Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Topic: Book review

Hindutva empire: unveiling Moditva castle; reading Christophe Jaffrelot’s ‘Gujarat under Modi: laboratory of today’s India’

This book has very closely analysed Gujarat politics by considering the impact of other factors such as culture and identity, caste equations, industrialization, and more importantly its political history and its role in breeding Hindutva politics in the state, which later proved to be a laboratory of today’s India under the aegis of current Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi.

Witnessing and looking back at a pogrom: Reader’s notes on Zara Chowdhary’s “The Lucky Ones”

Twenty-two years later, Zara Chowdhary will write a memoir of her life and that of her family during those three months and several others preceding them. She will name it “The Lucky Ones”, indicative of the survival her family made, while the unlucky ones made into numbers in government records and eventually into unmarked graves. 

An Anglo Areekodian chronicle : A small note on ‘Chronicle of an Hour and a Half’

This is not a review, just an attempt to explain my feelings as a reader seeing my hometown in a novel of national acclaim. That was what led me to the novel ‘Chronicle of an Hour and a Half’ by Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari.

Srinagar is a living embodiment of Kashmir’s tortuous history

A city reflects the soul of a society—its triumphs, turmoil, and transformations are etched into every stone and shadow. In a bold new book,...

Reading Arshi Javaid’s Kashmiri Nationalism, 1989-2016: Contested Politics of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’

Arshi Javaid’s Kashmiri Nationalism, 1989-2016: Contested Politics of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ stands out as a seminal work on the Kashmir conflict, offering a nuanced exploration of nationalism, identity politics, and the interplay between institutional structures and grassroots movements.

Finding depth in ordinary: Zahid Rafiq’s The World With Its Mouth Open

Zahid Rafiq's “The World With Its Mouth Open” takes the reader on a quiet journey into the life of an ordinary Kashmiri. The book...