India After Gandhi: The History Of The World's Largest Democracy

India is a story of hope and despair, darkness and light, chaos and glory. Ramachandra Guha tells the story of modern India, its creation and its progress with a well researched elegance. The story of India has always been a captivating one, but Guha gives it fresh insight by the sheer volume of details he provides, not just on India's longest serving prime ministers, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, but also about the lesser known and marginalized people of India – the peasants, workers and tribals.

The compelling book focuses on the conflicts as well as the triumphs that India has seen since its inception. The bloodshed of the Partition, the humiliating defeat against the Chinese, the miracle of the Indian elections, the dark days of Emergency, the triumph of the Bangladesh liberation are all chronicled in detail in this book.

General Reception of the Book

The book was an instant critical success once it was published, and it was hailed as 'Book of the Year' by Outlook, The Wall Street Journal and The Economist. It even won the Sahitya Akademi award for English in the year 2011.

About the Author

Ramachandra Guha can best be described as a multi-faceted personality. His interests include cricket, history, environment and politics. He also writes columns for well known Indian newspapers.

The author is an alumnus of the Doon School, St Stephens College in Delhi and IIM Kolkatta. He has taught at several universities including Stanford, Oslo, Yale and the Indian Institute of Science.

Other Popular Books by Ramachandra Guha

The author is well known for writing other popular books, some of which include The Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India, Wickets in the East, Spin and other Turns, The Picador Book of Cricket, The Last Liberal and other essays

Awards and Recognition

Ramachandra Guha has also been bestowed with many awards through the course of his career, like the Leopold-Hidy Prize by the American Society for Environmental History in 2001, R K Narayan Prize in 2003, Padma Bushan in 2009 and Sahitya Akademi Award in 2011.