In the eighteenth century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalized racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial "gift"— from the railways to the rule of law—was designed in Britain’s interests alone. He goes on to show how Britain’s Industrial Revolution was founded on India’s deindustrialization, and the destruction of its textile industry. In this bold and incisive reassessment of colonialism, Tharoor exposes to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain’s stained Indian legacy.
|
In a profound re-examination of Hinduism, one of
the world’s oldest and greatest religious traditions,
India’s leading public intellectual, Shashi
Tharoor, lays out Hinduism’s origins and its key
philosophical concepts, major texts and everyday
Hindu beliefs and practices, from worship to
pilgrimage to caste.
Tharoor is unsparing in his criticism of extremism
and unequivocal in his belief that what makes
India a distinctive nation with a unique culture
will be imperiled if Hindu "fundamentalists"—
the proponents of "Hindutva," or politicized
Hinduism—seize the high ground. In his view, it is
precisely because Hindus form the majority that
India has survived as a plural, secular democracy. A book that will be read and debated now and in
the future, Why I Am a Hindu, written in Tharoor's
captivating prose, is a revelatory and original
contribution to our understanding of the role of
religion in society and politics.
|
Praise for INGLORIOUS EMPIRE
"Tharoor convincingly demolishes some of the more persistent myths about Britain's supposedly civilizing mission in India _ [he] charts the destruction of pre-colonial systems of government by the British and their ubiquitous ledgers and rule books."
—Victor Mallet, Financial Times
"A welcome antidote to the nauseating righteousness and condescension peddled by Niall Ferguson in his 2003 book Empire."—The Irish Times |
Praise for WHY I AM A HINDU
"Shashi Tharoor is the most charming and
persuasive writer in India. His new book is a brave
and characteristically articulate attempt to save
a great and wonderfully elusive religion from
the certainties of the fundamentalists and the
politicization of the bigots."—William Dalrymple
"A profound book on one of the world’s oldest and
greatest religions."—Hindustan Times |
Shashi Tharoor served for
twenty-nine years at the
UN, culminating as Under-
Secretary-General. He is
a Congress MP in India,
the author of fourteen
previous books, and has
won numerous literary awards,
including a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Tharoor
has a PhD from the Fletcher School, and was
named by the World Economic Forum in Davos in
1998 as a Global Leader of Tomorrow.
Tunku Varadarajan is a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Formerly, he was editor of Newsweek International and the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal. Born in India, he is a British citizen.