New Delhi: At the BJP’s two-day training programme for its newly-elected MPs which began in the capital Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed on the party’s “organic” nature.
Perhaps it is former Vice-Chancellor of Nalanda University, Gopa Sabharwal, who provided the PM with this primer.
Modi was seen at the event reading from the Hindi translation of Sabharwal’s book India Since 1947: The Independent Years. Originally published in English, this book chronicles the events that have shaped independent India. A sociologist by training, Sabharwal had founded the sociology department of Lady Shri Ram College for Women in 1993.
The book, according to the description on Penguin’s website, is the “most comprehensive compendium on post-1947 India. This definitive guide to independent India takes us through events and personalities that have shaped the country in the 60 years since 1947, starting with Independence Day.”
Among other things, the book also focuses on the BJP’s emergence as a major political force, as it traces the movement from single-party politics to coalition centric governance in India.
India since 1947
The book chronicles events leading up to India’s Independence and key developments in each year thereafter (1947-2017). Arranged under various subheads, such as politics and governance, foreign relations, armed forces, legislation and the judiciary, it attempts to provide a comprehensive picture of many phases of Indian governments – from the socialism of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to the liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation of the 1990s.
The events, listed in chronological order, are interspersed with ‘factoids’ to add to its allure.
Sample this.
The V.P. Singh-led government announces a 27 per cent reservation in tandem with the Mandal Commission recommendations in 1990. Soon after, BJP chief L.K. Advani launches a rath yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya for the construction of the Ram Temple. The government then arrests Advani.
According to Sabharwal, Advani’s arrest had set the stage for the fall of Singh’s administration, the first time an elected government was voted out in India.
“The yatra was the political reaction of the BJP to the Mandal announcement of V.P. Singh which threatened to divide the BJP’s constituency and take away momentum from them,” Sabharwal writes in the book.
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