SUNDAY POST DEC 28th – JAN 3rd
Here are a few books that grabbed headlines in 2014:
The Hindus: An Alternative
Author: Wendy Doniger
The American Jewish Indologist’s take on Hindus and Hinduism has stirred up a hornet’s nest outraging Hindus around the world like never before. Her perspective about India, Indians, Vedic morals and Hindus is largely questioned as it has overtly sexualized the religion. Here are a few outrageous excerpts:
- If the motto of Watergate was “Follow the money,” the motto of the history of Hinduism could well be “Follow the monkey.”
- The mosque, whose serene calligraphic and geometric decoration contrasts with the perpetual motion of the figures depicted on the temple, makes a stand against the chaos of India, creating enforced vacuums that India cannot rush into with all its monkeys and peoples and colors and the smells of the bazaar and, at the same time, providing a flattering frame to offset that very chaos.
- When Lakshmana learns that Rama has been exiled, he says, “The king (Dasaratha) is perverse, old, and addicted to sex, driven by lust.”
- Rama thinks that sex is putting him in political danger (keeping his allegedly unchaste wife will make the people revolt), but in fact he has it backward: Politics is driving Rama to make a sexual and religious mistake; public concerns make him banish the wife he loves. Rama banishes Sita as Dasharatha has banished Rama. Significantly, the moment when Rama kicks Sita out for the second time comes directly after a long passage in which Rama makes love to Sita passionately, drinking wine with her, for many days on end; the banishment comes as a direct reaction against the sensual indulgence. (Page 153)
- “Gandhi was killed, apparently with those [Ram Rahim] on his lips…. The words are inscribed on a plaque near the place in Delhi where he was shot. There is much dispute as to whether he said “Ram Ram” or “Ram Rahim” when he died.” (page 446)
Book: One Life is Not Enough
Author: Natwar Singh
The writer is former External Affairs Minister and veteran Congress leader whose autobiography rocked the Congress party. An ultimate insider of the party from which he resigned in 2008 in the fallout of the Volcker oil-for-food report in 2005, his criticism of the Congress party didn’t go down well with Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh who reacted strongly disapproving of his book. The author painted Mrs Gandhi in the book as “deliberately capricious, authoritarian, obsessively secretive and suspicious…”. He also stated that “She has behaved like a prima donna”. What more, Mrs Gandhi even promised to return the favour by writing her own book. We are waiting with bated breath! His revealing of some behind-the-scene conversations was derided by Manmohan Singh. The writer didn’t even spare the former prime minister and called him “a decent though spineless man, who never stands up for his colleagues”.
The Accidental Prime Minister
Author: Sanjaya Baru
Though for many it was a reiteration of the widely accepted belief that Manmohan Singh was a weak Prime Minister, the book by Manmohan Singh’s former media advisor was severely criticized by the PMO which called it “baseless” and “mischievous”. It also made Singh’s daughter Upinder Singh to give a strong response. She accused Baru of “backstabbing” her father. Baru threw enough hints across his book to show Singh in a different light.
Crusader or Conspirator? Coalgate and other Truths
Author: PC Parakh
Close on the heels of Baru’s scathing attack on the former PM, came another blow to him when former Coal Sceretary P C Parakh released his book. Parakh didn’t mince his words while blaming Singh for the coal allocation scam. He alleged that Singh lacked authority in the government when he was leading it. Dotted with shocking disclosures about corporates and ministers, this book was a certain tell-tale.
The Dramatic Decade – The Indira Gandhi Years
Author: Pranab Mukherjee
Recently, President Pranab Mukherjee has inaugurated his first book in the intended trilogy of his political career. The page peels off the controversial Emergency years. “Indira Gandhi told me subsequently that she was not even aware of the Constitutional provisions allowing for the declaration of a state of Emergency on grounds of internal disturbance particularly since a state of Emergency had already been proclaimed as a consequence of Indo-Pak conflict in 1971,” writes the President in his book. However, many have called it “revealing” thought not “explosive”.