Gautam Bhatia

A Radical Biography in Nine Acts

The Transformative Constitution

A comprehensive examination of free speech under the Indian Constitution. It traces the development of free speech law from the colonial period up to present-day controversies, covering areas such as public order, obscenity, hate speech, defamation et cetera.

Free Speech Under the Indian Constitution

Offend, Shock, Or Disturb

'Imagine a horizon.' 'I can't.' Mithila's world is bound by a Wall enclosing the city of Sumer -- nobody goes out, nothing comes in. The days pass as they have for two thousand years: just enough to eat for just enough people, living by the rules. Within the city, everyone knows their place. But when Mithila tries to cross the Wall, every power in Sumer comes together to stop her. To break the rules is to risk all of civilization collapsing. But to follow them is to never know: who built the Wall? Why? And what would the world look like if it didn't exist? As Mithila and her friends search for the truth, they must risk losing their families, the ones they love, and even their lives. Is a world they can't imagine worth the only world they have? For fans of Isaac Asimov's Nightfall and Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed comes an astonishingly powerful voice in speculative fiction that explores what it means to truly be free.

Being the First Book of the Chronicles of Sumer

The Wall

'Did we not once promise that we would always be honest with each other?' 'I no longer ask for honesty. Just tell me a lie that I can forgive.' After 2000 years, the Wall has been breached. As Mithila steps into a world unknown, her sister Minakshi tightens her grasp on a city bracing for chaos and violence under a red sky. The ghost of an old Revolution stalks the streets, while the shadow of a new one threatens to tear Sumer apart. Spreading word about this historical transgression, Alvar and Mankala find themselves facing new perils in a City they can barely recognise-one torn between old fears and new desires, while caught in a deadly power struggle. But soon, they will know that the crossing of the Wall has consequences not just for the City, but for the world.

The Horizon

Mithila's world is bound by a Wall enclosing the city of Sumer - nobody goes out, nothing comes in. The days pass as they have for two thousand years: just enough to eat for just enough people, living by the rules. Within the city, everyone knows their place. But when Mithila tries to cross the Wall, every power in Sumer comes together to stop her. To break the rules is to risk all of civilization collapsing. But to follow them is to never know: who built the Wall? Why? And what would the world look like if it didn't exist? As Mithila and her friends search for the truth, they must risk losing their families, the ones they love, and even their lives. Is a world they can't imagine worth the only world they have? For fans of Isaac Asimov's Nightfall and Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed comes an astonishingly powerful voice in speculative fiction that explores what it means to truly be free.

Life, Work and Writings

Laurie Baker

In Unsealed Covers, Gautam Bhatia provides a snapshot of the Indian judiciary between 2014 and 2023. The 2014 general election saw the installation of the first majority non-coalition government in many decades (the NDA). The 2019 general election saw its return with a greater majority. It is commonly accepted that the NDA years have generated significant conflict within and around various democratic institutions meant to act as checks and balances against majoritarian power. One of the most important theatres of conflict has been the judiciary-in particular, the Supreme Court. Critics have distinguished the Supreme Court's past assertive record with its quiescent and sometimes facilitative attitude towards the NDA government(s). Unsealed Covers provides a unique terrain where the actions of the judiciary and its relationship with the government are examined in terms of evolution and chronology. It also comments on some of the most important judgments of the past decade.

A Decade of the Constitution, the Courts and the State

Unsealed Covers

Unsealed Covers provides a unique terrain where the actions of the judiciary and its relationship with the government are examined in terms of evolution and chronology. It also comments on some of the most important judgments of the past decade.

How does one view the cumulative work of one's life? For Gautam Bhatia, this publication is not merely a record of his personal or professional legacy, but rather it is a profound examination of his life in architecture. According to the author, architecture is, by its very nature, a practice of contradictions. It operates under influences from sociology, design, engineering, landscape, anthropology, urbanism and civic practice in order to impose its will on the nature of space. This publication brings together several of the author's built works, from commercial and residential buildings to large public spaces, from places of leisure to places of worship. Together with detailed essays, drawings and photographs, the author lays out his philosophy of design to illustrate how architecture became not just a conquest of the imagination, but also of reality. To physically will a building onto a site is an act of design, but to set it free onto a course of transformation is an act of architecture - into a realm beyond the present, where the space is not just made, but lives and dies. The author demonstrates how his practice became not just a tool for solving problems, but also a mode of personal expression, making this volume an invaluable resource for students and practitioners of architecture alike. AUTHOR: Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based architect, writer and artist. A recipient of several awards for his buildings, he has also published books on architecture and satire. His drawings and sculptures have been displayed in galleries in India and abroad. 150 photographs, 155 drawings, 203 illustrations

Blueprint

A renowned architect and artist on how public architecture in our cities has lost contact with the lives of the common people. Behind the seemingly ordinary life of a practising architect lies a whole host of non-professional impulses that give shape to buildings. Stories of Storeys: Art, Architecture and the City is about these impulses and conditions—social, literate, personal and political—which are expressed, but often ignored in architecture. Bhatia looks at the ordinary, physical, visible and tactile involvement of our urban environment and the way it affects, communicates with, or influences us. An all-inclusive sociology of architecture, the book draws on the social life of some of architecture’s role players, people whose peculiar demands on design have come to characterize the building environment of our times, and times that are characterized by this progressive isolation of architecture from the society of common people.

Art, Architecture and the City

Stories of Storeys

A wacky take-off on Vishnu Sharmaýs Panchatantra Inspired by James Finn Garnerýs Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, best-selling author Gautam Bhatia takes the men, women and animals of the Panchatantra and relocates them in contemporary India with its newly acquired nations of political correctness. So we have the fiercely vocal lesbian feminist, Yajnadatta, who leaves her husband for a woman; the expatriate dog Chitranga who flees racial persecution in the West; and a mongoose with an Oedipus complex, armed with a .45 Colt. As these characters engage with the burning issues of the dayýunemployment, oppression, environmental pollution, sexual incompatibilityýthey lay bare the hilarious absurdities of our muddled world.

Parables for the 21st Century

Punchtantra

A Novel

A Short History of Everything

| SHORTLISTED FOR THE TATA LITERATURE LIVE NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 | We think of the Indian Constitution as a founding document, embodying a moment of profound transformation from being ruled to becoming a nation of free and equal citizenship. Yet the working of the Constitution over the last seven decades has often failed to fulfil that transformative promise. Not only have successive Parliaments failed to repeal colonial-era laws that are inconsistent with the principles of the Constitution, but constitutional challenges to these laws have also failed before the courts. Indeed, in numerous cases, the Supreme Court has used colonial-era laws to cut down or weaken the fundamental rights. The Transformative Constitution by Gautam Bhatia draws on pre-Independence legal and political history to argue that the Constitution was intended to transform not merely the political status of Indians from subjects to citizens, but also the social relationships on which legal and political structures rested. He advances a novel vision of the Constitution, and of constitutional interpretation, which is faithful to its text, structure and history, and above all to its overarching commitment to political and social transformation.

Gautam Bhatia

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