Table Of ContentALSO BY SHASHI THAROOR
NON-FICTION
Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century (2012)
Shadows Across the Playing Field: 60 Years of India-Pakistan Cricket (2009)
The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell Phone: Reflections on India in the 21st
Century (2007)
Bookless in Baghdad (2005)
Nehru: The Invention of India (2003)
Kerala: God's Own Country (2002)
India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond (1997)
Reasons of State (1982)
FICTION
Riot (2001)
The Five Dollar Smile and Other Stories (1993)
Show Business (1991)
The Great Indian Novel (1989)
ALEPH BOOK COMPANY
An independent publishing firm promoted by Rupa Publications India
First published in India in 2014 by Aleph Book Company 7/16 Ansari Road,
Daryaganj New Delhi 110 002
Copyright © Shashi Tharoor 2015
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a
retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing
from Aleph Book Company.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the
publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which
it is published.
As the Republic of India turns 65
This book is for my grandmother
Mundarath Jayasankini Amma
As she turns 98
And for my mother
Lily Tharoor
On her 78th birthday
CONTENTS
I. INDIA MODI-FIED
1. India’s Elections: a Process, not an Event
2. Is there a Modi 2.0?
3. Modi: Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose
4. The Modi Budget
5. The Hypocrisy of Modi’s 19 Commandments
6. Yes, Mr Javadekar, Let’s Lose this Job
7. Mr Modi Misses a Trick: Enlarged Council of Ministers is not about
‘Minimum Government’
8. ‘Dis’appointing Governors
9. Modi’s Silence and the Sinister Revival of Communalism
10. Why the Hindi-First Order Threatens Efficiency
11. Madame Speaker, Just Say Yes: Why Parliament Needs a Leader of the
Opposition
12. Modifying Sanitation: The ‘Clean India’ Campaign
13. Mr Modi, Aren’t You Forgetting Something? An Open Letter to the Prime
Minister
II. MODI’S INDIA AND THE WORLD
14. Modi and the Foreign Service
15. External Aptitudes: Time to Reform the IFS
16. Ab Ki Bar, Confused Sarkaar: The Foreign Policy U-turns
17. India and Afghanistan: Well Done, Sushmaji
18. President Xi or President Xxx?
19. Mr Modi Goes to Washington
20. Have We Forgotten Khobragade?
21. The Global Indian
22. India: The Unloved Giant?
III. THE LEGACY
23. The Ravages of Colonialism
24. Forgotten Heroes: India in World War I
25. The 1940s: Where It All Began
26. The Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi
27. Sardar Patel and the Hijacking of India’s History
28. What Swami Vivekananda Stood For
29. The Mystique of Gurudev
30. The Original Anna: The Life and Times of C.N. Annadurai
31. The Manmohan Legacy
32. Food Security and Land Acquisition
33. Congress—The Way Forward
34. India’s Economic Miracle
35. The End of the Nehruvian Consensus?
36. The Fall of an Old Retainer
37. Saint Antony and Secularism
IV. IDEAS OF INDIA
38. Democracy and Development: The Experience of India
39. Paradoxes of India
40. The Role of Civil Society in Law-Making
41. Politics and the Indian Middle-Class
42. The New Voter: From Khap to AAP?
43. India’s Disrupted Democracy
44. Time to Imagine a Presidential System?
45. India’s Obama Moment?
46. Preserving the Past
V. THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE
47. The Quest for Quality
48. Education in India
49. Towards a Knowledge Society: Higher Education in India
50. Stephania: The Quest to Excel
51. The Intangible Kerala Heritage
52. Soaring to the Future: India’s Martian Chronicles
53. Go East (and West), Young Man!
54. India’s Youth: Building a Nation, Seizing the World
55. The Sun Also Rises: Solar Energy for India
56. The Frugal Answer to India’s Doldrums
57. India’s Twitter Revolution
58. My.gov, Your Gov, E-Gov
59. The Network Age
VI. ISSUES OF CONTENTION
60. A Heart Divided: Ayodhya
61. India’s Free and Irresponsible Media
62. The Unwelcome Mat
63. Preserving Asylum in India
64. The Misfortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
65. Concerned Authority, Concerned Populace
66. The Dark Truth about Black Money
67. The Unforgivable Horror of Torture
68. Kerala’s Economy: Emerging or Submerging?
69. Changing Bengal: The Way Forward
VII. A SOCIETY IN FLUX
70. Astrology and the Aspiring Indian
71. Of Clubs and Colonial Dress Codes
72. Health Minister, our Kids Need Sex Ed
73. Is Caste Back, or did it ever Disappear?
74. Delhi University’s FYUP Fiasco
75. Filling Stomachs and Minds: The Mid-day Meal Scheme
76. India’s Missing and Abused Women
77. Empowering Indian Women
78. Prohibition in Kerala
79. Minorities and Policing
80. Terrorism and India
VIII. INDIA BEYOND INDIA
81. Looking Back at 29 years as a UN official
82. Emerging Powers and Global Governance: India
83. Dilemmas of Global Governance
84. When Democracy is a Bad Idea: The ‘League of Democracies’
85. Warring for Peace
86. How Relevant is Non-Alignment?
87. The Arab Spring, India and China
88. Globalization, Poverty and India
89. The Millennium Development Goals: Missing the Mark?
90. IMF: Insolvents May Flourish; India Must Fix!
91. Freedom of Expression and Communication Challenges in the Age of the
Internet
92. Flying While Brown, and Other Joys of Airport Security
93. Cyber Security in Invasive Times
94. Losing our Heads to Kipling
95. Our Fondness for Fakes
96. How Proud Should We Be of Bobby Jindal?
97. The Politics of Energy
98. Kissing the Frog
99. Pandora’s Inbox
100. Birthdays: A Beastly Beatitude
