As the year 2023 draws to a close there have been no short of engrossing books for the lovers to read in the year . Here we look at the books which made headlines and we believe is must in your bookshelf sooner than later . So enjoy the reading.
1. How Prime Ministers Decide
By Neerja Chowdhury – Aleph Book Publications
India’s prime ministers have taken decisions that changed the course of the country’s history. This book by Neerja Chowdhury, an award-winning journalist and political commentator, goes beyond the news headlines to provide an eye-opening account of how some of the most important political decisions in independent India were taken.
The author analyses the operating styles of the country’s prime ministers through the prism of six decisions of historic significance. These are as follows: the strategy that Indira Gandhi devised to return to power in 1980, after her humiliating defeat post the Emergency in 1977; the errors of judgment that led Rajiv Gandhi to undo the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Shah Bano case; V. P. Singh’s implementation of the Mandal Commission Report to save his government which forever changed the face of contemporary politics; P. V. Narasimha Rao’s masterful indecision that resulted in the demolition of the Babri Masjid; the rapidly changing political scenarios that turned the avowed pacifist Atal Bihari Vajpayee into a nuclear hawk who greenlighted the testing of nuclear devices; and the mild and professorial Manmohan Singh, widely regarded as one of the country’s weakest prime ministers, who defied interest groups and foes within the political establishment to seal a historic nuclear deal with the United States—and upgraded the bilateral relationship to a new level.
Based on hundreds of interviews that the author conducted with prime ministers, key figures in the political establishment, bureaucrats, aides, policymakers, and even fixers the book provides remarkable insights that have been gleaned over forty years of high-level reporting on the national political scene.
How Prime Ministers Decide is an unparalleled book about modern Indian politics which will change the way we view how prime ministers govern the country.
2. Breaking the Mould : Reimagining India’s Economic Future – Raghuram Rajan & Rohit Lamba – Penguin Random House India
Where is India going today?
Is it surging forward, having just overtaken the United Kingdom to become the fifth-largest economy in the world?
Or is it flailing, unable to provide jobs for the millions joining the labour force?
What should India do to secure a better future?
India is at a crossroads today. Its growth rate, while respectable relative to other large countries, is too low for the jobs our youth need. Intense competition in low-skilled manufacturing, increasing protectionism globally and growing automation make the situation still more difficult. Divisive majoritarianism does not help. India broke away from the standard development path―from agriculture to low-skilled manufacturing, then high-skilled manufacturing and, finally, services―a long time back by leapfrogging the intermediate steps. Rather than attempting to revert to development paths that may not be feasible any more, we must embark on a truly Indian path.
In this book, the authors explain how we can accelerate economic development by investing in our people’s human capital, expanding opportunities in high-skilled services and manufacturing centred on innovative new products, and making India a ferment of ideas and creativity. India’s democratic traditions will support this path, helped further by governance reforms, including strengthening our democratic institutions and greater decentralization.
The authors offer praise where the Indian establishment has been successful but are clear-eyed in pointing out its weaknesses. They urge India to break free from the shackles of the past and look to the possibilities of the future.
3. PRANAB, MY FATHER: A DAUGHTER REMEMBERS By Sharmistha Mukherjee – Rupa Publications
No evocative of contemporary Indian politics can match that found in the pages of Pranab Mukherjee’s diary, a place where his mind found its most memorable outlet.
The 13th President of India, who served as India’s External Affairs, Defence, Finance and Commerce Minister at different times; a Parliamentarian with the unique distinction of being the leader of both Houses; and a member of the Congress Working Committee for 23 years, Pranab Mukherjee was a scholar par excellence, powerful orator and one of India’s most towering statesmen. But to his daughter, Sharmistha Mukherjee, he was Baba, the workaholic; the history teacher who narrated events in the spirit of adda at dinner time; and the devoutly religious man who never imposed his faith on his daughter. In public and private, Pranab was always larger than life.
In Pranab, My Father: A Daughter Remembers, Sharmistha offers a fascinating glimpse into the illustrious life of Pranab Mukherjee. She invites us into her family’s private world that was peopled by the Gandhis—Indira, Rajiv, Sonia and Rahul; Prime Ministers P.V. Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Dr Manmohan Singh and, more recently, Narendra Modi. She uncovers new, hitherto unknown facets of Pranab’s political life—his unfulfilled ambition of becoming India’s prime minister arising out of his inability to emerge as the ‘number one person’ to earn Sonia’s trust, the personality cult around the Nehru–Gandhi family, Rahul Gandhi’s lack of charisma and political understanding, Mamata Banerjee’s opposition to Pranab’s nomination as the presidential candidate (which sealed the deal in his favour) and his advice to PM Modi to acknowledge the contributions of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
Through Pranab’s diary entries, personal stories narrated to Sharmistha and her own research—enhanced by her collection of never-before-seen photographs—this is a sweeping, multigenerational narrative from a flickering lamp in West Bengal’s remote village to the glittering chandeliers of India’s capital. Refreshingly original as it is exquisitely rendered, Pranab, My Father: A Daughter Remembers is a
remarkable debut book that celebrates a special father–daughter relationship.
4. THE SHORTEST HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND PALESTINE
FROM ZIONISM TO INTIFADAS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE – MICHAEL SCOTT-BAUMANN – Pan Macmillan India
The ongoing struggle between Israel and Palestine is one of the most bitter conflicts in history, with profound global consequences. In this book, Middle East expert Michael Scott-Baumann succinctly describes its origins and charts its evolution from civil war to the present day. Each chapter offers a lucid explanation of the politics and ends with personal testimony from Palestinians and Israelis whose lives have been overshadowed by violence. While presenting competing interpretations, Scott-Baumann examines key flash points including the early role of the British, the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the Six-Day War of 1967, the Trump administration’s 2020 peace plan, and the war ignited by Hamas’s surprise attacks on Israel in 2023. He delineates both the nature of Israeli control over the Palestinian territories and Palestinian resistance—going to the heart of recent clashes. The result is an indispensable history, including a time line, glossary, and analysis of why efforts to restore peace have continually failed—at immense human cost on both sides of the conflict—and what it will take to succeed.
5. Roman Stories – Jhumpa Lahiri, Penguin Random House India
In ‘The Boundary’, one family vacations in the Roman countryside, though we see their lives through the eyes of the caretaker’s daughter, who nurses a wound from her family’s immigrant past. In ‘P’s Parties’, a Roman couple, now empty nesters, finds comfort and community with foreigners at their friend’s yearly birthday gathering-until the husband crosses a line.
And in ‘The Steps’, on a public staircase that connects two neighbourhoods and the residents who climb up and down it, we see Italy’s capital in all of its social and cultural variegations, filled with the tensions of a changing city: visibility and invisibility, random acts of aggression, the challenge of straddling worlds and cultures, and the meaning of home.
These are splendid, searching stories, written in Jhumpa Lahiri’s adopted language of Italian and seamlessly translated by the author and by Knopf editor Todd Portnowitz.
