Product Description

V.S. Naipaul's fascinating account of his journey around India approaches this shifting, changing land from a variety of perspectives. Through interviews with people from many different walks of life, he builds an oral history of a country constantly on the move.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73431 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

Review
`great patient encyclopaedia...illuminating' --The Week

About the Author
V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. Since he started writing in 1954 he has won many prizes including the Booker Prize for the novel In a Free State (1971).He has published more than twenty books of fiction and non-fiction, including Half a Life, A House for Mr Biswas, A Bend in the River, The Magic Seeds and a collection of letters, Between Father and Son. In 2001 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Customer Reviews

Word of mouth
"India" describes Naipaul's anti-clockwise journey around the metropoles of India in 1988, from Bombay to Srinagar via Bangalore, Madras, Calcutta, Delhi and Amritsar. His theme is that India, seen from the distance of his Trinadadian childhood, appeared as a single, unified entity. Close-up in 1988, however, he saw how it decomposes into a collage of religions, castes and classes. That diversity, for Naipaul, is India's strength. He sees each social group's struggle for security as the motor of India economic, political and social advances since the 1960s.

Reading between the lines, however, you can tell that Naipaul has mixed feelings about India. Apart from the revulsion at the filth and decay, he can not hide his despair of the Indian character. He sees Indians as self-destructive, always letting unnecessary foibles and squabbles obstruct progress. For Naipaul the class-warriors of the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu have replaced a wise culture with a wasteland, the self-regarding idleness of Bengalis has turned Calcutta into a sewer and the Sikhs of Northwest India are persecuted because, deep down, that is their raison d'être.

It's a point of view.

The format of "India" is almost oral history or anthropology. He lets Indians, mostly middle- and upper-class, tell the stories of their lives. Gradually these tales coalesce in the reader's mind and Naipaul's collage of caste, class and ethnicity emerges. The language is clear and engaging; it is hard to imagine a more entertaining introduction to the social processes at work in modern India. Naipaul's own viewpoint emerges gradually between the lines. And he is honest about his own place in the book, not glamorising his trip with chichi exoticism like your average poncey travel-writer, but just making himself a man who travels from hotel to hotel and talks to Indians.

A 'must read' for any one wanting to know more about India
Beyond the popular images of Taj Mahal, the bengal tiger and the curry, researchers and visitors to India had to settle for either the travel guides variety giving a lot of 'nuts and bolts' information ('don't drink tap water - carry enough mosquito repellent') or esoteric tomes specialising on specific philosophical, religious or cultural dimensions. Not any more. Naipaul's book 'India- a million mutinies now', is a good account of life in India from a thousand voices - honestly reported by the author without being judgemental. To me that is the beauty of this book - to remind the reader that the greatest asset of India is not the set of things it possesses but its people. So very humane. A joy to read.

Must read for India rediscoverers
This book was written during the political and social upheaval of late eighties India.Naipaul has been extremely successful in interpreting those changing times in Indian history. Naipaul has magnificently deciphered the role of class, caste, religion,and region in making of a new and stronger India. Contrary to belief this book establishes the argument that diversity is this new India's biggest srength and perhaps a major cause of democratic success. This is a book for any one who wants to get deeper into knowing India. It is not a backpacker's account of mysticism of India.