Book Diary 2. This book 'What the Nation Really Needs to know' is a compilation of 24 essay and speeches largely by the teachers of the Jawaharla Nehru University in New Delhi. This bilingual book 339 pages captures a broad canvas of discussions and debates nationalism, democracy, development and Political narratives.
These speeches have Political implications as they were 'teach in' as an innovative Solidarity of JNU teachers with the students asserting their freedom and dignity in relation to an increasing populist authoritarian government that uses aggressive and exclusive jingoism to counter pluralism of ideological and identities dimensions of Politics. Hence these lectures delivered at the ' freedom square' of JNU( from 16 Feb to 16 March 2016) is also an example of counter discourse that seek to combine knowledge and action as political expressions of democracy. I have also read this book as many of those delivered these lectures are also my personal friends.
These speeches have Political implications as they were 'teach in' as an innovative Solidarity of JNU teachers with the students asserting their freedom and dignity in relation to an increasing populist authoritarian government that uses aggressive and exclusive jingoism to counter pluralism of ideological and identities dimensions of Politics. Hence these lectures delivered at the ' freedom square' of JNU( from 16 Feb to 16 March 2016) is also an example of counter discourse that seek to combine knowledge and action as political expressions of democracy. I have also read this book as many of those delivered these lectures are also my personal friends.
I have enjoyed reading all of them. I have paricularly appreciated the excellent historical overview by Romila Thaper, one of great public intellectuals and great historian of India. The essays/ lectures by Jayati Gosh on anti-national Economy is an interesting read.There is another essay that I read with great interest is the one by G Arunima on the Nation and it's Region, primarily focusing on multiple narratives drawing from sub-nationalism of language, history and politics. Here Arunima gives interesting insights in to Tamil and Malayalam identity narratives as well. Mridula Mukharji's piece on Civil Liberties and Nationalism is an excellent overview of Political and historical narratives. Another interesting essay is Gandhi's nation by Tanika Unfortunately I could not read the essays in Hindi, including the one by my friend Prof Anand Kumar. There is a very good introduction by Janski Nair and the very first essay by Gopal Guru also make insightful points.
This is a highly readable book as they are basically in the speech/ lecture format rather than the traditional dense traditional academic format. This is a book worth reading for all those who are interested in the theory and practices of plural democratic discourse on Political narratives of India.
This is a highly readable book as they are basically in the speech/ lecture format rather than the traditional dense traditional academic format. This is a book worth reading for all those who are interested in the theory and practices of plural democratic discourse on Political narratives of India.
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