Does a country shaped by cross cultural overlaps where laughing with is preferred to laughing at and talking to is given priority to talking at still unwind itself in the soothing power of plurality? It is the specific question related to India that is seamlessly being debated by all those who assert that India is as much as an ideology of immersive cultural aspirations as it is a geographical entity. Much hyped narrative of homogeneity cannot stamp out the unending celebration of human plurality.
This is what has come through an exceptional book comprising 37 articles that provide an exhaustive and nuanced account of the multitudes of forces that construct India’s current narrative of empowerment.
Titled “India Now and in Transition, it is edited by Atul K. Thakur, a well-known author and public policy analyst. It seeks to chart out the interrogative and dialogical ethos of India manifested in politics, economic, culture, social relations, culture, linguistic diversity, literary and epistemological discourse.
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Skilfully divided into five equally significant sections, the book, published by Niyogi Books recently brings forth a searching and perceptive analysis of immediate and ultimate concerns of a nation that completed 70 years of its independence after a long spell of subjugation.
Delineating the primary objective of the book, Atul makes a pertinent point that “what the book intends is not a prognosis (which is often confused with prediction) but, rather, an inquiry into future based on current happenings.” The last two sections of the book zero in on society and culture and language and literature in which a sustained effort is made to understand the growing primacy of emotional response to concrete facts and acceptance of the social media as the purveyor of truth. Novels and poetry in Indian languages no longer long for global audience and hardly accept English as an inspirational reality.
Mapping out the terrain of the Indian novel today: Existing and emerging paradigms Namrata Rathore and Banibrata Mahanta assert “the Indian novel has come a long way since its first day. Wrought in turn by colonisation of the country, independence and the myriad developments that ensued within the country, it is in present times significantly impacted by political, social and cultural changes occasioned by globalisation, economic liberalisation and the concurrent refashioning of the idea of India.”
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Textured narratives
Indian novels are richly textured narratives that wipe out the miasma of glorified puritanical inhibitions and perceptive reality takes precedence over hyper reality that the galore of mass media and digital technology produces. Lived moments betray long term creative engagement with the values that go hand in hand with Indian dream of calmness, tranquillity and mutual understandings
For Tabish Khair, contemporary Indian English poetry denotes a conscious balance of the written and the spoken word that one finds in much of modern literature. Dapin Halder’s findings validate the cliché that subaltern voice is being stifled in the cacophony of the 24/7 news channels and it owes much to rise of Hindutva
The first three sections of the book turn attention on all that a strong bearing on what essentially constitutes India with marked cerebral prowess. The graphic and nuanced account is created from the sum of life experience and one can enjoy the pleasure of the writings notable thinkers and authors including Ramchandra Guha, Shashi Tharoor, Robin Jeffery, Rasheed Kidwai, TSR Subramanian, Wajahat Habibullah, Chanderhas Chaudhary, Manu Joseph, Reetika Khera, Omair Ahmad, Vinod Rai, Jaithirth Rao, and Namrata Goswami.
Aditya Mani Jha and Rini Barman express bewilderment at the fragmenting effects of the functioning of the CBFC.
Atul meticulously produces a portfolio that makes it clear that India by and large has been a font of peace and cultural hybridity and the scourge of uniformity is still kept at bay.