Book: India, The West, and International Order
Author: Kanti Bajpai, Siddharth Mallavarapu (editors)
Publisher: Orient BlackSwan
Year: 2019
Pages: 332
Genre: Non-fiction
Ideal Readers: Academic Researchers, Experienced Readers
Rating: 7/10
Review by Akhilesh for Indian Book Lovers
My interest in reading non-fiction books always kept high because of the low-quality literature being published in India in the name of fiction books. However, there are books in the fiction genre that are wonderfully written and best-presented by the authors. For instance, one Greed Lust Addiction by one of the best crime thriller authors in India right now, Ravi Dabral, has arrested my attention for all the hours that I spent with this book. Nevertheless, right now, I am discussing a book I read recently – India, The West, and International Order edited by Kanti Bajpai and Siddharth Mallavarapu, both very talented (you can decide after reading their powerful introductions). I will discuss the book’s quality and problems in brief so that my review is complete.
“A larger trend in studies of Indian political thought, therefore, … is a vantage point from which to understand the global history and to produce new, more global political theory.”
I have mixed two lines which are in continuity and it makes complete sense now. The intention of the editors who carefully chose the writings for the first volume of this important anthology, India’s International and Strategic Thought, is very clear. They want to present to the readers something that will give them a sense of what India thought and what India thinks right now, in the context of global politics and international order. The collection, in different volumes, intends to cover the writings from Swami Vivekananda to Man Mohan Singh – the past to the present.
The editors have been very careful, observant and liberal in choosing the scholars and their essays for this first volume. They have given space to the spiritual leaders like Vivekananda and also the revolutionists like Veer Savarkar. It shows their intent – nothing to hold back because ‘a few’ chosen few don’t feel offering the space to these scholars. There are essays by Annie Besant, Savarkar, Gandhi, Gokhale, Sister Nivedita, Golwalkar and Sayyid Maududi and also Tagore and Vivekananda. So, they have tried to cover India before independence and its thought in the global context. The essays are wonderful and let us have a glimpse of India of then very closely.
The careful and witty and very informative as well as scholarly introduction to the book and India’s global thought by the editors in the introduction section is wonderfully written and it offers, also, a guide on how to approach these essays for the maximum academic and intellectual benefit. For this scale of writing, the editors of India, The West, and International Order are to be commended!
At the same time, with all its qualities and wonderful offerings, the book is certainly limited to a section of readers who are into academics and in-depth study of Indian thoughts. It is not for the readers en massè! So, you have to decide before you can buy the book… and, you can easily get a copy in offer from Amazon India by clicking the link below:
review by Akhilesh for Indian Book Lovers