Book Review - "The Battle of Belonging" by Shashi Tharoor (Winner of Sahitya Akademi Award).

Rarely you read a book that started with a wow and ends as such. The title of the book says " The Battle of Belonging" - on nationalism, patriotism, and what it means to be Indian. This is what Tharoor explains like a text book in order for readers to understand the deep rooted meaning of these words.

The book begins with " I grew up in an India in which one took a few things for granted: nationalism was a 'Good Thing', the nationalist movement was heroic, the nationalist struggle against British had been led by great figures of extraordinary qualities - Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the rest - and the historic legacy of Indian Nationalism was one of which every Indian should be proud." He gradually moves on to explain in great details and defines nationalism the difference in various different forms of nationalism especially ethnonationalism and civic nationalism. He defines patriotism and the difference between patriotism and nationalism. Suggesting that nationalism suggests that my country and countrymen and everything about it is GREAT, whereas patriotism says my country is what it is and I love it with all its flaws. He goes on to explain the Idea of India as understood and explained by its founding fathers Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar, and the idea behind putting together a document called Constitution, that would guide the growth, development of the county both in materially and socially. In contrast to what people who never raised their voices against the occupier British and had a vision of a Hindu Rashtra  that had no place for any other religion. For them...Golvalkar, Savarkar, Deendayal Upadhyay and their likes "Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan" was the idea of India and they never accepted the pluralistic and secular India as their country that the constitution defined. That idea or the grudge was carried through over the years and when their time came they are hell bent upon converting it into the same i.e. rewriting of constitution on lines of Manu-Smriti . However, the hindutva has now become moditva leaving behind the decencies of the original formula. 

In the process of thrusting the two language formula as part of Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan strategy (we have seen over the decades their reluctance of compulsory Hindi in curriculum especially in the late sixties) of and punishing the smarter states like Kerala, TN, Karnataka and Andhra-Telangana for their advancement on education, health and other parameters by using Finance Commission and reducing their federal allocation as proportionate to their population (that they so effectively controlled over the last 4 decades).

Tharoor goes on to explain how the Babri Masjid - Ram Mandir became a conflict and a movement that led the party to capture the power. Having seized the opportunity how every constitutional institution was diluted of autonomy and made toothless be it EC, RBI, CVC, CIC ,judiciary, universities besides the standard IT, CBI or ED who are regular in the armour of governments for playing vendetta.

However, Tharoor puts his faith behind the democratic process and a democratic India giving examples of emergency of 1975-77. But is cautious that that was Indira Gandhi who realised her mistake and declared elections and even gone behind the bars as atonement but now it is different. Examples of Kashmir isolation, sudden demonization, sudden Covid lockdown and numerous such failures and cult worship (one nation, one leader) have been given that each one of us remember so clearly since they are so recent and we all have suffered through those decisions.

Every paragraph of the book is so well written that it couldn't have been written otherwise.. a simple master stroke. The bibliography is so impressive, one can only dream to read so much in a lifetime that he has read and quoted in this 410 page textbook that should be taught as current/modern Indian history. 170 books, 40 journals and nearly 200 newspaper articles have been referred and their authors have been given due credits.

In despite of all this transformation within the last 6 years, Tharoor has not given up hope " if India is to reclaim it's soul, the urgent national challenge is to restore, empower, and renew the very institutions of civic nationalism that the BJP has commandeered and weakened. These are the institutions that can best protect the minorities and the marginalised, that protect free speech and the expression of unfashionable opinions, that elevate principles and values above the interest of politicians in power, that offer shelter and aid to 

the vulnerable, and so create the habits and conventions that make democracy the safest of political systems for ordinary people to live under." He adds.

He ends this book with the epilogue " a democratic, pluralist India, reflecting the diversity, exists and deserves the protection of every patriot, especially the one who takes the patriotic duty of being a nuisance (in asking questions) very seriously. Such an India can not only survive but thrive, if we re-assert and re-build the civic nationalism in which our Constitution embeds it. We must remain faithful to our founding values of the twentieth century if we are to conquer the looming challenges of the twenty-first."

This is my first of the twenty books Shashi Tharoor has written. I was immensely impressed with his oratory and now this vast storehouse of knowledge comes in another form.. no wonder there is only one such Ideologue, politics for him may be just a way to serve people, he has many other as well.