Bookshelf

The Elephant, the Tiger,and the Cell Phone:
Reflections on India, the emerging 21st-century power
by Shashi Tharoor
Arcade, 2007

Tharoor, a lifelong UN man whose bid to be secretary-general was reportedly nixed by the White House, has now collected together his columns from such media outlets as The Hindu and The Washington Post. Short sketches of people he admires (from Amartya Sen to the great cricketer Sunil Gavaskar), coupled with short vignettes on moments forgotten, make up this entertaining collection – the unabashed goal of which, as Tharoor puts it, is to make the "world safe for diversity". (Vijay Prashad)

The New Asian Hemisphere:
The irresistible shift of global power to the East
by Kishore Mahbubani

Public Affairs, 2008 Mahbubani, a top-level Singaporean diplomat who is now dean at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, made a big splash with a previous book, Can Asians Think? That book, which came out in 2001, showed how European and US public policy is largely condescending towards Asia. This new work is more ambitious, arguing that it is the East that is now going to be dominant over the planet – but that the West need not fear. The East, according to Mahbubani, will simply be the West: there will be no challenge as such, only a spatial shift for business as usual. Asia's Arnold Toynbee strikes again, evidently – although this book, like Toynbee's work, ignores relations of power and, so, imperialism. (VP)

Communicating Disasters:
An Asia-Pacific resource book
edited by Nalaka Gunawardene & Frederick Noronha

UNDP/TVE-Asia Pacific, 2007 Communicating Disasters explores the role of media professionals and their use of information and communication technologies, particularly following the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and the Kashmir earthquake of 2005. Case studies, incisive analyses and evocative narratives highlight the challenges of covering disasters and their aftermath – both immediate and long-term. Tips on how to literally 'unearth' stories, ethical guidelines on how to reduce the vulnerability of victims, and the tracing of links between gender and disaster – all of these potentially dry topics are presented here in simple, accessible language. Superb photographs also make up for the somewhat confusing layout and unnecessary appendices. (Laxmi Murthy)

First Proof:
The Penguin book of new writing from India, volume III
Penguin, 2007

The third in a series of collections of fiction and non-fiction, this volume unfortunately offers little that is actually 'new' in Indian writing. The fiction it includes remains of the type that one has come to expect from that contrived genre dubbed 'Indian' writing – one that renders the mundane insipid and the quirky sensational. One is either bored or breathless, with little in between. For its part, the non-fiction here is a scant improvement. If the prose were less self-indulgent and inward-looking, the variety – from travelogues to reportage to activist diaries – might have made for some good reading. An exception is Nirupama Dutt's "The Sufi Way in Malerkotla", which transports the reader to a mystic Sufi realm in Punjab. Ultimately, this gimmicky two-sided book is more baffling than helpful in distinguishing between the two parts. (LM)

Goodbye to Gandhi?:
Travels in the New India
by Bernard Imhasly
translated by Ritu Khanna
Penguin, 2007

As so many seem wont to do nowadays, Imhasly journeys across India examining day-to-day realities in cities such as Porbandar, Champaran and Imphal, against the backdrop of Mohandas Gandhi's philosophies. Without passing judgment on either Gandhi or the 'new' India, he empathetically chronicles the continuing struggles of Dalits, minorities, and the landless, who have yet to see much of the tolerance or equality advocated by the Mahatma. Parallel to this disheartening narrative, Imhasly recounts the attempts by various 'Gandhian' individuals and movements to represent the marginalised of India. Essentially a personal travelogue with Gandhi as inspiration, this book is straightforward and accessible. (Surabhi Pudasaini)

Militarizing Sri Lanka
by Neloufer de Mel
Sage, 2007

Militarizing Sri Lanka explores the layered and nuanced ways in which armed solutions to conflict become entrenched in and transform society, the individual and the state apparatus. While the book focuses on Sri Lanka's particular experience, the processes of militarisation traced by de Mel are useful in understanding other societies living in conflict, as well. Though the book's academic jargon is sometimes hard to follow, a range of case studies on advertising, popular culture and censorship – even of memory and history – articulately convey the author's interesting argument. (SP)

Battle for Peace
by Krishna Kumar
Penguin, 2007

Despite its title, reading this book is closer to a battle to understand what exactly Krishna Kumar's point is. Kumar meanderingly raises observations that thwart peace in Southasia: the media portrayal of Kashmir as a theatre of war devoid of the human; the shortcomings of the current phases of globalisation; the nuclearisation of Southasia; the failure of elite secularists in recognising, and engaging with, the importance of religion; the fantasies of some Indians who dream of reunification, even while there are Pakistanis who are quite happy with their own nation state; and the insidious indoctrination of religious hatred for those across the border. We have heard these critiques before, but that does not stop Kumar from recycling arguments without providing concrete solutions rooted in the local realities of the region. (Neha Inamdar)