Shashi TharoorBesprekingen

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Bei Ausschreitungen zwischen Hindus und Muslimen in einer indischen Kleinstadt verliert auch die 24jährige Amerikanerin Priscilla ihr Leben. War sie wirklich nur zur falschen Zeit am falschen Ort, wie die US-Botschaft bekanntgibt? Oder hat ein erzürnter Ehemann den Aufruhr genutzt, um sich unerkannt zu rächen? Denn Priscilla war Mitarbeiterin einer Hilfsorganisation und klärte indische Frauen über Geburtenkontrolle und ihre elementaren Rechte auf. Aber auch ihre Liebesbeziehung zu einem verheirateten Regierungsbeamten konnte ihr zum Verhängnis geworden sein. Vor dem Hintergrund religiöser Konflikte erzählt Shashi Tharoor von einer Liebe, die auf unüberwindbare Hindernisse stösst, in einem faszinierenden und widersprüchlichen Land, voll von Mythen und Sagen.

I picked this book hoping to learn something about a topic that I knew nothing about. And I did learn a great deal, but it was written with such an angry, biased tone that it left me wishing I had chosen a more neutral title. I'm quite sure I didn't get the full story.

"Divide and rule," "The Raj, " "indentured servitude." If you're of Indian descent, you've probably heard your older family mutter these words with disdain yet never really grasped the sheer horror of British terror that informed their disgust.

There is a rising tide of apologia for colonialism. The ilk of Niall Ferguson sincerely believe that it wasn't all that bad--and they'd be right if all you had to go on were their fantasies of colonial uplift. This is where Shashi Tharoor shines. He simply lays out the best possible excuses for defenders of Britain's treatment of India and then demolishes each nostalgic delusion with historical context, records and facts.

Ultimately, Tharoor's positive argument is pretty simple when you get past all the Imperial gloss: Indians were people. Their lives mattered just as much as yours and mine--but this could never be the case during British rule in India.

Here's what I wrote in 2008 about this read: "Ah, Bollywood. What fun to learn some about this side of the Indian culture. Ah, the brave heroes, and the beautiful heroines!"

Here's what I wrote in 2008 about this read: This was a great Indian novel! Parallels an Indian classic (The Mahabharata , an ancient Hindu epic), satirically telling the history of Ghandi and his impact on the British occupation of India. Long but fulfilling; re-read some day!"

I wish I were Indian so I could understand the sources in history from which this book was taken. It helps to look it up in Wikipedia. However, it is a very funny, enjoyable read that at the same time is instructive to people like me who find Indian culture and literature fascinating.

I was a bit worried when the author referred to these stories as adolescent works in the preface.

They are not quite as bad as that, but they are far from the quality of his novels. Here and there a keen insight shines through, and a concern for a changing India is evident in just about every story.

I found that 1974 seems to be when Tharoor hit his stride. The stories earlier than that (probably 2/3 of the ones in this collection) are a bit awkward and amateurish, but the ones after that tend to be pretty decent.

The one that stands out the most is "The Solitude of the Short-Story Writer", the only story in the collection that seems to shake India off and take place in any Westernized society. There is an attempt to examine the craft of writing, and what drives writers. Tharoor may have been too green at the time to answer these questions, but the asking of them is handled pretty well.

What is intriguing about 'Inglorious Empire' is this: Tharoor takes a valid point that colonialism disenfranchised the subcontinent for two centuries. What is laughable is how he attempts to steer around history's most finest points in a bid to heap the sins of the world at British doors. For all his argument of the 'evil white man', Tharoor forgets that it is the social advances in British society which allows him to travel to and fro from the UK while lambasting it openly. The irony should not be lost on him. His own political party is a British byproduct.

His argument that identity in India pre-British was 'fluid' would make even the most ardent of post-structuralists blush. He subsequently shoots himself in the foot by arguing that caste and regional identity was of more prime importance than religious identity. If so, then why did subcontinental identity become fixated on these latter two elements even forfeiting this alleged 'fluidity' in the process? Why no fluidity there?

On the whole, 'Inglorious Empire' is a blame game in action. For Tharoor, every British advance needs to be dismissed to argue that maybe (operative term being 'maybe') the denizens of the subcontinent could have done better. More wishful thinking than constructed fact. It incorporates local hearsays without any substantial research to uncover the truth; grandiose vocabulary (hallmark of Tharoor's career-get caught out, use big words to survive); and conveniently cowers away from answering why multiple subcontinental Empires joined the British.

This is an excellent book, and one we Indians should read. Shashi Tharoor takes us down a brief journey of Hinduism, which includes his personal story and philosophy.
As he points out, Hinduism has always been pluralistic and, while it may have started turning inwards with the advent of Muslims, this inward turn took a strong turn with the advent of the British.
He had a section devoted to some eminent Indian philosophers of religion, from Adi Shankara to Swami Vivekananda.
He dedicated the last section to the changes taking place in India now.
While he is disturbed by some of the changes, he refrained from taking pot shots at the current political leadership in India. I like this because it helped to prevent the book from becoming a political polemic.

This is a well-written polemic against Mr Modi. While I am in sympathy with his views, I believe Shashi Tharoor should have written a more balanced book. Given that he is a member of the Opposition, this would have made the book stronger.

This satirical history of pre and post independence India, narrated with characters and events of the ageless epic, Mahabharata, is a great attempt by Shashi Tharoor. The writing, both the prose and the verse, is so fluid the pages turn quite fast. Barring certain parallels that feel forced, and some tedious philosophical discourse, this book is an enjoyable read, especially for those who have read their Mahabharata and know the modern political history of India.

The book could have been a very good reference book had he not spoilt it from Section Two onwards ranting about BJP and Hindutva. Suddenly in his rant, Ram Mohan Roy was reduced to a few lines, compared to what is happening On Valentine's day. I thought his book could be useful for my daughter who was born in the UK has no connection with India. However, she was born into a Hindu family and could learn many things from the book. Now I feel that one look at the book will make it completely uninterested in what is in it.
I suggest Mr Tharoor write a proper book on evolving Hinduism.

I knew the British colonizers were terrible, but wow, I didn't realize they were this bad.

Tharoor presents his argument against the British empire in India in a convincing, academic tone that engages the audience at all times. He breaks down the empire's views towards India in multiple ways, focusing primarily on business and trade, religion, and politics, and how they were all used to divide and conquer a once prospering, unique civilization.

There's a separate chapter against empire apologists, dissecting their views towards the British Raj and pointing out how flawed they are. The Raj was concerned with their well-being, never taking into consideration the Indians' plights. They also abused the race with exclusivity, denigrating them as second-class citizens in their own country. They also put down flourishing business and trades, thus making sure we never made money.

Tharoor goes into detail on all these atrocities and more. It's a look at one of the most horrifying empires in history, and it's a brilliant read. If you're even remotely interested in British and Indian histories, this is a must-read. No regrets.

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Tharoor-Le-Grand-Roman-indien/49144
> BAnQ (Le devoir, 12 juin 1993) : https://collections.banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/2765551
> BAnQ (La presse, 30 mai 1993) : https://collections.banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/2175840

> Shashi Tharoor : LE GRAND ROMAN INDIEN, (Éditions Points). — Shashi Tharoor, diplomate et homme politique né en 1956 à Londres captive par son écriture impertinente, férocement cruelle parfois mais non dénuée d'un humour réjouissant.
Le narrateur n’est plus le sage Vyasa, mais « un vieux et vénérable politicien », habitué des coups fourrés, des roublardises et autres manipulations, qui décide de dicter ses mémoires à un secrétaire originaire du sud de l’Inde, aussi maigre et sec qu’était rond et dodu notre scribe Ganesh. La fresque retrace l’histoire récente de l’Inde depuis la présence britannique jusqu’à l’assassinat d’Indira Gandhi, revue par Ved Vyas.
Il nous livre des clés pour comprendre du point de vue d’un indien, les multiples comportements des chefs de partis et renversements de situations aboutissant à la partition de l’Inde. Qui se cache derrière le nom de Bhisma Mahaguru : Gandhi. Et de Dhritarashtra ? Nehru. Jubilatoire !… (Isabelle MORIN-LARBEY et Shamms TCHAO)
—Les Carnets du Yoga, (385), Mars 2020

Part two of my recently read trilogy of alt-mythologies is Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel. This is actually something of a mashup, the characters and happenings of the Sanskrit epic The Mahabharata neatly meshed with Indian politics leading up to independence and onwards to the 1970s.

The story is told as if narrated by one of the central-but-never-too-involved characters late in his life to a gruff younger man. This conceit works in the novel's favour, as the narrator is happy to digress, apologise, digress again, and then, when the story's perspective seems to lift to an omniscient third person view beyond any mortal sights, he'll respond to his typist's incredulous eyebrows with a pithy explanation of how he knows what he's narrating.

The Mahabharata was written around two thousand years ago, and the story it tells probably pre-dates that by another millennium. So it's not surprising that the characters and occurrences in the poem don't match up perfectly with the key figures and goings-on of twentieth century Indian politics. And yet, fittingly given the book's cyclic themes, these temporally disparate stories do match up just enough that a skilled weaver of tales could create something magnificent from their blend. And Shashi Tharoor has some mad weaving skills.

There's a catch, of course. Isn't there always when you're faced with a brilliant story, brilliantly told? I know just enough about Indian politics around the independence-era to avoid looking like a dolt when talking to my Indian friends, but I'd never even heard of The Mahabharata until I picked up this novel. The story itself is probably worth reading without knowing any of these things. But I found it ever more fascinating, and was better able to appreciate Shashi Tharoor's accomplishment, when I badgered my Indian chums (and Wikipedia) for the details of The Mahabharata and the intricacies of the Indian independence movement. If you know the poem, the history, and the country, then read this book. If you don't then kidnap an Indian who knows all these things, and then read this book.

Part two of my recently read trilogy of alt-mythologies is Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel. This is actually something of a mashup, the characters and happenings of the Sanskrit epic The Mahabharata neatly meshed with Indian politics leading up to independence and onwards to the 1970s.

The story is told as if narrated by one of the central-but-never-too-involved characters late in his life to a gruff younger man. This conceit works in the novel's favour, as the narrator is happy to digress, apologise, digress again, and then, when the story's perspective seems to lift to an omniscient third person view beyond any mortal sights, he'll respond to his typist's incredulous eyebrows with a pithy explanation of how he knows what he's narrating.

The Mahabharata was written around two thousand years ago, and the story it tells probably pre-dates that by another millennium. So it's not surprising that the characters and occurrences in the poem don't match up perfectly with the key figures and goings-on of twentieth century Indian politics. And yet, fittingly given the book's cyclic themes, these temporally disparate stories do match up just enough that a skilled weaver of tales could create something magnificent from their blend. And Shashi Tharoor has some mad weaving skills.

There's a catch, of course. Isn't there always when you're faced with a brilliant story, brilliantly told? I know just enough about Indian politics around the independence-era to avoid looking like a dolt when talking to my Indian friends, but I'd never even heard of The Mahabharata until I picked up this novel. The story itself is probably worth reading without knowing any of these things. But I found it ever more fascinating, and was better able to appreciate Shashi Tharoor's accomplishment, when I badgered my Indian chums (and Wikipedia) for the details of The Mahabharata and the intricacies of the Indian independence movement. If you know the poem, the history, and the country, then read this book. If you don't then kidnap an Indian who knows all these things, and then read this book.

This is a book from 1001 list and it is a satire that covers the time period or English imperialism (1930s, WWII, Independence, Ghandi, Nehru, Indira Ghandi) to the post Indira Ghandi. The book is written in structure like Mahabharata with 18 chapters and characters that r/t those in Mahabharata and those of actual history. Sometimes you can guess who the characters are. If you want help, the wiki page has a great chart. I enjoyed reading this book about Ghandi, Nehru, Indira and learning about the history of India's independence and why India has developed as a nation the way that it has. I also enjoyed the many references in the book to other books. I've read many books about India but this one is comprehensive and well worth tracking this book down to read.

This book is a perfect example of why a debate, however good should not be turned into a book. Dr Tharoor repeated the same thing again and again. In order to add more pages, he has added unnecessary things, like Nirad C. Chaudhuri's attitude and quotes from his book. Nirad C. Chaudhuri is an insignificant figure in the history of India. Another few pages were added by discussing P. G. Wodehouse.
He had to show the revenue of India was very high and he decided to say that during Aurangzeb's time it reached an all-time high. He never said that the money was mostly spent in warfare and not improving the infrastructure of the country. Also, the revenue during the British rule probably did not include the revenues of the semi-autonomous 500 odd kingdoms of various sizes. He again gave the impression that there were no riots before the British came and it is difficult to believe. Hindus were living under Islamic laws for most parts and rioting against Muslims would have had serious consequences. It would have been better to say that the country of the Maurya's, Gupta's and the Chola's lost the fighting spirit, willingness to learn at about 1200AD and hence suffered all sorts of defeats and ruled by various foreign rules.
It is true the British took advantage of the weak nation and got as much as possible from the empire. However, it was only possible because the Indians helped them to do so. Towards the end, he acknowledges the fact that the Indian soldiers joined INA (without naming Subhas Chandra Bose), and then there was unrest in the Navy as well in 1946.
Overall, It is not a good book, I am sorry to say.

The book could have been a very good reference book had he not spoilt it from Section Two onwards ranting about BJP and Hindutva. Suddenly in his rant, Ram Mohan Roy was reduced to a few lines, compared to what is happening On Valentine's day. I thought his book could be useful for my daughter who was born in the UK has no connection with India. However, she was born into a Hindu family and could learn many things from the book. Now I feel that one look at the book will make it completely uninterested in what is in it.
I suggest Mr Tharoor write a proper book on evolving Hinduism.

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Tharoor-Le-Grand-Roman-indien/49144
> BAnQ (La presse, 30 mai 1993) : https://collections.banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/2175840
> BAnQ (Le devoir, 12 juin 1993) : https://collections.banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/2765551

> UN ÉCRIVAIN AU SERVICE DE LA PAIX, par Jocelyn Coulon.
In: Le devoir, 16 juin 1993, Cahier B … ; (en ligne),
URL : https://collections.banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/2765560

>  LE GRAND ROMAN INDIEN, de Shashi Tharoor, trad. fse. — Dans une note liminaire, l’auteur prévient : « Le Grand Roman Indien doit son titre non pas à l’évaluation que l’auteur fait de son contenu, mais à un hommage rendu à sa source première d’inspiration, l’ancien poème épique du Mahâbhârata ». En sanscrit, maha - veut dire « grand », Bharata désigne l’ancêtre des héros du Mahâbhârata, roi de la tribu des Kurus, et l’Inde à laquelle il a donné son nom. Ce roman, construit en dix-huit chapitres, comme l’épopée, raconte la lutte entre deux clans rivaux, celui de Gandhi et celui de Jinnah (Mohamed Ali Kama dans le texte), son origine et sa préparation, lutte aboutissant à la partition au moment de l’Indépendance. On retrouve les acteurs de l’épopée transposés dans l’Inde bouillonnante du XXe siècle ; par exemple, Gangâ, « Mère de l’Inde »: Gandhi ; Dhritarashtra : Nehru, chef des Kauravas et père de Duryodhani (Indira Gandhi). Et bien d’autres. L’auteur connaît bien et le Mahâbhârata et l’histoire de l’Inde contemporaine. Son récit est bien mené, mélangeant avec adresse et verve prose et rimes ; la traduction est excellente. Ed. le Seuil, Paris, 1993
—Revue Française de Yoga, février 1999

I received this book as part of LT Early reviewers giveaway. I have been a big fan of Mr Tharoor and have read most of his fiction and non-fiction works.

Religion is always a hard topic to write on. At the very minimum, it is a very polarizing one. Regardless of the track you take, you can never have all people agree on the thoughts and conclusions. It all comes down to what your personal beliefs are.

Mr Tharoor does attempt to explore how un-religion like this religion is. I agree with most of what's in the book and not necessarily with most others. But, as I said, when it comes to religion, it is a very personal preference.½

Goodness me, that was hard work. I'd only give this a look if you're already a Hindu or contemplating becoming one. The book would only be of serious interest had the author, a Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) in South India, been less subjective. The entire work is pervaded by a sense of partisan point-scoring against non-Hindus as well as against extremist co-religionists within India. The evidence in Hinduism’s favor is weak, too: despite a rich scholarly history and thousands of years’ worth of lived experience, Hinduism is mostly practiced in modern India itself. It has failed to win over adherents from other faiths, despite being a ‘henotheistic’ religion (one whose followers worship their [Hindu] god but do not deny the existence of other gods in other religions). Shashi Tharoor labors hard to make the case for Hinduism as a pragmatic choice of religion for the 21st century, failing primarily because of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Although he does rather belatedly answer the question of why Tharoor worships as a Hindu, he never satisfactorily deals with the reason why one should be a Hindu.
I was curious as to how the author would deal with some of the conditions experienced by Hindus in India. Descriptions of the religion’s tolerance are at odds with the constant – and often violently confrontational - agitation among Hindus and Muslims. While India’s chronic struggles with medieval living conditions, poverty, famine and natural disasters are all addressed by Tharoor, his positions aren’t supported by the principles of Hinduism or compelling evidence to the contrary. For example, how to reconcile one’s beliefs with the caste system? Is caste a barrier to leveraging tolerant Hinduism to improve the lot of hundreds of millions of low caste Hindus? Tharoor gives us the example of Basavanna (1131-1167 BCE), and his ‘staunch rejection of the caste system’. He also describes the dynamic of one ‘holy book’, the Bhagavad Gita, within the religion. It’s mostly a 20th century phenomenon, subverted for political use as the independence movement gained momentum and rival factions coalesced around their particular religion at Partition in 1947.
My enthusiasm waned somewhat with the argument made by Mr. Tharoor that the caste system is the fault of the British Imperial period in India. This astonishing claim follows hot on the heels of a paragraph dedicated to caste going back to the invasion of the subcontinent by the Aryans (c. 2000 BC). It’s a total whitewash – pardon the pun – by an author whose previous work is wholly dedicated to a takedown of the Raj.
There follows some agonizing mental gymnastics at once condemning the caste system and justifying its continued preponderance in 21st century India as something “comfortable with the affinities it implies”, that caste is “a form of community organization that has been in place forever, and [that] we are not about to jettison”. Further, astoundingly: “that doesn’t mean we will discriminate against people of other castes, or mistreat them: we are an educated people, and we know that’s wrong”. Justification of a class-based bias that predetermines one’s fate at birth is hardly a bedrock on which to build a just society and underpin one’s personal religious beliefs. This ideological race to the bottom is complete when Tharoor describes ‘Untouchability’ as practiced by Sikhs, Muslims and Christians in India, thus deflecting from the reality that caste is entrenched within Hinduism and within Indian society, and has been for millennia.
In such a crowded and menacing part of the globe, Hinduism has formed a resilient bulwark against the existential threat of other religions, especially Islam. Perhaps this was a place to build an argument in its favor. Instead, Tharoor describes the revenge killing of 2,800 innocent Sikhs in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, or the frenzied, BJP-inspired destruction of the 470-year old Babri Masjid Mosque in Ayodha, thus:
“The actions of both Hindu and Muslim terrorists are anti-national; both aim to divide the country along their religious identities, both hope to profit politically from such polarization”

Rather than confront this reality, we read about India’s current president, Narendra Modi, upon whose watch as Chief Minister of Gujarat 2,000 Muslims were massacred in 2002 in the name of Hindu nationalism. Politically-inspired Hindutva nationalism exacerbates Hindu social programs to the detriment of India’s significant religious minorities, including a potential re-writing of the Constitution to cement these discriminatory impulses into the very fabric of Indian society.
Eventually, the book addresses perhaps unintentionally, the wretched lot – past, present and future – of the 20% of Indians who are not Hindus. It’s not a flattering portrait. Writers like Tharoor accept as immutable facts the inequalities of Indian society and how they both originate in, and persist because of, the preeminent doctrine of Hinduism and Hindutva. How, then, to reconcile with Tharoor’s depiction of “the Hindu people surrounded by enemies” (all 20% of them), and the need to galvanize Hindus through polarization “that pits Hindus against all others”?
I learned much from this book, and I thought Tharoor’s opening was particularly strong and informative to the uninitiated. I saw ‘Why I am a Hindu’ as an opportunity lost, and that chance was to confront the realities faced by Hindus and Hinduism, addressing how they could be overcome by adhering to the faith. On multiple occasions within the text I thought I was reading a partisan manifesto, perhaps not surprisingly given Tharoor’s political leanings and the role he plays within shaping the future of the religion as well as of India itself. But that wasn’t what I was expecting, and it undermined what could have been a valuable book.
Disclaimer: I received an advance copy of Why I Am a Hindu’ in return for an impartial review.½

Why I am a Hindu by Shashi Tharoor is a readable and instructive introduction to the Hindu faith. For the reader who is relatively unfamiliar with Hinduism, the text offers a thoughtful and sympathetic discussion of the essentials of the tradition.

A central theme of Tharoor’s perspective is that Hinduism is “. . . the only major religion in the world that does not claim to be the only true religion” (p. 252). While the assertion may be accurate, it some ways it reflects the very provincialism that he seeks to criticize in other traditions. Within all of the major religions there have been saints or sages who recognized the inadmissibility of the boundaries imposed by the guardians of their faith, and who sought to reach beyond those boundaries to recognize common ground with other traditions. We who identify with any religious tradition do well to celebrate, and emulate, adherence to a principle of tolerance and acceptance, a principle which has found adherents and proponents among the practitioners of every faith tradition, though they have often been ignored and sometimes been cast out or murdered for their position.

Nonetheless, Tharoor’s point about Hindu acceptance of all traditions captures an essential feature of the strand of Hinduism that he represents. He laments the contemporary nationalist stream of Indian Hinduism and politics and offers an account of the Hindu tradition that is a welcome alternative to widespread impressions of Hinduism as fundamentalist, xenophobic, and violent.

Tharoor acknowledges “the sins of the fathers” present in the history of Hinduism as in every major religious tradition and he observes that contemporary, xenophobic “. . . Hindutva reassertion draws from the same wellsprings as Islamist fanaticism and white-nationalist Christian fundamentalism.” (p. 259) One might add to that list the brand of Zionism that continues to systematically displace Palestinians from their homes. No tradition is free from a history, or contemporary manifestation, of the impulse to place others at a distance, to deny their shared humanity, and to seize the power and privilege that can emerge from such a stance.

But Tharoor maintains that a religion should be judged by the best in its history, not the worst, and that the best in Hinduism not only fosters a spirituality that is compassionate and life-affirming but that is also fundamentally accepting of others’ traditions.

Having no knowledge of Hinduism, this book was a revelation, understandable and clear in describing the core of the religion, a bit overwhelming in its particulars. The book also describes the Hindu fundamentalism now infiltrating Indian politics which sounds very much like the divisive politics presently in power in the US and other countries now.½

I just finished the book Why I Am A Hindu. I learned about the Hindutva (which includes the current prime minister of India). I was not aware prior to reading the book about the Hindu fundamentalists. I was surprised at what is happening in India and the divisiveness that is occurring. I hope that they will find unity in the future. I am glad the book was written to provide insight into what is occurring within India with both politics and religion.½