This book is an engagingly written, chronologically ordered history of India from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It depicts modern Indian society as structured by its responses to colonial initiatives but sadly unable to attain that perfect civic inclusion exemplified by the West because of Indians' obstinate retention of notions of hierarchy and difference (pp. xxv–vi).
Chapter 1 surveys the nineteenth century and concludes that British stereotypes shaped Indian self-perceptions: “No sooner had the British proposed that that a type existed than the ‘type’ sprang forth” (p. 41). The second chapter describes this process as resulting in fragmentation and antagonism, “just as the idea of a unified Indian nationalist movement made its debut in the form of the Indian National Congress, the putative nation was splitting into fragments” (p. 48). The nationalist movement only gained momentum when it was able to yoke constitutional politics to Hindu revivalism (p. 74). Strangely enough, “in its earliest days, the prospects for Hindu-Muslim unity in Congress were rather promising” (p. 79). This, however, fell apart as the British exploited the rise of Hindu revivalism and pan-Islamism. They also used emerging caste conflicts to their own advantage. They did “not conjure these proliferating divisions and identities from thin air, [but] they waved a magic wand that would entrench and institutionalize them” (p. 90).
Chapter 3 describes the effect of World War I, the advent of Gandhi, constitutional changes, and the new competitive politics of the 1920s and 1930s, including the confrontations that characterized the Round Table conferences (1930–31), the provisions of the 1935 act, and so on—using the cutesy metaphor of a cricket game with British umpires: “Indians would form teams; Muslims, non-Brahmans, Princes and Nationalists would take to the field umpired by the Raj” (p. 135). This segues into chapter 4, which describes the rise of the Gandhi-led Congress to political dominance in the late 1930s. Maria Misra describes Gandhi's utopian vision but adds that his ideas found limited support among the intelligentsia, which now included a “fascist-style Hindu radical right,” a “communist-inspired left,” and the “Colombia PhD” B. R. Ambedkar (pp. 169, 181). The Congress dominated the 1937 elections, but Muslims, regional parties, and low castes (Misra believes) remained alienated from the nationalist project. World War II, political conflicts during and after the war, and the final emergence of India and Pakistan form the next chapter. Misra tells this story clearly enough, although, in conformity with her general focus on caste, religion, the princes, and upper-class life, she omits the sharecroppers' Tebhaga movement, while finding space to tell us that the Grand Hotel in Calcutta served “quartier de mouton rotie a la Metternich” in 1941 (p. 210).
A critique of Jawaharlal Nehru and his ideas shape the next chapter. He is faulted for a lack of resolve that prevented the plans from achieving the economic growth and social progress that was expected of them. He could not provide “drastic and radical institutional change” because of his gradualist and consensual approach (p. 285). His government is also blamed for failing to redistribute land—but Misra repeats the old colonial banality that it was the small size of Indian farms that prevented progress, something that obviously would worsen with redistribution (p. 282). The end of Congress dominance forms the theme of chapter 7. Finally, the rise of the religious right, the demolition of the Babri Mosque, and the defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party–led coalition in the 2004 elections bring chapter 8 to a close. A quick survey of developments under the United Progressive Alliance government concludes the book.
Historiographically speaking, this is not an original book. The earlier parts largely follow C. A. Bayly, Nicholas B. Dirks, and Thomas Metcalf; the later chapters draw heavily from Christophe Jaffrelot, and several maps appear to be pale and garbled copies (without acknowledgment) from Joseph E. Schwartzberg's A Historical Atlas of South Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). The argument about India's effort to maintain hierarchy within a formally democratic system is found in Louis Dumont; the contrast with the supposed civic equality of the West is an old Orientalist trope. Misra chooses to ignore Andre Beteille's many penetrating discussions of these topics (see, e.g., The Idea of Natural Inequality and Other Essays [Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983]). Her unique contribution is a rich array of howlers. To cite a few: The Aga Khan was not a keen adherent of the Congress in the 1880s—he was eight years old when it was founded (p. 79). Misra's rendering of Phule's ballad about Shivaji is pure invention (p. 88), and Muslim volunteers did not chant “Allo-o-Akbar” (p. 124) any more than the later verses of Vande Mataram espouse anti-Muslim sentiments (p. 169). The president of India in 1963 was not “Gopal Radhakrishnan” (p. 290). Some of this is inconsequential ignorance, but it is a serious error to interpret Maharaja Hari Singh's “stand-still agreement” with Pakistan as an agreement to accede (p. 245). Nor is Aksai Chin in northern Kashmir “close to” Nagaland! (p. 308). A historian obsessed with caste should know that Lingayat and Vokkaliga are not “Brahman farmer sub-castes” (p. 288). India's Parliament was attacked by a group of heavily armed men on December 13, 2001; it was not a mere bomb explosion (p. 427).
The maps are in a class by themselves: Map 2 is from Schwartzberg (cf. X.B.1) but arbitrarily reworked with Santhali moved west! Map 4 (cf. Schwartzberg IX.A.2) shows Bangladesh (and India's northeastern states) as part of Pakistan until 1975! Chandigarh shifts its location between maps 4 and 5, and the Soviet Union still exists on map 4, but plate tectonics have carried Ranchi to the Nepal border.
Misra's text is thickly sprinkled with names and words from Indian languages, and many are misspelled, misunderstood, or both. It is possible to write a popular history of India without knowing any of its languages, but surely few authors have gone to such lengths to parade their ignorance. One looks forward to the day when Yale University Press publishes a howler-ridden history of England by someone who knows no English.
