Incarnations

July 25, 2016
In this spin-off from his eponymous BBC radio show, Khilnani (The Idea of India) embarks on an idiosyncratic and lively journey across 2,500 years of Indian history, offering bite-size essays on the lives of 50 exemplary figures whose achievements and afterlives have influenced contemporary Indian identity. Khilnani is joyously and unabashedly political in his choice of subjects; engaging with the Indian past in all its complexity is particularly important, he notes, in light of current political trends that seek to reduce what it is to be Indian “into a single religious concoction.” The essays place such well-known religious figures as the Buddha and Hindu monk Vivekananda alongside political activists “Red Annie” Besant and Jyotirao Phule. What unites them is Khilnani’s argumentative yet playful tone, as well as his sensitivity to the ways in which historical memory can be constructed, appropriated, and reappropriated. If the book has one flaw, it is its structure, with each essay barely skimming the life of its subject. Is six pages really enough for an account of the life of the Buddha, even a highly condensed one? Length aside, Khilnani’s essays are provocative and serious, a worthy rebuttal to the image of Indian history as “curiously unpeopled.”

July 1, 2016
A selection of brief biographies of some of the most brilliant minds and personalities over the long course of Indian history.From Buddha to Dhirubhai Ambani, the self-created celebrity entrepreneur of Reliance Industries, these 50 chronological lives span politics, the arts, academics, and social reform and include a handful of women and a few Westerners by birth, as well. Indian scholar Khilnani (India Institute/King's Coll. London; The Idea of India, 1998, etc.) takes a soft-pedaling approach, fleshing out the entries with enough historical context to render the narrative accessible for all readers and concluding with a discussion of the subject's importance in the overall scheme. Mahavira, from the fifth century B.C.E., was the Jainist seeker and teacher whose core principles of many-sidedness, truth, and nonviolence Mohandas Gandhi later incorporated to groundbreaking effect. Early Brahmin thinker Panini (fourth century B.C.E.) set out an early distillation of the sacred language of Sanskrit, and Adi Shankara (eighth century C.E.) organized the plurality and diversity of Hindu scriptures. Lawyer and politician Ambedkar, born an "untouchable" in 1891, challenged the Brahminic hierarchy of class and enshrined rights for Dalits (his term, meaning "broken") in the new Constitution of 1950. Khilnani also includes a variety of Muslim leaders--e.g., Pakistani founding spirit Muhammad Iqbal (b. 1877), a poet and lawyer who championed a spiritual democracy (the "ultimate aim of Islam"), and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a father of modern Pakistan whose shortsightedness is largely responsible for the disastrous violence following Partition of 1947. Some of the women include ecstatic religious poet Mirabai (1498-1557) and Congress Party leader Indira Gandhi (curiously, Indira's towering father, Nehru, is absent). William Jones and Annie Besant appear as important Westerners who immersed themselves in Indian languages and mores and inculcated the West. Khilnani's choices are spirited, relevant, and aimed to provoke "pressing contemporary questions."An immensely readable teaching tool.

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July 1, 2016

India's historical narrative is elucidated through the lives of the story writers themselves in this companion volume to the BBC's eponymous radio series. Challenging the perception of India's vast chronology as a "curiously unpeopled" saga devoid of actual change makers, Khilnani (politics, King's Coll. London; The Idea of India) explores key turning points through illuminating narrative profiles rather than rote recitation. Including orthodox and adventurous choices, each individual is the incarnation or embodiment of different abstract ideas, personalizing India's struggle through their journeys across more than two millenia. Many comprehensive treatments, such as John Keay's India, are far too in-depth for all but the most academic audience. Khilnani's humanization of India's rich history brings it within reach of the amateur and scholar alike. Readers will be aided by the additional detailed maps showing the birthplaces of subjects. Many chapters depict regional struggles whose importance is diminished without adequate references. However, despite these lacking elements, the text remains a seminal and largely unparalleled work suitable for enthusiastic and informed readers. VERDICT The cultural, political, and religious evolution of India as told through its people will engage and educate. [See Prepub Alert, 3/21/16.]--Jessica Bushore, Xenia, OH

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2016
How does one capture the multifaceted complexities of a country like India? Historian Khilnani (The Idea of India, 1998) presents a novel approach: weave a tapestry of 50 figures from the country's rich and ancient history that serves not only as an innovative introduction to the world's largest democracy but also a gauge to evaluate how that past informs the present. Here, then, is a peek at freedom-fighter Subhash Chandra Bose, who is regularly cited as an icon worth emulating by India's contemporary nationalist movement. As a counterbalance of sorts, we have the Muslim emperor Akbar, named by the country's liberals as a ready rebuttal to Hindu nationalist arguments that Muslim rule in India was an unremitting dark age for Hindus. The well-researched yet short chapters cover a lot of ground with ease, and Khilnani succeeds in achieving his goal of emphasizing the continued relevance of history. This unusual view of India also spotlights how different factions of raucous contemporary Indian society use the past as ballast to further their own agendas for the future.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)