Customer Reviews

India: A Mosaic

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The contributors to the book all consider themselves to be leftists. The Indian contributors are all Westernized and many live in the West. They have a long history of being unremittingly critical of Indian culture and traditions. One of the contributors, N. Ram, openly supports the Chinese destruction of Tibet, her culture and civilization. Amartya Sen should stick to economics, his specialty; but even here, his embracement of Marxism, a failed ideology, makes his opinions suspect. Pankaj Mishra is the author of a very badly written sneering travelogue on India called Butter Chicken in Ludhiana. He is also "credited" with "discovering" Arundhati Roy, who has written the introduction. Given that the contributors form a Mutual Admiration Society, you will get a perspective that completely lacks diversity: not the Mosaic promised. Most importantly, nearly all the writers write from a highly political (leftist) perspective. This makes for shrill, and ultimately very annoying reading.

Spare yourself the trouble. Visit India yourself and make up your mind. You are likely to come away with a much more positive impression than the one this book seeks to project.

Writers like Arundhati Roy love to write about conflicts.... the left in general loves the idea of a class struggle... because that is how the society in the West was for many years and still is in certain ways.. India has never been about that.. what one sees in India at every turn is reconciliation.. the amazingly accommodating nature of India enabling us to accept people from all religions, from all backgrounds etc. I believe that the essential nature of India is love... sadly, very few people recognize this and this book is the result.. shallow and abusive... We no longer seem to have the awe and respect for beauty and greatness... the "everyone and everything is equal" philosophy has destroyed our understanding of the world. As Adi Shankara says, we are all equal but only when our mind evolves to the stage where we can conceive of the world in that fashion. A materialistic loony who has plastic surgery every six months is not equal to Adi Shankara no matter what anyone might say. As they say in my hometown, Kahan Raja Bhoj, Kahan Gangoo Telli?

Tunku Vardarajan in the India today says, India: a Mosaic is a con job. The word "mosaic" suggests a variety in the book. Instead the book talks about "bleeding-hearted" essays. According to him, the articles in the book were published elsewhere and are "profoundly stale." From my reading of the book i found the book to be a "do not buy."