Incensed, he caught the man, called his neighbours and the police. As one of these residents walked into the neighbourhood ‘‘park’’, the only open area in the locality, he saw a young man, poorly clad, walking away with an empty bottle in hand. In the well-todo colony of Ashok Vihar, early risers were setting off on morning walks, some accompanied by their pet dogs. manages in the space of 200 pages to identify, unravel and explain many of the complexities of modern India.Abstract: Delhi, on the morning of January 30, 1995, was waking up to another winter day. Brown, The New York Times Book Review ' short and brilliant book. splendid book about definitions of the Indian nation.' -Ian Buruma, The New York Review of Books 'Khilnani writes with illuminating dexterity, wit and compassion, and India springs to life through his words.' -Judith M. Khilnani has woven a rich analysis of contemporary India and its evolution since independence.' -Amartya Sen, The Times Literary Supplement 'A masterful rebuttal to all cultural romantics and religious chauvinists. splid book about definitions of the Indian nation.' - Ian Buruma, The New York Review of Books 'Especially brilliant is Khilnani's attempt to understand the changing nature of India by studying its urban constructs.' - Chitra Divakaruni, Los Angeles Times Book Review, 'A splendid-and timely-book. I am inclined to agree with on the robustness and staying power of the secular idea of India.' - Amartya Sen, The Times Literary Supplement 'A masterful rebuttal to all cultural romantics and religious chauvinists. Khilnani has woven a rich analysis of contemporary India and its evolution since indepence. Throughout, he provokes readers and illuminates a fundamental question as urgent now as ever: Can the original idea of India survive its own successes?

In a new introduction written for this edition, Khilnani reflects on the book's striking relevance to the country's recent developments-from the rise of a new billionaire class to the election of a government with a more exclusivist conception of Indian identity.

Sunil Khilnani investigates the fate of this idea, offering incisive portraits of Gandhi, Nehru, and other Indian founders and assessing the lively debates among them and their successors over who is an Indian, the meaning of modernity, and India's place in the world. For decades this elite would uphold a political construct, an idea of India grounded in democracy, religious tolerance, economic development, and cultural pluralism. When, in 1947, the British divided and departed their most prized imperial possession, they handed a huge, diverse, and poor society to a small nationalist elite.

A classic since it was first published in 1997, The Idea of India is a magisterial historical study that addresses the paradoxes and ironies of the world's largest democracy.

The idea of india by sunil khilnani