All information sourced from publishers.
Hedgewar, Sachin Nandha
Hedgewar chronicles the untold story of the enigmatic founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), whose vision for India’s cultural revival continues to shape the nation’s socio-political landscape. Through meticulous research and vivid storytelling, this biography traces Hedgewar’s journey from an orphaned child in colonial India to the mastermind behind one of the world's most secretive organisations.
Set against the backdrop of a country grappling with colonial rule, rising communal tensions, and the complexities of modernity, this book opens a window to Hedgewar’s philosophy of cultural nationalism, his challenges with contemporaries like Gandhi, Nehru and Savarkar, and his transformative leadership. It also explores his inner struggles to make sense of his own critique of Hindu society. This book is a window into the labyrinth of India’s civilisational ethos, offering a nuanced perspective on the RSS’s origins and its impact on India today.
Rubber: The Social and Natural History of an Indispensable Substance, Vidya Rajan
The Aztecs and the Mayas believed that rubber possessed immense cosmic significance. Today, it is an indispensable and omnipresent part of human society. But how did the journey of the substance take the turns that it did, transforming it from an object of amusing curiosity to one of necessity?
Vidya Rajan takes us back in time to the Mesoamerican civilisation when rubber extracted from trees was used for a surprising variety of purposes: from playing an early version of football to making waterproof footwear. She tells us about the patent wars that it sparked. Of how the demand for rubber triggered a terrible, gory exploitation of the native populations of the Amazon Basin and the Congo – regions where rubber trees were found in abundance. Of how rubber came into existence at all, over aeons of existential struggle between plants and animals, and how it shaped them both.
Celebration and Prayer: Life and Light in Raza’s Art, Ashok Vajpeyi
Sayed Haider Raza is acknowledged as one of India’s modern masters. Born in a small village in Madhya Pradesh, he moved to Mumbai as a young artist, soaking in its pre-Independence cosmopolitan milieu. In the 1950s, he moved to France, where he remained for sixty years, developing his worldview as an artist and thinker, creating some of his most celebrated works of art, including the iconic “Bindu”. It was here that he realised the strength of his connection to his motherland, and went deeper and deeper into Indian thought and metaphysics. All of this was expressed in his abstract art, in works that have gone on to define the very summit of the modern Indian art movement – “Prakriti-Purush”, “Panchtattva”, “Aarambh”, “Shanti”, the entire “Bindu” series, and so many more.
In this book, poet Ashok Vajpeyi, one of Raza’s closest friends, writes about Raza the man and the artist. He describes certain episodes from Raza’s life that propelled his evolution as a painter and examines in detail the philosophy that permeated his art – an inclusive, deeply spiritual, poetic perspective that grew and got refined over the artist’s long life. Vajpeyi also takes key works by Raza, like the “Bindu”, the Gandhi set and “Maa”, and delves into the process of their creation. And we hear Raza himself – on his work and philosophy – in a long interview that Vajpeyi did with him on the occasion of the artist’s eightieth birthday.
The Nehru Years: An International History of Indian Non-Alignment, Swapna Kona Nayudu
What is non-alignment? How is it different from multi-alignment or strategic diversification? Is it just an outdated form of Cold War foreign policy? Scholars of international relations, political thought, and India’s international and diplomatic history are increasingly interested in the relevance of non-alignment to Indian foreign policy. The origins of such policies and debates can be traced back to Jawaharlal Nehru’s conceptualisation of non-alignment at the height of the Cold War.
In this study of his years as prime minister (1947–1964), Swapna Kona Nayudu utilises archival research in multiple languages to uncover Indian diplomatic influence in four major international events: the Korean War, the Suez Crisis, the Hungarian Revolution, and the Congo Crisis. Through this detailed examination, she explores the contested meaning of non-alignment, a policy almost unique in its ambiguity and its centrality to a nation’s political life.
The resulting international history takes on one of the most controversial concepts in the history of modern India and gives us a study of India’s diplomatic position as the only non-aligned founding member of the United Nations.
Akashvani: A Century of Stories from All India Radio, Vikrant Pande and Neelesh Kulkarni
For decades, All India Radio or Akashvani, India’s national broadcaster, has been “the sound of India”. Be it Jawaharlal Nehru’s iconic “Tryst with Destiny” speech, shows such as Binaca Geetmala, cricket matches, and movies, AIR has been and continues to be the primary source for programmes on news, entertainment and knowledge for many Indians. But there are innumerable fascinating stories associated with the radio channel itself.
For instance, did you know that Rabindranath Tagore dedicated a poem to AIR called “Akashvani”, which was adopted as the Hindi name? Or that an AIR producer was one of the first civilians to be let inside the Golden Temple after Operation Blue Star? Or that noted Pakistani ghazal singer Ghulam Ali used to make his disciples listen to AIR's Urdu service to understand correct Urdu pronunciation?
These and many other such tales make up Akashvani: A Century of Stories from All India Radio. With anecdotes from producers, broadcasters, radio jockeys and listeners, this book is a must-read to understand AIR’s pivotal role in the average Indian’s life.
Policing and Violence in India: Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Realities, edited by Deana Heath and Jinee Lokaneeta
Why does India’s police force, created under British rule, still echo the priorities of a bygone empire? And what is it about this institution, tasked with maintaining the law and order, that has led to a normalisation of daily violence?
These are the key questions that inform the analyses in this volume by lawyers, academics and activists. Divided into four broad sections, it begins by looking at the origins of the modern police force in the 1860s and demonstrates their role in maintaining socio-cultural, economic and political hierarchies even in post-independence India. The second section explores how the law and legal infrastructure, as well as the bureaucracy in India, work to effectively facilitate police violence and to further marginalise and criminalise certain groups, like lower castes and Muslims. The penultimate section complicates this picture, examining how police violence is shaped by historical ambivalence towards democracy, the personal and systemic dynamics between police personnel and the accused, and the fraught identity of police in conflict zones like Kashmir, where authority is both granted and withheld by the state.
The final section contains interviews of and reflections by prominent critics of police violence, including former Haryana DGP VN Rai and Abdul Wahid Shaikh, falsely accused of involvement in the 2006 Mumbai blasts.
