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A bold critique of post-independence India
A fearless and incisive commentary on twenty-first century India and the problems that imperil its future ...
India is the world’s second-fastest growing economy, but one in every four of its citizens lives on less than a dollar a day. While the nation boasts of having more dollar millionaires than the United States, it also has the highest number of maternal deaths in the world. India, an emerging global power, is a country deeply divided.
In his latest work, Patwant Singh, one of India’s pre-eminent thinkers, casts a keen and unflinching look at the underbelly of this new economic tiger. From poverty and unemployment, to communalism, homelessness and the oppression of women, he closely examines the grave problems that threaten India today, and the reasons behind them – misgovernment, power politics, corruption and obsessive militarization. Singh argues that India has been riven into two: There is the First India, which comprises the powerful politicians and bureaucrats, as well as the affluent upper and middle classes, and the Second India, which makes up the rest of the population – hungry, sick, homeless. If no action is taken to unify the country, to make the world’s largest democracy truly democratic, he warns that revolt and violence, which have already struck many parts of India, will doubtless spread and intensify across the country. But Singh is no doomsayer. Citing a number of examples of citizens who have successfully worked towards effecting change, Indians, he insists, have both the talent and the wherewithal to overcome the challenges that face them. What they need is the will and courage to do so.
Unsparing in its study of the country’s grim realities, The Second Partition is a bold critique of post-Independence India. At a time when the nation is at a crossroads, this volume is an invaluable and necessary wake-up call for its leadership and its citizens.
ISBN - 9788190416924
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Pages : 322
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