The waiter at the Oberoi hotel’s swish Vetro restaurant in Mumbai comes over and Ramachandra Guha orders a glass of apple juice to drink with lunch. He changes his mind and orders a Diet Coke, then he quickly switches back to apple juice. The interaction takes place at hyperspeed, indicative perhaps of the rapid workings of the mind of Mr Guha, one of India’s foremost writers and thinkers.
Mr Guha has just released the work of his career thus far, India After Gandhi – the History of the World’s Largest Democracy. The wisdom he has garnered in creating this magnificently readable opus places him in a unique position to also act as a prophet. What are India’s strengths and frailties as it embarks on its next 60 years of nationhood?
