The 14th edition of Tata Literature Live! is scheduled for later this month – the online edition will take place on the 25th and the 26th of October, and on ground from the 27th to the 29th, at the NCPA, Nariman Point, St Pauls Institute of Communication Education and Title Waves bookstore in Bandra, in Mumbai. You can find more details on their official website and those who wish to register can do so here.
In the meanwhile, here are this year’s longlists for non-fiction and business books.
Tata Literature Live! Non-Fiction Book of the Year Longlist
The Broken Script: Delhi under the East India Company and the fall of the Mughal Empire, by Swapna Liddle
‘At the start of the nineteenth century, there was a Mughal emperor on the throne in Delhi, but the Mughal empire, in decline for almost a century, was practically gone. A new power had emerged—the British East India Company, which captured the Mughal capital in September 1803, becoming its de facto ruler. Swapna Liddle’s book is an unprecedented study of the ‘hybrid half-century’ that followed—when the two regimes overlapped and Delhi was at the cusp of modernity, changing in profound ways. With a ground-level view of the workings of early British rule in India, The Broken Script describes in rich detail the complex tussle between the last two Mughal emperors and the East India Company, one wielding considerable symbolic authority, and the other a fast-growing military and political power. It is, above all, the story of the people of Delhi in this period, some already well known, such as the poet Ghalib, and others, like the mathematician Ram Chander, who are largely forgotten: the cultural and intellectual elite, business magnates, the old landed nobility and the exotic new ruling class—the British,’ says the publisher’s note.
‘Through them, it looks at the economic, social and cultural climate that evolved over six decades. It examines the great flowering of poetry in Urdu, even as attempts to use the language for scientific education faltered; the fascinating history of the Delhi College, and how it represented a radically new model for higher education in India; the rise of modern journalism in Urdu, and various printing presses and publications, exemplified by papers like the Dehli Urdu Akhbar; and the founding of remarkable institutions like the Archeological Society—all of which point to a fast-modernizing society that was being shaped to a significant extent by Western ideas and institutions, but was also rooted strongly in indigenous systems of thought and learning. The Revolt of 1857 and its aftermath violently disrupted this distinctive modernity. The book draws upon a variety of records—including Urdu poetry written after the revolt was brutally suppressed, proceedings of the trials conducted by the British, private letters and newspaper reports—for a nuanced examination of the events of 1857, challenging many commonly held and often simplistic assumptions. In the process, it details not only the destruction wreaked upon Delhi, but also strategies for survival and early attempts to rebuild and revive individual lives and institutions. Combining immaculate scholarship with extraordinary storytelling, Swapna Liddle has produced an outstanding book of narrative history—on a great city in transition, and on early modern India—that will be read and discussed for decades,’ it adds.
India Is Broken, by Ashoka Mody
‘Through the first half century after independence, India’s leaders could point to uneven but measurable progress. After the mid-1980s, dire poverty declined for a few decades, inspiring declarations of victory. But today, a vast number of Indians struggle in a state of underemployment and are one crisis away from despair. Public goods—education, health, cities, air and water, and the judiciary—are in woeful condition. Policy makers search for easy solutions that further undermine the provision of public goods and job creation. India Is Broken is a history that explains how India landed in this economic catch-22. Mody contends that successive post-independence leaders, starting with Jawaharlal Nehru, failed to confront India’s true economic problems. India’s economic growth relied increasingly on unregulated finance and environmentally destructive construction. Social norms and public accountability decayed, allowing for the rise of a violent Hindutva. Hard-hitting, strongly argued, data-driven, and drawing on vignettes from cinema, this book will make for relatable and sombre reading,’ says the publisher’s note.
Raw Umber, by Sara Rai
The autobiographical essays in Raw Umber are as much about the steady pulse of Sara Rai’s childhood in the 1960s, as they are about the nature of remembering, and the role that memory plays in shaping a writer’s sensibility. It is the unconscious jottings of the mind, and the cadences that enter the ears, the inner life that develops during years of unhurried living in places like Allahabad and Banaras that prepare the ground for the fiction writer. With the figure of her grandfather Premchand looming over her childhood, and with others in her family—grandmother, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins—also writers, it is hardly a surprise that Sara ‘fell into’ writing. In this literary memoir, some of the characters in the family gallery are brought to life. In chronicling the life and times of one of India’s most illustrious literary families through the prism of her childhood, Sara Rai always keeps to her own remembering of the ever-changing past. A work of great tenderness and beauty,’ says the publisher’s note.
The Song of The Cell: An exploration of medicine and the new human, by Siddhartha Mukherjee
‘From Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Gene and The Emperor of All Maladies, The Song of The Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer’s exploration of what it means to be human-rich with Siddhartha Mukherjee’s revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and all the patients whose lives may be saved by their work. In the late 1600s, a distinguished English polymath, Robert Hooke, and an eccentric Dutch cloth merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, look down their handmade microscopes. What they see introduces a radical concept that sweeps through biology and medicine, touching virtually every aspect of the two sciences and altering both forever. It is the fact that complex living organisms are assemblages of tiny, self-contained, self-regulating units. Our organs, our physiology, our selves-hearts, blood, brains-are built from these compartments. Hooke christens them ‘cells’. The discovery of cells-and the reframing of the human body as a cellular ecosystem-announced the birth of a new kind of medicine based on the therapeutic manipulations of cells,’ says the publisher’s note.
‘A hip fracture, a cardiac arrest, Alzheimer’s, dementia, AIDS, pneumonia, lung cancer, kidney failure, arthritis, COVID-all could be viewed as the results of cells, or systems of cells, functioning abnormally. And all could be perceived as loci of cellular therapies. In The Song of the Cell, Mukherjee tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new humans. He seduces readers with writing so vivid, lucid, and suspenseful that complex science becomes thrilling. Told in six parts, laced with Mukherjee’s own experience as a researcher, doctor, and prolific reader, The Song of the Cell is both panoramic and intimate-a masterpiece,’ it adds.
Vajpayee: The Ascent of the Hindu Right, 1924-1977, by Abhishek Choudhary
‘A man of unusual gifts and dangerously consequential flaws, Atal Behari Vajpaye was the Hindu Right’s most glamorized and enigmatic face until now. Drawing on a natural talent to pull in the crowds with his eloquence, he elevated his physically frail and academically mediocre self to become a powerful spokesperson of historical victimhood. In this singularly gripping account, Abhishek Choudhary sets out to prove that Vajpayee was far more critical to the project of Hinduizing India than is commonly understood. He uncovers how Vajpayee’s early life, of which we know shockingly little, lies at the heart of his political character: essentially conservative yet curious and conciliatory, detached yet quietly ambitious. Weaving previously unseen documents with revealing interviews, Choudhary layers this definitive biography with details of Vajpayee’s underground activities in the wake of Gandhi’s assassination; his early obsession with foreign policy; the shock from the premature deaths of his parents; his tortuous private life and maudlin poetry; his key role in the SVD coalition experiment; his defence of the Sangh Parivar inside the parliament and his averments and deferments outside,’ says the publisher’s note.
‘In so doing, this extraordinary debut revises several lazy myths and false binaries that have come to dominate Indian political discourse. The sympathy of Congress conservatives and Hindi intelligentsia for the RSS, Patel’s own extended ambiguity, Nehru’s innate conviction that East Pakistan would merge back with India, Indira Gandhi’s fleet-footed attack on the Jan Sangh’s finances and electoral chances, the foolish fantasies of JP’s Total Revolution and the Sangh Parivar’s dubious heroism in the Emergency are also revisited to reveal the complexity of India’s democracy. The first of a two-volume study, Vajpayee: The Ascent of the Hindu Right is a stunningly original portrait of Hindutva’s first prime minister,’ it adds.
Note: This book is also on the Tata Literature Live! Best Non-Fiction First Book Longlist
Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The many lives of Agyeya, by Akshaya Mukul
‘Sachchidanand Hirananda Vatsyayan ‘Agyeya‘ is unarguably one of the most remarkable figures of Indian literature. From his revolutionary youth to acquiring the mantle of a highly controversial patron saint of Hindi literature, Agyeya’s turbulent life also tells a history of the Hindi literary world and of a new nation-spanning as it does two world wars, Independence and Partition, and the building and fraying of the Nehruvian state. Akshaya Mukul’s comprehensive and unflinching biography is a journey into Agyeya’s public, private and secret lives. Based on never-seen-before archival material-including a mammoth trove of private papers, documents of the CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom and colonial records of his years in jail-the book delves deep into the life of the nonconformist poet-novelist. Mukul reveals Agyeya’s revolutionary life and bomb-making skills, his CIA connection, a secret lover, his intense relationship with a first cousin, the trajectory of his political positions, from following M N Roy to exploring issues dear to the Hindu right, and much more. Along the way, we get a rare peek into the factionalism and pettiness of the Hindi literary world of the twentieth century, and the wondrous and grand debates which characterized that milieu,’ says the publisher’s note.
‘Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover features a formidable cast of characters: from writers like Premchand, Phanishwarnath Renu, Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand and Josephine Miles to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, revolutionary Chandra Shekhar Azad and actor Balraj Sahni. And its landscapes stretch from British jails, an intellectually robust Allahabad and modern-day Delhi to monasteries in Europe, the homes of Agyeya’s friends in the Himalayas and universities in the US. This book is a magnificent examination of Agyeya’s civilizational enterprise. Ambitious and scholarly, Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover is also an unputdownable, whirlwind of a read,’ it adds.
Tata Literature Live! Best Non-Fiction First Book Longlist
Courting India: England, Mughal India and the origins of Empire, by Nandini Das
‘When Thomas Roe arrived in India in 1616 as the first ambassador to the Mughal Empire, the English barely had a toehold in the subcontinent. Their understanding of South Asian trade and India was sketchy at best, and, to the Mughals, they were minor players on a very large stage. Roe was representing a kingdom that was beset by financial woes and deeply conflicted about its identity as a unified ‘Great Britain’ under the Stuart monarchy. Meanwhile, the court he entered in India was wealthy and cultured, its dominion widely considered to be one of the greatest and richest empires of the world. In Nandini Das’s fascinating history of Roe’s four years in India, she offers an insider’s view of a Britain in the making, a country whose imperial seeds were just being sown. It is a story of palace intrigue and scandal, lotteries and wagers that unfolds as global trade begins to stretch from Russia to Virginia, from West Africa to the Spice Islands of Indonesia,’ says the publisher’s note. ‘A major debut that explores the art, literature, sights and sounds of Elizabethan London and Imperial India, Courting India reveals Thomas Roe’s time in the Mughal Empire to be a turning point in history – and offers a rich and radical challenge to our understanding of Britain and its early empire,’ it adds.
Heavy Metal: How a Global Corporation Poisoned Kodaikanal, by Ameer Shahul
‘In 2001, a Hindustan Unilever-owned thermometer factory in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, made national headlines when a massive dump of broken mercury thermometers was discovered at a local scrapyard. As the multinational corporation conducted one hasty internal assessment after another to save face, state authorities discovered that the company had violated all acceptable guidelines for toxic waste disposal measures, causing grievous harm to its workers’ health and the region’s fragile ecosystem. As evidence of mercury poisoning among workers mounted, the local community – aided by environmental watchdog Greenpeace and various public-interest organizations – launched a battle against the multibillion-dollar conglomerate that would last fifteen years, culminating in an undisclosed settlement paid to 600 of its ex-employees. And despite the factory’s closure, scientific reports would reveal mercury levels to be 1,000 times higher than the safe limit, raising serious concerns about HUL’s toxic legacy in the hill station,’ says the publisher’s note. ‘For years, Ameer Shahul, a former investigative reporter and Greenpeace campaigner, closely tracked the Kodaikanal mercury poisoning case. The result is Heavy Metal, a blistering account of a colossal industrial tragedy precipitated by corporate negligence and acts of omission and commission at the highest levels,’ it adds.
Marginlands: Indian landscapes on the brink, by Arati Kumar-Rao
‘In the boundless Thar, deemed a ‘wasteland’ by the authorities, miners bulldoze sand dunes guarding life-sustaining water. The Gangetic dolphin, once a thriving apex predator, struggles for survival as its riverine habitat is fragmented by dams and roiled by incessant shipping. Deep in the mangrove forests of the Sunderban, tigers prey on desperate crab-catchers. Encroachments on the Mumbai coastline unleash cataclysmic floods. Along the eroding beaches of Kerala, fishers live in fear of the sea swallowing them whole. As the spectre of climate change compounds these natural and human-induced disasters, India’s most endangered landscapes are pushed to the precipice of destruction. Arati Kumar-Rao journeys to these marginlands, listening intently to their inhabitants, paying close attention to each fissure, fold and ripple, as she documents the misguided decisions, wilfully ignored warnings and disregarded evidence that have brought us almost to a point of no return. But the land is still rich in ancient wisdom, and its cracks hold lessons that may yet aid us in undoing centuries of slow violence – so long as one is willing to attune their senses. Combining enthralling nature writing and journalism with immersive art and photography, Marginlands is an urgent, vital work by a passionate chronicler of our environment,’ says the publisher’s note.
South vs North: India’s Great Divide, by Nilakantan R S
‘Compare two children – one born in north India, the other in the south. The child from south India is far less likely to die in the first year of her life or lose her mother during childbirth. She will also receive better nutrition, go to school and stay in school longer; she is more likely to attend college and secure employment that pays her more. This child will also go on to have fewer children, who in turn will be healthier and more educated than her. In a nutshell, the average child born in south India will live a healthier, wealthier, more secure life than one born in north India. Why is south India doing so much better than the north? And what does that mean? In this superbly argued book, data scientist Nilakantan R S shows us how and why the southern states are outperforming the rest of the country and its consequences in an increasingly centralized India. He reveals how south India deals with a particularly tough set of issues – its triumphs in areas of health, education and economic growth are met with a policy regime that penalizes it; its success in population control will be met with a possible loss of political representation. How will the region manage such an assault? Hard-hitting, troubling and full of fascinating data points, South vs North is an essential book about one of the biggest challenges that India faces today,’ says the publisher’s note.
Vivekananda: The Philosopher of Freedom, by Govind Krishnan V
‘Known by many but understood by few, Swami Vivekananda is a figure shrouded in mystery. However, in recent years there has been a greater tendency to understand, explain, and appropriate the monk and his legacy, especially by the Hindu Right. In Vivekananda: The Philosopher of Freedom, Govind Krishnan V contests the Hindu Right’s appropriation of Swami Vivekananda, one of the most influential and defining figures of modern Hinduism, and attempts to show readers that Vivekananda’s religious philosophy, social thought, and ideology make the monk the Sangh Parivar’s arch nemesis,’ says the publisher’s note.
‘Divided into three sections, this book brings into focus multiple facets of Vivekananda’s deeply original thought and the complex and contested times he lived in. ‘Part I: Life, Ideology, and Historical Context’ begins with a short biography of Swami Vivekananda before introducing the reader to important features of Vivekananda’s writing and thinking which have become lost to our public memory. It explores Vivekananda’s views on themes relevant to the Hindutva project: Indian civilization, society, and culture; the nature of the caste system and Brahminism; the history of Islam in India; Hindu mythology, belief, and rituals; individual liberty; attitudes towards the West; and so on. It then explores Vivekananda’s understanding of and relationship with Islam and Christianity. The section ends with an examination of the role Western civilization plays in Vivekananda’s and the RSS’s respective world views and the obvious clash between the former’s internationalism and the latter’s nativism. ‘Part II: Hinduism, the Sangh, and the West’ examines how the RSS and the Sangh have used Hindu symbols, motifs, and issues like Ram Janmabhoomi, and contrasts this usage with Vivekananda’s Hinduism. Finally, it situates Vivekananda’s public life in the global context during a period of much change in fin de siècle Europe and America. Also surveyed is the cultural and intellectual framework of colonialism within which Vivekananda operated. ‘Part III: Vivekananda’s Philosophy’ begins with an exposition of Vivekananda’s philosophy of universal religion and his theoretical framework of Advaita and an explication of his famous assertion that religion should conform to reason as much as science does. The closing part of the book deals with Vivekananda’s position on caste and gender and posits him as an anti-caste and proto-feminist reformer of his time. Cogently argued, Vivekananda: The Philosopher of Freedom pulls back the curtain on Vivekananda’s outlook and shows why the great monk deserves to be reinstated as a liberal thinker in the popular cultural imagination,’ it adds.
Tata Literature Live! Business Book of the Year Longlist
Against All Odds: The IT story of India, by S Gopalakrishnan, N Dayasindhu, Krishnan Narayan
‘Against All Odds is an insider’s account and an anecdote-rich history of Indian IT over the last six decades. It taps into the first-hand experiences of Kris Gopalakrishnan and fifty other stalwarts who built and shaped the IT industry. This is a tale of persistence and resilience, of foresight, of planning and being ready when luck knocks on the door, of a spirit of adventure and, above all, of an abiding sense of faith in technology and the belief that it would do good for India. It is a tale of triumph, and the best is yet to come,’ says the publisher’s note.
Forks in The Road: My days at RBI and Beyond, by C Rangarajan
‘In this book, veteran economist and policymaker C Rangarajanprovides a captivating account of his professional journey, starting with his purely accidental entry into the RBI in 1982. Rangarajan, regarded as one of the tallest figures in the history of India’s economic reforms, provides crucial insights into the role he played as part of the team which initiated far-reaching reforms in India’s economy in the early 1990s. The path-breaking reforms that he implemented during his tenure as governor of RBI included deregulation of interest rates, strengthening of the banking system by a gradual tightening of prudential norms, creation and nurturing of financial markets, giving them depth and vibrancy, shifting to market-determined exchange rates, making the rupee convertible on the current account and the cessation of automatic monetization of budget deficit. Rangarajan describes the key events between 1982 and 2014, particularly in the areas of money and finance, explaining not only what happened but also the motivations and processes behind them. As a public figure and an architect of economic change in India, he also ruminates about his interactions with both political and economic actors. Forks in the Road is not only a memoir of a man who shaped India’s economy and positively impacted the lives of many, but also a fascinating account of India’s growth story. It is a description of what we did and what we did not, and where we succeeded and where we failed,’ says the publisher’s note.
Just Aspire: Notes on Technology, Entrepreneurship and the Future, by Ajai Chowdhry
‘Entrepreneur, sportsman, salesman, engineer, educationist, jazz aficionado and investor – meet Ajai Chowdhry, the HCL cofounder who dons many hats, all with equal ease. Growing up in the sleepy town of Jabalpur in a family that had migrated from Abbottabad post India’s Independence, Ajai’s life was set for a linear trajectory-engineering, a well-paying job and a comfortable life-but for the year 1975. This was the year when Ajai quit his job at DCM Data Products and jumped into the uncharted waters of entrepreneurship, founding HCL with Shiv Nadar, Arjun Malhotra, Yogesh Vaidya, Subhash Arora and D S Puri. In the 1970s, leaving a stable job with one of India’s leading brands was nothing short of crazy. To add to that, not many Indians knew what a computer was. The word ‘start-up’ was decades away from its use in common parlance,’ says the publisher’s note.
‘Over the next four decades, HCL would go on to become one of the largest IT companies in India and a household brand. In Just Aspire, Ajai not only shares the story of a successful business behemoth but also of dreams, aspirations, hope and achievements from the eyes of a small-town boy. Along this journey, he shares timeless lessons on entrepreneurship, technology and the future. For all dreamers and doers, this book is a treasure trove of inspiration,’ it adds.
Made in India: 75 years of Business and Enterprise, by Amitabh Kant
‘Seventy-five years after India attained freedom at the stroke of the midnight hour, the Indian economy has emerged as one of the largest in the world, with a vibrant start-up ecosystem. It has certainly come a long way since the time economic performance, shackled by socialist policies and the License-Permit-Quota Raj, was christened the ‘Hindu rate of growth’. In an attempt to understand this remarkably robust and resilient growth story of Indian business and enterprise, Amitabh Kant offers a multi-faceted survey of the nation’s business heritage and culture in Made in India. This is a groundbreaking account of the development of Indian business and enterprise from the colonial period to the present. It not only introduces readers to formative business leaders (including Jamsetji Tata, Ghanshyam Das Birla and Walchand Hirachand Doshi) and leading firms (Wadia Group, Kirloskar Brothers Limited and Shapoorji Pallonji) but also analyse their presence in the country’s economy, their growth over time and their true impact on society. Made in India comes to life with inspiring stories of entrepreneurs like Sunil Bharti Mittal and Rahul Bhatia, who have navigated many ups and downs on the road to building successful enterprises,’ says the publisher’s note.
The Tech Phoenix by T N Manoharan, V Pattabhi Ram
‘On the morning of 7 January 2009, India and the global IT community watched in horror as a letter written by the chairman of Satyam Computers, B Ramalinga Raju, flashed on all news channels. The tech czar confessed to fixing the books for years together, audits notwithstanding. This led to a host of consequences—Satyam stock prices crashed, its large employee base was deeply affected, and most importantly, India’s reputation as a premier IT service provider was sullied. However, the story does not end there. In fact, The Tech Phoenix: Satyam’s 100-Day Turnaround only begins at this point. The government swiftly stepped in and nominated a board, with leading figures from various fields. T N Manoharan, one of these board members, narrates the events of the tumultuous 100 days immediately following Raju’s letter, in what is the fastest turnaround in corporate history. This remarkable corporate rescue operation is an engrossing story that culminates in the selection of an investor who infuses capital and takes control. It offers an insider’s account of the detailed planning and dedication that resurrected a fallen but storied company, and the lessons learnt in the process of protecting the interests of the stakeholders—employees, investors and customers—and redeeming India’s global image,’ says the publisher’s note.
Working to Restore: Why we do Business in the Regenerative Era, by Esha Chhabra
‘Dispatches from a landscape where pioneering entrepreneurs use their businesses as catalysts of change to solve social and environmental problems. Historically, big businesses have sourced materials from remote corners of the globe and moved millions of people and tons of cargo around the clock-all in the name of profit. But many of today’s startups are rewriting the rules. Journalist Esha Chhabra draws on her decades of reporting to explore the nuanced realities and promise of regenerative business operations. Working to Restore examines revolutionary approaches in nine areas: agriculture, waste, supply chain, inclusivity for the collective good, women in the workforce, travel, health, energy, and finance. The companies profiled are solving global issues: promoting responsible production and consumption, creating equitable opportunities for all, encouraging climate action, and more. Chhabra highlights how their work moves beyond the greenwashed idea of ‘sustainability’ into a new era of regeneration and restoration,’ says the publisher’s note.
‘The book highlights innovative entrepreneurs who understand that we cannot expect to create radical change if we try to sustain a system that has long been broken. Instead, their efforts of restoration and regeneration should be used as a model for other forward-thinking enterprises. Inspiring and engaging, this book shows it is possible for a business to thrive while living its mission and how the rules can be rewritten to put both the planet and its global citizens at the centre,’ it adds.
BooksFirst 