How ‘The Identity Project’ Exposes The Quiet Violence Of Exclusion

 Which of us has not lost friends because of a difference in political ideology? Which of us has not known people who claim to be politically neutral, yet endorse an ideology of hate? Which of us hasn’t been shocked to find that people we thought we knew well believe the propaganda that is fed to them? Which of us doesn’t know otherwise intelligent people who parrot a distorted version of facts and who when you try to reason with them accuse you of being brainwashed by your political inclination.

If you are one of those people, Rahul Bhatia’s “The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy” is written for you.

The book starts and ends with how the politics of exclusion is projected as an inclusive and compassionate one. The book starts with describing the anti-CAA NRC Protests and the subsequent Delhi riots, and shows how over time the story that persists in public memory is very different from what people who were active participants remember it as. He shows how by repeating the same sequence of events again and again, it almost became the only truth!

The book would have been extremely powerful and timely, even if the author had left it just this, but he uses that as a springboard to dive into the history of the Hindutva movement- how it began, how it spread and the almost inevitability of it becoming the dominant ideology that it is today. By the end of this section, you would be forgiven for believing that the word “identity” in the title of the book refers to how the identity of the nation was rewritten from that of the secular nation dreamt of by the founding fathers and mothers, to what it has become today.

The author, however, is not down. He then dives into another issue- the Aadhaar project. He traces the project from its genesis to the many twists and turns it took before becoming this behemoth which can now potentially be used to target people in a way few other databases can. This was a project that was virtually thrust down on the nation, and today, far from helping the marginalized, it ends up being used to oppress them in ways that were not possible earlier.

The Identity Project is a book that you want to read in a hurry because you cannot bring yourself to put it down. But it is also a book that keeps you awake at night even weeks after you finish it. After reading this book, you end up relating every new article you read to something or the other that has been discussed in the book.

What, to me, makes the book extra special are the people who at great personal cost chose to stand on what they consider the right side of his street. There is the academician was brought up in a home seeped in the RSS philosophy, but who, after working for the RSS for many years, chose to move away and then write an expose on it. There is the victim of the Delhi riots who filed a legal case, and refuses to withdraw the case despite the pressured put on him to do so- he continues, hoping that someday he will get justice. You feel for these people, you understand what motivates them and you admire the courage that empowers them to do what they do.

The problem with books like this one is that they are mostly read by those who are already convinced. Books like this should ideally be read by those who are sitting on the fence, but they tend to dismiss such books as mere propaganda, while continuing to fall prey to everything they see on social media. This makes it even more imperative for us to read books like this, because it helps you marshal your arguments to counter the false interpretations which are passed off as ‘the truth’.

The book was released internationally under the title, “New India”. One hopes that the India being described is a blimp and not the real India. One does doubt it though.

History Is Written by the Survivors—But Han Kang Writes for the Dead

 “Sometimes, with some dreams, you awake and sense that the dream is ongoing elsewhere.”

‘We Do Not Part’ begins with a dream. A dream where the narrator is stumbling through a treacherous snow-covered landscape with stumps of trees as tall as humans. She has been having this recurrent nightmare ever since she published her last book, the research of which took too much out of her. Estranged from her family, with her mental health threatening to consume her everyday, eating barely enough to survive, the narrator is not sure she wants to continue living. She is wrenched from this nightmare when her friend who’s had a gruesome accident calls her to the hospital and tasks her with travelling to the island where she lives to take care of her bird who will otherwise die of starvation. The narrator is taken aback because she never thought she was the first person her friend would call upon, and against her better senses, she proceeds to catch a flight and fly into a ferocious snowstorm to attempt to save a bird which may or may not still be alive. Once she reaches her friend’s house after a harrowing journey, she stumbles upon the research that her friend had been doing about the Jeju massacre.

“We Do Not Part” was published in Korean in 2021 and translated into French two years later. It is the first book to be published in English after Han Kang won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2025. The book was much anticipated, and despite the hype, it does not disappoint. It is an extremely ambitious work, which talks of the Jeju massacre where close to 30,000 people were killed in mass exterminations on the suspicion of being communist sympathisers or of harbouring communist sympathisers in their family. This is not a tragedy that people even want to acknowledge because too many people were complicit. The book is meticulously researched, and while discussing the details of the tragedy, the tone is almost academic. However, the story of the massacre is closely linked to the fate of individuals, which gives the account an urgency that it might have otherwise lacked. Human psychology is such that we do not relate to large numbers the way we do to individual stories- 30,000 killed doesn’t hit us as hard as the fate of the specific people linked to the tragedy.

Throughout the book, Han Kang uses the personal to draw attention to the larger tragedy. While the narrator battles the treacherous snowstorm to reach her friend’s home, it is also metaphorical. The narrator is also fighting her own mental health issues, which while insignificant in the larger scheme of things is of prime importance to her.

Snow, in its many forms, is a recurrent motif throughout the book. A perfectly formed snowflake that falls on her jacket, running out of a heated room to catch the first snowfall, the blanket of snow which smothers the entire landscape yet also throws it into relief. Snow is used to link the past and the present-

“A thought comes to me. Doesn’t water circulate endlessly and never disappear? If that’s true, then the snowflakes Inseon grew up seeing could be the same ones falling on my face at this moment. I am reminded of the Inseon’s mother described, the ones in the schoolyard,[…] Who’s to say the snow dusting my hands now isn’t the same snow that had gathered on their faces.”

At the core of the book is the art installation that the narrator wanted to collaborate with her friend on- the installation which first revealed itself to her in a dream, but which actually lies at the heart of her friend’s obsessive research into her family history! The book does not directly describe the events of the Jeju massacre but tells the story of the quest of the families of the victims to know what happened. In many ways, this indirect storytelling conveys the horror much more powerfully than a direct narrative might have.

Like her other works, this book by Han Kang also draws you deep inside yourself and forces you to confront issues that you may not want to acknowledge. It is a highly unsettling book, which is where the power of the book really lies.

“Snow falls. On my forehead and cheeks. On my upper lip, the groove above it. It is not cold. It is only as heavy as feathers, as the finest tip of a paintbrush. Has my skin frozen over? Is my face covered in snow as it would be if I were dead? But my eyelids must not have grown cold. Only the snowflakes clinging to them are. They melt into cold droplets of water and seep into my eyes.”

[I received a review copy from Penguin India. The views are my own.]

A Decade Later Adichie’s Dream Count is a Mixed Experience

 The year 2014 was, in a lot of ways, a landmark year in the history of modern India. It was the year of the General Elections fought on the promise of removing corruption and promising development. It was a time when everybody was talking about the demographic dividend and of how, with the correct policies, India could potentially capitalize on it and become a global economic superpower. 2014 was a year when people were bullish about the future and voted for change. It was also a time when some people feared that the old way of living in communal harmony was in danger.

In Quarterlife, Devika Rege takes on the ambitious task of chronicling how different people looked at the changing politics in 2014. Everybody expected things to change, but depending on who they were and what their aspirations were, they looked at the future very differently. It was a year when cracks that you never noticed became virtually unsurmountable fissures.

The book traces the life of three protagonist – Naren Agashe, who at the same time when he received a green card also finally accepted that in the US, regardless of his brilliance, he will always remain an outsider. He returned to India, where he capitalized on his surname, his Brahminical good looks and his allure as a former Wall Street insider to launch himself into an orbit which he could never aspire to in the US.

His college flat mate, Amanda, is a white woman from a privileged background who, quite predictably, comes to India to discover herself. She is overwhelmed by the extremes that she witnesses and by the divisions that she never existed. Naren’s brother, Rohit, is a filmmaker who gets by through good networking, and by having pliable views. When he sets out on a mission to rediscover his roots, he comes under the influence of a Hindu fundamentalist which leads to his friends cutting off ties with him.

Quarterlife traces the growth of each of these characters, but it also looks at the diverse set of people they come in contact with. Ifra, for instance, is a woman born to privilege, who after studying abroad, chooses to return to India to work in the social sector. She is constantly profiled in magazines because of the work she does, but does she really understand the caste dynamics of the slum community where she works?

She has a fancy degree, but is she the best person to lead a grassroots organization and provide direction to people with far more experience than her? Will her class privilege protect her the communally charged atmosphere? Is there a future for her in the interfaith relationship with a Hindu? Will her family, broadminded though they are, accept her boyfriend as a potential partner? Does she want to stay with him, or leave the country?

There are so many characters like Ifra scattered throughout the book. Each of them is defined by a certain set of demographic details, but each of them is much more than the sum of their religion, their wealth, their sexuality, and even the background they grew up in. These characters collide and clash, they reexamine who they are and change accordingly, their relationship with each other changes. The book is a snapshot of India in the years where the book is set. Some of the characters behave in a manner which I believe is inconsistent with who they are, but people are unpredictable, and who am I to impose my expectations on them?

One part that particular stood out for me was when Amanda finds out that the penthouse where Naren’s parents stay is a home which he himself has never lived in. She is further surprised to learn that even the house Naren grew up in had been in his family only since his father’s generation. She compares it to the fact that her parents are living in a house which has been in the family for generations. One considers India to be country with a long and glorious history, and we consider India superior to upstarts like the United States. Yet, in reality, India is a country that keeps reinventing itself and there are no long traditions here. The book is sprinkled with little insights like this, which make it a treat to read.

The book has a deep cinematographic quality which immensely appealed to me. One section is about the Ganpati Visarjan in Bombay, which is told entirely through a montage of snippets from many participants and observers. A family living in a penthouse in West Bandra which does the visarjan in a bucket on the balcony. A Parsi socialite looking down on the processions and reminising about how things have change.

A Muslim lower middle class family shutting the doors and retreating into the inner rooms because they fear the crowds. The Christian domestic help from Chhattisgarh, who sees the procession as a way to engage with the city. The politicians belonging to different parties who all want to be seen as a part of the procession. The white female filmmaker who unfortunately gets caught in the frenzy. The city of Mumbai comes alive in this section, as it does throughout the book. The city too is a character and it undergoes as much change as the other characters do.

I found the last section extremely interesting because it was told from a slightly unexpected perspective. But, if you think about it, that perspective was always there, though hidden in plain sight.

The author put in extensive research before writing the book, and her attention to detail and her empathy for the characters comes out in every page. The book could have taken the form of a non-fiction narrative, yet she chose to write it as a work of fiction, which actually makes the book even more powerful. Quarterlife is a book that will not just help us to relive and understand where we were as a country a decade back, but also use that knowledge to better understand where we are today.

A Retelling Of The Nigerian-Biafran Civil War

 Many of us would struggle to locate Nigeria on a map. Almost none of us have heard about the Nigeria- Biafran Civil War that nearly tore apart the newly independent country in the late 1960s. If you look it up on Wikipedia, you will be told that the anti-Igbo pogroms and the subsequent exodus of Igbo people led to them the eastern part of Nigeria seceding from the state and declaring itself the Republic of Biafran. In the 2½ years of war, Wikipedia will tell you, there were about 100,000 military casualties and between 500,000 and 2 million Biafran civilians died of starvation.

These are the facts, but what lies behind the facts. What was Nigerian society like in the giddy days after independence? What were the dreams and aspirations of the newly independent society? How were they affected by the pogroms against the Igbo people? How was it to have to leave everything behind and flee to escape being killed by the advancing troops? How did people survive in the refugee camps? What was it like to live on the verge of starvation and worry about whether or not you will survive? When you were close to dying, did you still dream of a Biafran victory, or did you merely want the war to end?

These are the questions that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tries to answer in “Half of a Yellow Sun”. She takes three narrators- Ugwa, who is the houseboy for a university teacher, Olanna, the beautiful and accomplished woman in the relationship with the university teacher and Richard Churchill, an Englishman who is equally fascinated by local art and Olanna’s twin- and uses their different perspectives to tell the story of life in the first decade of independence in Nigeria.

The story is told in two separate timelines- the early 1960s, which were the years immediately after independence, and the late 1960s, which were the years immediately before, during and after the Civil War. These timelines are not sequential, and it is interesting seeing how tension is built up because the timelines alternate. The early 1960s were a time of idealism and optimism, but they were also a time when corruption was getting institutionalised. People took pride in their identity, but they also looked at others with deep suspicion. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, as with every other newly independent country, this was actually a period of lost opportunities for the nation. The late 1960s were marked with violence- physical and sexual violence inflicted on people, and the violence of starvation and disease. Adiche doesn’t’ mince words while describing some very gruesome scenes and they will stay with you forever, reminding you of how war strips humans of their humanity.

The biggest strength of the book (as of all Adiche’s writings) are the characters. There are about half a dozen main characters, each of which is fully etched out- if you try to fit them into convenient stereotypes, they surprise you by exercising their individuality. For me the three most important characters were Olanna’s mother in law, Olanna’s twin and Olanna herself.

Her mother in law represents the traditional values of the Igbo people- she wants her son to marry a woman of her choice who will bear her strong grandsons. To this end, she plots and schemes and even when things do not go as she planned, she remains standing with her head held high.

Olanna’s twin is a hard headed businesswoman- intelligent, ambitious, cynical, and determined to make things happen. Olanna is midway between the two- beautiful, intelligent and empathetic, she retains the moral courage to carry on even when she loses almost everything that matters to her. All three women are powerful characters, yet in different ways, each is held down by patriarchal expectations.

Adiche is best known for her TED talk on the “Danger of a Single Story” where she argues that most of us subconsciously operate from the perspective of a single story, which ends up oversimplifying narratives and reinforcing stereotypes. “Half of a Yellow Sun” is a stunning example of how novelists can and must overcome the pressure to succumb to a single story narrative.

[I received a review copy from Harper Collins. The views are my own.]

A Story Of Friendship And Betrayal Set In The Theatre World

 [First published in YouthKiAwaaz]

Annie Zaidi’s “The Comeback” is the story of two young men from a small town in North India who share a common love for the theatre. Though both are extremely talented and passionate, they choose very different paths.

Asghar Abbasi took up a job at a bank, got married, had children and embraced a typical middle-class existence. John K, on the other hand, dreamt of making it as an actor- he spent many years at the fringes of the acting profession, often taking up lighting jobs in order to sustain himself while he kept knocking at doors for his big break as an actor.

The lives of both these friends change drastically when “after the success of his first major film, actor John K. lets his ego get the better of him and says too much in a fateful interview. The fallout shatters the life of his college friend. Disgraced, unemployed, his marriage in jeopardy, Asghar’s stable middle-class life is thrust into crisis. Broken but unbowed, Asghar retreats to his hometown, Baansa, where he rediscovers his true calling — the stage.

Devastated by the betrayal, he is determined to cut John out of his life; John, while remorseful, is equally determined to claw his way back in. As Asghar’s grassroots small-town theatre takes off, John’s star begins to dim, leaving him stuck in a career that pays the bills but is artistically stultifying. On the outside and desperate to be part of Asghar’s theatre comeback, John is forced to discover the limits of his self-centredness, and confront his ego, the shallow allure of fame, and the false hierarchies of the arts.”

The author’s own training in theatre is evident in how the novel is structured. She sketches the backdrop with an enviable economy of words, then allows the characters to take over. The dialogue is crisp, the characters (including the supporting characters) are well-developed, and the plot moves forward at just the right pace. The story is essentially told from the perspective of the actor, John K. He is selfish, self-serving, and deeply flawed, yet you find yourself hoping things will work out for him.

I particularly loved the affection with which each of the three main female characters was developed. In a story which is essentially about the rivalry between two college friends, they could very easily have devolved into caricatures, yet each was well sketched out, and in their own way, they had the same kind of growth and development as the main characters.

The entire novel is built on the perceived hierarchy of the performing arts, and the author subtly makes a point about how many of the attempts at decolonisation end up magnifying the same systems they were supposed to overthrow. Through Asghar’s stubborn decision to insist on centring his theatre in his hometown, Baansa, the author pays homage to the theatre, which could flourish in smaller towns but is subsumed in an attempt to reach a wider audience. At least in this novel, Asghar is able to resist the temptation to do so!

The blurb promises that The Comeback “is a story of the price of betrayal, friendship and forgiveness, second chances, and the transformative power of art,” and the book certainly lives up to that promise. In this book, Annie Zaidi demonstrates yet again why she is considered one of the finest Indian novelists writing in English today.

[I thank Aleph Book Company for a review copy. The views are my own.]

Deviants: 3 Gay Men, 3 Eras, One Fight For Acceptance

 “Deviants: The Queer Family Chronicles” comes close on the heels of Santanu Bhattacharya’s stunning debut novel, “One Small Voice”. The novel follows the stories of three generations of gay men in the same family. Vivaan is a typical Gen Z youth- 17, but passing as older on dating apps. He came into his sexuality after the decriminalization of homosexuality, and not only does he have supportive parents, he goes to a school which, at least on the face of it, accepts diversity. His uncle, Mambro (mother’s brother -> mam’s bro) discovered his sexuality in the mid 1990s- he carried his homosexuality like a guilty secret in his youth and early adulthood.

Through his story, we see the joy experienced by the queer community when homosexuality was decriminalised by the High Court in 2009, and of how the community was shattered when the Supreme Court overruled the judgement a few years later. Knowing that his right to live his life as he wanted could be snatched away anytime, he realised that the only way to survive was by leaving the country. Mambro’s uncle, Sukumar, grew up in Calcutta in the 1970s. for him, homosexuality was a dirty secret which he didn’t want to acknowledge even to himself. He ended up spending most of his life as a frustrated man, let himself be talked into a marriage that ended in disaster. He died feeling that he was a failure who had let down everyone who ever cared about him.

Through these three queer characters, the author traces the journey of the queer movement in India. However, the book does not pretend to be a history of the movement. What it is is the story of three very different men from three different families and three different time periods, each dealing with his sexuality in the way he knows best. The power of the novel is in the fact that at no point does the author pretend that any of his characters is representative of his generation of queer men, or that their challenges are those of all others in their time. Though the subject of the novel is political in nature, it is in fact a deeply personal novel.

On the face of it, it would appear that things have got progressively easier for each generation, but in reality, though the laws may have changed, the outlook of people has not clearly not kept pace. This comes out most strongly in the story of Mambro who realises that in this country, to be a queer person is to be vulnerable at all times. He witnessed the law change multiple times, and realises that even if homosexuality has legal protection today, there is no guarantee that the law might not again be changed. Vivaan appears to have it easy- he has supportive parents and a supportive community. Yet, he realises that the acceptance might be superficial- would the people who support him today be equally accepting if someone in their own family comes out as queer?

The book is extremely sound structurally. The stories of the three characters are narrated in three very different ways. Vivaan’s story is told through voice notes dictated onto an app- it is in first person and captures the nuances of the speech patterns and thought processes of the Gen Z character extremely well. Sukumar’s story is narrated in the third person, most probably by his nephew. It is rich in detail, and the North Calcutta neighbourhood of the 1970s and 80s comes alive through the pages. Sukumar, also, is the only one of the three who accepts his victimhood.

He had made a mess of his life both professionally and personally, and, at one time, he even wonders if he has made any positive impact on any anybody. Mambro’s story is narrated in the second person and told through journal entries. This is the section where there is most introspection. Mambro has been through a lot, and while one might think that the use of the second person narrative would put some distance between him and the horrific incidents that he has gone through, this is the part that leaves you most shaken.

Each of the three men had their partners, who are named X, Y and Z. Vivan, in fact, has two partners- Zee and Zed, both of whom are well fleshed out. This could be indicative of the fact that by the time Z appears, homosexuality is no longer criminalised, so the partners can be out in the open. This does not, however protect Vivaan from heartbreak or emotional turmoil. Both X and Y hide their gay identity and settle for normal heterosexual relationships. X remains in Sukumar’s life, and the demands he makes on Sukumar and his family reflect how homosexuality was completely invisiblised in those times.

Of all the incidents in the book, one which I read multiple times was of how the first thing that Mambro did after the reading down of Section 377 was to walk into a hospital and gets an AIDs test done. This was at a time when the AIDS epidemic had gripped the world, yet, because homosexuality was a criminal offence in India, queer persons were terrified to even get the test done. This, more than anything else, shows how desperate things actually were for queer persons in India.

Read the book because it is a story of human beings trying to make the best of their circumstances and stealing moments of joy even from their bleak lives. Read the book to understand what it means to be a part of a persecuted minority- even when things seem great on the surface, there is discrimination and prejudice flapping away below the surface. Read the book because it not only examines the socio-political landscape of the country with hope tempered with apprehension.

I thank Westland for the advance review copy. The views are my own.

Reading The Constitution Without Rose-Tinted Glasses

 [First published in YouthKiAwaaz]

Between the years 2019 and 2024, the Constitution of India has been used in ways that were perhaps never anticipated by the members of the Constituent Assembly. During the same period, the Constitution has also been elevated to the position of a quasi-deity, by people who claim to uphold the values that the Constitution originally stood for. Between these two extremes is the Constitution itself- a document which was framed by human beings at a certain point in history, and with certain aspirations and apprehensions about the future of the newly independent country. While we think of the Constitution as an inviolable document distilling the wisdom of the members of the Constituent Assembly, it was actually developed using the framework of the laws which were already in effect in the country, and many of the provisions were a compromise between what people with divergent views believed in.

Gautam Bhatia’s The Indian Constitution: Conversations with Power is an extremely timely book which examines the ‘Web of Power’ inherent in the Constitution and explains how the Constitution can only be understood by recognising both the dogmatic part (which includes a declaration of rights) and the organic part (which divides and organises power). The book looks at six major issues which are contained in the Constitution and examines in depth the history behind the issue, the infection points where it was challenged the rulings which formed the basis for subsequent interpretations, and the current status.

I. Power Decentralised

This section examines the federal structure of India. The Constitution of India describes India as a “Union of States”, but a cursory reading of the Constitution shows that the Centre has more power than the States. Was this because the Constituent Assembly recognised the need for a strong Central Government to implement the development policies needed in the newly independent country, or was it because it was understood that what was not implicitly stated in the Constitution came under the purview of the States? Whatever the intention might have been, the rulings of the Supreme Court in the past seven decades have confirmed the ‘central drift’, and today, the Centre is much more powerful than the States, which has wide-ranging consequences for the future of federalisation.

II. Power Divide

India was constituted as a bicameral government with the Executive branch and the Legislative branch being independent of each other in principle. In reality, however, the structure of government ensures that the Executive branch controls the Legislative branch. While India is a Parliamentary democracy, for all practical purposes, it operates no differently from a Presidential form of democracy.

III. Power Dispersed

At the time of independence, India was not a monolith- there was a diversity of political structure, language and religion; there were groups of people (especially Adivasis) who had different ways of social organization, and the territories of North East India were a very different geographic entity. While there was a need to hold together these differences, the Constitution did include some measure of ‘asymmetric federalism’, but much of that has been eroded through constitutional challenges in the past seven decades.

IV. Power Confronted

There is the need for ‘guarantor institutions’ to ensure that the different branches of government perform their functions and serves as checks and balances to prevent the abuse of power by any one branch. But what happens when these guarantor institutions come under the power of any of the branches and are thus no longer able to function independently?

V. Power Contained

The Constitution guarantees that citizens enjoy certain Fundamental Rights. But what happens when the axis of power shifts and allows the State to exercise to deprive the citizens of their personal liberty? Unfortunately, over the last seven decades, the laws, the interpretation of laws and the lack of adequate institutions have resulted in the State having the power to detain citizens.

VI. Power Unbound

While the Preamble to the Constitution begins with the words “We the People of India”, the design of the Constitution is such that once the people “gave themselves the Constitution”, they shuffled off stage and left it to other bodies to interpret and implement the Constitution. As the author writes- “when faced with an inflection point where more than one reading of the Constitution was interpretively possible- they have chosen a path that closes off the possibilities of public participation rather than opening it up.”

This book is an eye-opener for a reader who trusts the Constitution as an ideal without really understanding how power operates within the structure determined by the Constitution. Reading this book makes us realise that ours is a centralising constitution, which is why it has often thrown up “centralizing executives who have been entirely comfortable working with and …(using the document)..to achieve their goals.” There are, however, as the author notes, non-centralizing interpretations of the Constitution, but these can only be arrived at by understanding the language and architecture of the Constitution.

The author ends the book with these lines: “This book is offered up as an initiation of that conversation. If it can serve as a starting point or a signpost, then its goal will have been accomplished.” And it is precisely to get this understanding and to start the necessary conversations that it is essential to read this book.

[I received a review copy of the book from Harper Collins. The views expressed are my own.]