The Last Liberal and Other Essays by Ramachandra Guha (PDF)

Description

I call myself a Nehruvian Indian [and] I like to think that the term “Nehruvian Indian” captures more than my own c.v.’, says Ramachandra Guha in his Introduction to this sparkling collection of essays. His book is a meditation on how a large area of contemporary India’s cultural and intellectual life has in fact been fashioned by exceptional individuals who have, in diverse ways, imbibed the spirit of liberalism, secularism, personal integrity and social commitment—values which Guha associates with both Nehru and Gandhi. Guha’s heroes and heroines include environmentalists and social activists, teachers and scholars, scientists and writers, politicians and bureaucrats. Quietly purposeful and publicity-shy figures—such as Chandi Prasad Bhatt (the ‘father’ of the Chipko Movement) and Satish Dhawan (the ‘father’ of the Indian space programme)—are described and discussed in finely crafted pieces, as are others whose career and achievements have been more public and prominent—such as Madras’s C.Rajagopalachari and Nepal’s B.P. Koirala, Karnataka’s Shivarama Karanth and New Delhi’s Anil Agarwal. Two essays look at the spell cast by Nehru on a couple of Indians who would not normally be thought of in connection with him, namely Nirad C. Chaudhuri and Atal Bihari Vajpayee; a related essay looks at ‘ideas of India’ in books by writers with cosmopolitan rather than chauvinistic perspectives. Intellectually influential Indians, such as the economic-historian Dharma Kumar, the writer-publisher Sujit Mukherjee, and the pedagogue-critic T.G. Vaidyanathan, are memorably etched in essays on them. So are important journals such as the Economic and Political Weekly and the Indian Economic and Social History Review. Other essays feature influential foreigners, such as theMarxist cricket-writer C.L.R. James, and the revolutionary authoritarians Joseph Stalin of the USSR and V. Prabhakaran of Sri Lanka’s LTTE.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Guha writes with ease and eloquence about people and places big and small. A true delight to read and consistently insightful.

⭐You just have to pick up the book , if you have a title like that assigned especially in the context of a nation at crossroads with every constituency/community screaming for its own share of the pie. The introduction is one area which I normally skip , but this one is just as interesting in laying down the philosophy of the book in general , a Nehruvian inclusivism and broad mindedness vis a vis the narrow minded focus of our current leadership.Ramachandra Guha boasts of an erudite background that lends itself to a broad understanding of issues pertaining to India. Its admiring to see the diverse range of topics that he handles – Cricket, the environment and I eagerly await the book on the History of Independent India that has been in the worksGetting back to the book , the writing isn’t great with some of the supporting anecdotes leading nowhere, but what can’t be faulted is the sincerity of the idea. The facts are well laid out and its very easy to flow with the narrative. Some of the essays are gems -“The Tigers in the Alps” is a really good insight into the Sri Lankan Tamil community in exile (the commitment to a debatable cause, the push to retain a culture in an alien environment); You can’t help but admire the spunk in Chandi Prasad Bhatt’s Chipko movement – it shatters the notion that environmentalism is a preserve of the rich; there is the tragedy of C Rajagopalchari’s role in post independence India. In all being the first book that I have read of this author, I’d definitely recommend this to anyone seeking to delve beyond the usual bromides of Indian History

⭐Very nice read

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