of this problem. He also points out the role played by the artists and writers in highlighting the concerns related to climate change. The issue of climate change rarely emerges in the dominant narrative of literature or movies.

Most importantly,  he has something radical to say about the recent much celebrated Paris Climate Agreement. According to him, “Paris goal as an impossible goal that merely facilitates neo-liberal world order to enrich itself via business opportunities in renewables”. He also says beautifully that these are chains of casualty whose ends we can not see.