Indira Gandhi and the years that transformed India




Name : Indira Gandhi and the years that transformed India
Author : Srinath Raghavan
    Year of Publication : 2025
    Genre : Non-fiction, Politics, Biography, History
    Rating : *** ( 3 stars out of 5)

Srinath Raghavan, the erudite scholar who has previously written valuable works on Nehru and  Bangladesh war (among others)  pens a semi-biographical, semi-political portrait of the "Long 1970s" through the travails and decisions of the fragile yet indestructible "Durga"- Indira Gandhi. While the research material is new and the context setting is thorough (understanding local economic decisions through the lens of global crises), the author is in a hurry to pack in too much material in limited space. In a book with large ambitions, epiphanies are expected but the book stops short. The biggest decision in Indira Gandhi's career was to withdraw Emergency when she was at the peak of her political legitimacy.  Ramachandra Guha's "India after Gandhi" has a theory explaining it. Srinath Raghavan, for all the expectations, does not even try.

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