India on the Move: When Jai Shree Ram Met Bharat Mata Ki Jai by Marya Shakil and Narendra Nath Mishra, Penguin Random House India, pp.200, Rs 699

Marya Shakil and Narendra Nath Mishra unravel the rise of communalism in contemporary India but fall short of delivering fresh insights, offering a mere recap of known events leading up to the 2024 elections


The title is rousing and the blurbs on the cover are fulsome in praise. By the look of it, India on the Move: When Jai Shree RAM Met Bharat Mata KI Jai (Penguin Random House India) by Marya Shakil and Narendra Nath Mishra promises a lot and raises expectations of a great read. For it is not often that someone as celebrated as the poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar certifies a book as ‘meticulous and unbiased’. It is also not very common for a hard-nosed political pundit such as Sanjay Kumar of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) to publicly attest a book as an account of ‘various interesting discussions, which connects various dots...a must read for all those interested in the 2024 Lok Sabha election verdict in particular.’

Unfortunately though, what is promised on the tastefully crafted jacket comes crashing down some dozen pages into the book. Co-authored by two acclaimed journalists, the book runs a predictable course and runs out of steam much before it could live up to any of its much-publicised promise. To trash a book is never easy. After all, it is the labour of love of the author. Here, it is the two of them who would have expectedly toiled hard on it. Further, they are fellow journalists enjoying a formidable reputation for their craft.

Unravelling the communal poison

The disappointment with Shakil and Mishra’s book, therefore, is more pronounced. Having stoked hope of slicing and dicing events that have brought India to its current pass marked by rising social tensions and sweeping communal hatred, it only ends up simply recounting recent incidents — particularly in the run-up to the 2024 General elections — without any remarkable insights that we are unlikely to have been unaware of.

Where the book fails is the fact that it narrates what we mostly know. Didn’t we already know that JNU in Delhi was split down the middle some years ago because of unproven anti-national slogans that were allegedly raised, pitchforking student activists such as Kanhaiya Kumar to public centrestage? Or,the Balakot air strikes deep in Pakistani territory in response to a terror attack that triggered a new wave of nationalistic fervour, much to the electoral advantage of the ruling BJP?

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By recounting the major milestones of the past decade, including the COVID outbreak made worse by the communally charged onslaught against Tablighi Jamaat for being super spreaders of the deadly virus to the farmers’ protest that saw suspicious tropes such as Toolkit Gang and Khalistanis being deployed to discredit the protesters, Shakil and Mishra’s book does help us see an insidious pattern that has been at work to divide and consequently consolidate vote bank for the majoritarian right.

Every chapter of the 250-odd pages book is testimony to the divisive ploys threatening to tear the country apart in the name of nationalism and religious righteousness. Each section begins with imaginary WhatsApp chats among uncles, aunties, neighbours and family members animatedly debating and vociferously disagreeing over watershed moments such as the building of the Ram temple. Thanks to the authors, they leave nothing to the imagination about the communal poison that has seeped deep into our everyday existence.

Making sense of major events

But beyond that, the book largely remains a recap of recent events leading up to the 2024 elections. The events did shape the electoral contest and help draw the battle lines, pitting one against the other. But did they contribute in bringing down the BJP tally, far lower than their touted total of 400 plus? One is not very sure. If they did, would the subsequent results in state elections such as Haryana and Maharashtra be as they turned out to be?

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Shakil and Mishra, however, deserve credit for reminding us of the things that we tend to easily forget, and that includes the propaganda war that has come to settle over popular culture. Starting with Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, movie after movie has been rolled out of the Bollywood stable to strengthen and solidify the ‘josh’ of those in power. Uri: The Surgical Strike is certainly one that struck a chord among the audiences. Many others such as The Kashmir Files brought cheers to its makers and backers alike, even as a diverse society such as ours struggled to stay together.

India on the Move is, therefore, a book which serves only a limited purpose. The authors have tried to make sense of major events by speaking to a range of experts. But no one says anything extraordinary and we remain as knowledgeable or as ignorant as we were. But the book helps refresh our collective memory and we are reminded that much of the jingoism coming from our chest-beating government is plain hollow. The Tukde Tukde Gang for one, the book points out, is just a meaningless coinage. An RTI query asked the government about it and the government denied having any clue about its existence. Thanks Shakil and Mishra for letting us know once again.

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