After Nehru (3/3) - Perry Anderson - London Review of Books - 0 views
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Nick Chaiyachakorn on 21 Aug 12The last in a trilogy that gets critical about the history of Indian independence. This article gnaws into the sinews of the modern Indian state - it lashes out at Congress' failure to tackle these problems head-on has leongress' "Hindu confessionalism", centralism and authoritarianism under Nehru's name, secularization-only-in-name, glorious fuckups in IJK and Nagaland, the genesis of Indian political dynasties, the Emergency, how politics has reinforced caste (although robbed it of much meaning). It seems almost expected coming from his point of view - eh can't help but be jaded. Magnificent, magisterial, etc etc etc. Very, very informed - but what does he do with it? His other stuff is survey stuff (standard 20th century topics), but he seems relatively intelligent. I'm not sure what his biases are, though.