New Delhi: Published in the United States last year to considerable critical acclaim, the book Brand New Nation by Ravinder Kaur breaks new ground in its analysis of contemporary India.
The book, published by HarperCollins India, will be released on 2 August on ‘SoftCover’, ThePrint’s e-venue to launch select non-fiction books.
Ravinder Kaur is an Associate Professor of Modern South Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She is also the author of Since 1947: Partition Narratives among the Punjabi Migrants of Delhi (2007, 2018).
The book discusses in detail the on-ground experience of the relentless transformation of the nation-state into an attractive investment destination for global capital and also goes on to explain how the infusion of capital not only rejuvenates the nation but also produces investment-fuelled nationalism, populist energy that can be turned into a powerful instrument of coercion.
Grounded in the history of modern India, Kaur focuses on how the forces of identity economy, identity politics, publicity, populism, violence and economic growth are rapidly rearranging the liberal political order the world over.
“In this subtle, insightful and often witty book, Ravinder Kaur shows how the ‘New India’ came into being with its distinctive mix of market and Hindu fundamentalisms, plutocracy and deprivation, mass agitation and state repression”, says Pankaj Mishra, author of Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race, and Empire.
Christophe Jaffrelot, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, writes, “Ravinder Kaur convincingly argues that the era of ‘happy globalization’ is over in India and that it is largely responsible for the dominant repertoire of national-populism under Modi”.
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