Farrukh Dhondy, writer of fiction, drama, TV screenplays and newspaper columns dubbed this book as he wrote it, India Made Easy. He says he had in mind the reader who had no previous knowledge of the country’s origins, history or current intellectual directions. He took as his model reader the one who wanted an accessible and fairly rapid, non-academic guide to Indian history or the visitor to the country who required a wide but easy outline of the rich and varied story of India or indeed the reader who was more interested in narrative than in statistics. India My India is, as a consequence, a non-academic and opinionated history of the subcontinent, from the Indus Valley Civilisation to the present day when India is one of the fastest growing modern economies in the world. The book may well have been called From Mohenjodaro to Modi in order to assert its sweep from a prehistoric settlement to the development of a contemporary capitalist democracy. The chapters attempt, at the end of each, to guide the reader to the surviving monuments, objects or traditions and contributions of the different eras – be they the ruins of the Indus Valley, the temple of the Southern Kingdoms, the evidence of 800 years of Buddhist civilisation, the mosques and tombs of the Moghuls or the decrees which, under Thomas Macaulay, introduced English education to India.

Date: 25th December, 2017