January Reads: Say Goodbye to 2023 With These Books 

Anger Management: The Troubled Diplomatic Relationship between India and Pakistan by Ajay Bisaria

On 7 August 2019, High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria was expelled from Islamabad, the first time an Indian head of mission had been asked to leave by Pakistan. His expulsion marked yet another low in the troubled relationship between the two neighbours who had been born within a day of each other in 1947. The latest diplomatic row followed the dismantling of Article 370 in the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir, but the hostility had been ratcheting up for a while, with the Pakistani terror attack in Pulwama, followed by the Indian airstrikes on terrorists in Balakot, and the grandstanding Pakistan engaged in over the return of a captured Indian Air Force pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman. This book looks in eye-opening detail at all these incidents that took place while the author was India’s top diplomat in Pakistan, including blunders by Imran Khan, the then Pakistani prime minister, and parleys engaged in by the powerful head of the Pakistani army, General Qamar Bajwa. He also describes his interactions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, and key members of the Indian establishment as they dealt with the multiple crises that took place during that time.

After providing readers with a gripping account of the events he was witness to, the author goes deep into the conflict and tension that have characterized the connection between the countries. He looks at this fractious history from a unique perspective, that of Indian diplomats who have served in Pakistan from Independence onwards. These were the people responsible for managing the situation on the ground, even as the actions of prime ministers, presidents, and generals made the news headlines. India’s envoys were expected to deal with all manner of occurrences from routine matters to rather more taxing things such as dealing with dictators, engaging in backchannel talks with their counterparts and other Pakistani officials (accounts of which have only recently been declassified) when ties were strained, dodging spies, and even on occasion having to endure verbal and physical abuse from thugs and the Pakistani intelligence services. Equally, for all the stresses they had to endure, the warmth and friendship they received from ordinary Pakistanis made many of them hope that one day the cantankerousness and bloodshed that blighted Indo[1]Pak ties would be replaced by normalcy, if not enduring bonds of warmth and amity.

The stories about what these diplomats were able to do during their time in Pakistan provide the reader with fresh insights into most of the pivotal moments in the relationship—especially Partition, the 1948 Pakistani offensive that was stopped in its tracks by the prompt action of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and the even bigger wars of 1965 (ably handled by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri), 1971 (in which Prime Minister Indira Gandhi won a resounding victory), and 1999 (where the Pakistani intruders were repulsed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s decisive leadership). The book throws fresh light on terrorism in Kashmir, the skirmishes across the Line of Control, the attacks by Pakistani terrorists in Mumbai, and the assault on the Indian parliament. Further, the book covers the few initiatives that sought to resolve the perennial state of strife and suspicion between the neighbours—the Simla Accord of July 1972, Vajpayee’s historic bus journey to Lahore in 1999, the Agra Summit of 2001, and other short-lived attempts to make new beginnings. Besides his in-depth analysis of history and current events, the author offers a reasoned plan of how India and Pakistan might be able to arrive at a lasting peace.

Masterfully blending scholarship, telling revelations, memoir, and history, Anger Management is a remarkable study of the diplomatic engagement between India and Pakistan.

Love Jihad and Other Fictions: Simple Facts to Counter Viral Falsehoods by Sreenivasan Jain, Mariyam Alavi, and Supriya Sharma

Love jihad, Muslim appeasement, forced conversions—these conspiracy theories are now driving everyday conversations in India. Amplified by politicians, cacophonic media coverage, and relentless social media forwards and updates, they have come to be accepted as reality by a large number of people. 

But are these claims—that India’s minorities are plotting to weaken the majority Hindu community—based on the truth? Or are they fictions created and disseminated to serve the interest of power?

In this book, the authors interrogate some theories that are part of the landscape of WhatsApp chats and social media feeds of millions of Indians every day. Chapter 1 examines ‘love jihad’, perhaps the most ascendant of all these claims. Starting with the first known case of ‘love jihad’, the authors investigate arguably the only definitive list of ‘love jihad’ cases. They travel to the state where the largest number of arrests have been made under new anti-love jihad laws to explore if the crackdown is justified. Chapter 2 places ‘population jihad’—the claim that Muslims are waging a holy war by producing more children—under the scanner.

The authors crunch the numbers and trawl through parliamentary records to decode whether Muslims will indeed outnumber over a billion Hindus in the near future. Chapter 3 scrutinizes the Hindutva claim of a sinister Christian scheme to take over India through mass forced conversions. Chapter 4 examines the theory of Muslim appeasement, probing assertions like unequal availability of electricity on Diwali and Eid, the hajj subsidy, funds to madrasas, and the favourite bugbear of the Hindu Right: Muslim men being able to take up to four wives. With its clear-eyed and scrupulously argued and researched approach,Love Jihad and Other Fictions is an indispensable antidote to the viral falsehoods threatening to tear India apart.

Swallowing the Sun: A Novel by Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri

Swallowing the Sun is an epic feat of remembering and storytelling. Through the eyes of its feisty young heroine, Malati, the novel recreates one of the most tumultuous periods in modern Indian history—the struggle for Independence. Malati’s steeliness and fearlessness enable her to defy the constricting patriarchal traditions of her time and take on all those who try to cow her down. As a young girl, Malati fights and defeats the school bully of her village school in Maharashtra. From then onwards, backed by her progressive father, she and her sister Kamala push the boundaries constantly. After an eventful girlhood, the sisters become the first women in their family to go to college. They end up in Bombay, a hotbed of political ferment, where, even as she is whirled along by the irresistible current and excitement of the battle for Independence, she negotiates the small and big aspects of everyday life—love, loss, failure, and compromise. Imaginative, compelling, and exquisitely told, Swallowing the Sun is one of the most memorable debut novels in recent years.

Silk and Steel: A Novel by Stephen Alter

Amid the opulence and brutality of nineteenth-century India, colourful bandits fight for survival.

James Webley—a brave but erratic English commander—has joined forces with the romantic Colonel Augustine, son of an Englishwoman and a noble Indian. Together they have rejected the rigours of mercenary service to pursue a lawless career of pillage. 

It is Augustine’s hope to find a way of maintaining their cornered brigand army against the British forces that seek to destroy it. He devises a subtle and devious plan to regenerate Webley’s flagging spirits, employing the fascinating Khasturba. As his scheme goes into operation, the drama heightens towards its gripping and disastrous climax.

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