Siddhartha Deb

A hell of a day to finish a book like this.

This collection of essays—lucid, by turns grim and shocking—by Indian journalist Siddhartha Deb explores different facets of the authoritarian Modi regime, and how it both fuels and is fuelled by religious nationalist fundamentalism. The trafficking of young girls is hushed up and excused as an example of Hinduization; adherents of Hindutva ideology are convinced that two thousand years ago, Indians had aircraft possibly capable of interstellar show more travel; and the wealthy toe the Modi line in the hopes of getting wealthier.

An Indian colleague of mine has been grimly convinced in the past few years that it won't be long before the intermittent pogroms and low-grade discrimination against Indian Muslims or other ethnic minorities in the country escalates to full-on genocide. Based on what Deb recounts here, and what the world looks like in November 2024, I fear my colleague may be a Cassandra.

We turn our back on the better angels to embrace the worser spirits. show less

Amrit is a washed-up Calcutta journalist who doesn't even have the energy to be cynical. He stumbles across a photograph and becomes intrigued by the story behind it - which he believes might give him his big break, a story he could sell to foreign newsmagazines. This leads to a trek up to "the region", which remains unnamed throughout the book, but is an insurgent-ridden area of Northeast India close to the Burmese border. As he gets closer to the story, the details become increasingly show more blurred and murky, and his task begins to seem futile.

The most striking thing about the book is the atmosphere - of corruption and compromise, failure and futility. The spirit of the story lives in the flickering light of a cheap, decaying hotel. The local administrative officer, far from his Keralan home, spends his evenings alone in his vast, dusty residence and travels to his chaotic office through streets which are deserted but for the soldiers who are there to put down the insurgency.

This contrasts with the bright-futured image of India that some of the book's characters live in, or at least aspire to. This is a small part of the book - but since the main theme is the power of the image over the reality, you have to wonder whether Deb is making a wider point about the country.

The thriller side of the story doesn't work so well - it's not entirely plausible, and it loses energy towards the end. But I would still highly recommend the book - and, since it was Deb's debut effort, I'll definitely try and get hold of his others. show less

The book is confusing, fascinating and enlightening. I love the mystery and connection between four different time periods in India. There is a strong presentation of the inequity and lack of power of the poor.

I didn't realize when I picked this up that it's a collection of previously published essays, so there's some duplication between them and not one clear narrative. But I learned a lot about the context of what's happening in India with the rise of Modi and Hindu nationalism.