The Hindu On Books

Dr. Sneh Bhargava, AIIMS Delhi’s first and still only woman director, shares her vivid memories of October 31, 1984: the day Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot and rushed into AIIMS while Dr. Bhargava’s appointment was being confirmed. In this podcast, Dr. Bhargava describes the chaos in the casualty ward, the desperate medical efforts to revive Mrs. Gandhi, and the political pressures that fol...

The book brings in granular detail about the Awadh Nawabs, their political history, culture and their struggle with the British. It also captures the echoes of the French and English rivalry in the Indian courts, chronicling the various French men who worked in Awadh, Delhi and Mysore. Equally it is a story of two powerful women- Nawab Begum and Bahu Begum, who assert their agency both in laying d...

In the 20th century, free market economists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek argued that a limited government that allows markets to flourish can lead a country down the road to economic prosperity.  But in his latest book "The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society", American economist and 2001 Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz argues that we should not place too much faith i...

Tim Walker took to writing children’s novels at the age of 45 and became popular with his series of action-adventure stories published as a trilogy in 2007. The books -- Shipley Manor, The Flying Fizzler and Rise of the Rattler – unbottled his thoughts on everything, from corporate greed to religious extremism. The award winning designer-turned author has now published his second book, which has a...

Each year, some of the brightest young Indians join the civil services with the desire to serve the nation. But very soon they find out the steep challenges ahead as they need to battle, among other things, politicians who have other interests to serve. In "Just A Mercenary?: Notes from my Life and Career", former RBI Governor Duvvuri Subbarao chronicles his journey as a civil servant and offers a...

It has been over 75 years since India attained independence and became the world's largest democracy. But there is still a huge unfinished task that is holding back India's economic growth potential, and that is the task of strengthening the capacity of the Indian state to deliver public goods and services to citizens, argues Karthik Muralidharan, the Tata Chancellor's professor of economics at th...

He started writing his first novel at the age of 17. When he was 23, he won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for The Room on the Roof. In his mid-20s, he returned to India and continued to do what he loved best — writing — while trying to make a living with other jobs. But, finally, he retreated to the place he was most at home — the hills of northern India — and continued to write. Yes, we are talki...

Celebrated as the Dalit History Month, April is the time to reflect upon Dalit literature. There are many books in multiple Indian languages that raise issues related to caste and casteist patriarchy, oppression of the marginalised communities and their quest for equality. The Dalit history month was started in India in 2015 by a group of young women activists who came together to assert their rig...

Ram Vilas Paswan was a steady presence in national politics for more than four decades. He has held Cabinet posts in several governments, including stints in key ministries such as Railways and Telecom. He is one of the faces associated with the historic implementation of the Mandal Commission report on OBC reservations. As someone adept at sensing shifts in political climate before others could,...

Brinda Karat has been working with the CPI(M) for the last 53-years. And this memoir by her is primarily about the ten-years from imposition of emergency in 1975 till 1985 when she lived under the assumed name of Rita. It is also a story of a young upper middle class girl, who left her job with Air India in London to join the communist movement and struggles of working as a woman activist & politi...

Most of us would remember the sudden shortage of semiconductor chips during the pandemic – how it affected automobile manufacturing, delaying deliveries, and in many cases, even caused manufacturers to deliver cars without some features. But semiconductors form an integral component of not just cars but almost any high tech device we use today – from smartphones and laptops to televisions, satelli...

What are black holes? Mainstream physics sees them as Universe’s ultimate agents of death; afterall, what crosses over beyond the rim of the black hole – or its event horizon as it is known – disappears forever. Even all pervasive light cannot escape it. Science also shows that the universe is littered with billions upon billions of enormous black holes, capable of swallowing entire galaxies. But...

Did you know that women were barred from public gallery of the British Parliament. Some 245 years back in 1778 women were thrown out of the public gallery of the House of Common. Fighting against their exclusion, the women began to listen in to the proceedings sitting close to the to the ventilator-shafts of the Parliament. And they continued to do this for 56-years, till the British Parliament wa...

This week we are discussing "Empire Building-The Construction of British India 1690-1860. The book traces the journey of East India Company, from 1690 when they occupied Calcutta to 1860 a little after the great uprising that led to their demise. There have been several books on the East India Company, but what sets this one apart is the emphasis on the granular details and taking a closer look th...

Author and journalist Samrat Choudhury’s third book comes at the time Manipur is front and centre of the national conversation. The current fault lines between hill and valley, ethnic loyalties that transcend borders inherited from the colonial state, attacks and reprisals are all a bequest of what he says are larger historical issues that have remained unresolved.  Northeast India — A Political H...

In this episode, we are discussing the new book "The Importance of Shinzo Abe: India, Japan and the Indo Pacific", a collection of essays, edited by Sanjaya Baru, examining the legacy of the former Japanese leader who was the country's longest serving Prime Minister in history. Abe stepped down in 2020 citing health reasons, and his shock assassination in 2022 stunned the world. In this podcast, w...

A lot of people love travelling. Typically, people travel for three reasons: to see new places, to experience new cultures, and to get away from their daily routine. There is a fourth kind of traveller, who is not talked about much -- the one who travels to eat animals and birds they’ve never eaten before, to drink brews and beers they’ve never drunk before, and then, to tell the rest of the world...

In 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Bahujan Samaj Party that originated from a rare Dalit movement in North India in 1984, reached its lowest ebb winning just one seat and garnering merely 12.9 percent votes. With the general elections less than a year away, it raises an important question, what is the future for BSP and Dalit politics in Uttar Pradesh. In this episode, we speak to the autho...

In this episode of On Book Podcast with The Hindu, we are joined by Arati Kumar-Rao, an artist, photographer and author of 'Marginlands', a book that chronicles a decade of travels to fringes of the subcontinent that journalism often leaves unexplored: the mangroves of the Sundarbans, the Thar desert and the tidepools of Goa.  In this podcast, Kumar-Rao talks about how she discovers a desert full...

We are living through an era of immense political and social turmoil. People have thought the same in many past eras too. But still, the enormity of the present is something that we cannot overlook. Assumptions about our collective self that evolved over decades have been challenged, and we seem to be in the search for alternative organizing principles. This is true for India, as is for the whole...

In this episode of On Book Podcast with The Hindu, we are joined by Yogesh Maitreya a leading independent Dalit publisher, writer and poet.  We are discussing his memoir, ‘Water In A Broken Pot’- where he recounts his life journey growing up in a working-class family with meagre wages to starting publishing house - Panther's Paw Publication from the hostel room of Tata Institute of Social Sciences...

The War Diary of Asha-san: From Tokyo to Netaji’s Indian National Army is based on the diary Asha-san wrote in Japanese while growing up in Japan during the World War II. The English translation published by HarperCollins, is not a simple memoir but a book rich in history that also tells the story of the Indian National Army and the freedom movement.   At 17, she lived her dream -- of meeting Bose...

In over more than 30 books about Russia, author Mark Galeotti has uncovered and explained the factors behind the rise of President Vladimir Putin, and his remarkable successes in wars, ranging from the attack on terrorism in Chechnya amid the post-Soviet chaos to the invasion of Ukraine last February. His latest book Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine follows a prescient 2019 book, We Need to...

‘Nation branding’ has replaced ‘nation building’ these days, Ravinder Kaur argues in her fascinating and provocative book, ‘Brand New Nation.’ She explains how India blends cultural and material factors to build its global identity, and how this branding efforts impact domestic politics.

As the title, Violent Fraternity: Indian Political Thought in the Global Age, suggests, Shruti Kapila’s latest book deals with fraternity, violence and sovereignty. Her core argument is that violence has not been as distant from India’s politics as we have been told. In this episode, Kapila talks about the role of violence in the making of the Indian republic. Zeroing in on the ‘power of ideas’ in...