Tavleen Singh

Memoirs of a journalist about Indian political realities and her association with Rajiv Gandhi,1944-1991, former prime minister of India.

Durbar

Seventy years after Nehru's beautiful midnight speech - 'Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny...' - in Indian cities and villages millions survive on less than the bare minimum. Children are not in classrooms, women have nowhere safe to relieve themselves, and jobless men lie around in a daze. In cities, where initiative should flourish, a merciless state looms large over every common endeavour. The civilization that was India, that grand culture, has not found utterance again. Long years after freedom from the British, why do we remain suppressed? In India's Broken Tryst, bestselling author and popular political columnist Tavleen Singh chronicles the damage done. Here is the story of Surekha, who lives on the pavements of Mumbai's landmark Marine Drive with memories of crushing hunger. Of Ali, the idli seller who is forced out of his honest livelihood by cops and corporators. Of Sahib and Sardar, little boys torn from their mother on the criminal charge of begging. Of those nameless servants who do not have access to toilets even as they service the luxury apartments where Singh lives. From the very poor to the very rich, Tavleen Singh catalogues in bold, eviscerating detail the systematic unmaking of our sense of destiny. Can an Indian dream stretch beyond food and water, literacy, toilets, and in some cases just a document of identification? If not, what destiny?

India's Broken Tryst

A Tragedy of Errors

Kashmir

Khushwant Singh

Shekhar Gupta

Sunil Sethi

Amarjit Kaur

Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora

MV Kamanth

Subhash Kirpekar

6 June 1984: The Indian Army storms the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Called Operation Bluestar, the historic and unprecedented event ended the growing spectre of terrorism perpetrated by the extremist Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers once and for all. But it left in its wake unsolved political questions that continued to threaten Punjab's stability for years to come. How, in a brief span of three years, did India's dynamic frontier state become a national problem? Who was to blame: the central government for allowing the crisis to drift despite warnings, or the long-drawn-out Akali agitation, or the notorious gang of militants who transformed a holy shrine into a sanctuary for terrorists? First published two months after Operation Bluestar, The Punjab Story pieces together the complex Punjab jigsaw through the eyes of some of India's most eminent public figures and journalists. Writing with the passion and conviction of those who were involved with the drama, they present a wide-ranging perspective on the past, present and future of the Punjab tangle; and the truth of many of their'conclusions having been borne out by time.

The Punjab Story

One of India's most influential columnists, and one not averse to controversy, Tavleen Singh was among the few mainstream 'Delhi' voices to see the Narendra Modi wave coming in 2014. In Messiah Modi, she details her early support for Modi the candidate, followed by a helpless disenchantment with Modi the PM and the cabinet he headed. She tells the story of his first term as it unfolded. From lynchings to demonetization up to Article 370, she gives an intimate account of her subject. In the 2019 verdict, and her own inability to get it right, she sees that she and her ilk have been swept to the margins of India; the masses of India speak in one voice, and that voice chants 'Modi'. And yet, there is a marked difference between her enthusiasm of 2014 and her acceptance of 2019 as she examines whether Modi delivered on the promises he made in his first term. Is he the messiah so many hoped he would be? This is Tavleen Singh's frank and forthright reckoning of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Tavleen Singh

About

Books

Join the club