The Dismantling of India: In 35 Portraits

by T.J.S. George

In October 1947, two months after Independence, TJS George arrived in Bombay. He was nineteen years old, with a degree in English Literature. He sent out job applications––to the Air Force and to the city's English-language newspapers. Only one organization cared to reply, The Free Press Journal. The editor was known to hire anyone who asked for a job, but most new hires were sacked in a fortnight. George was put on the news desk as a sub-editor and eventually became an assistant editor. In Patna, as editor of The Searchlight, he was arrested by the chief minister for sedition. He spent three weeks in Hazaribagh Central Jail. In Hong Kong, he worked for the Far Eastern Economic Review as regional editor; in New York he was a writer for the United Nations population division; and, back in Hong Kong, in 1975, he founded Asiaweek. Six years later, he returned to India and settled in Bangalore. He began a column for Indian Express that ran without a break for twenty-five years, until 2022. His seventy-five years of journalism, concurrent with India's development as an independent nation, make for a unique understanding of events and personalities. Acclaimed for his widely historical, pan-Asian vision, George brings this far-flung experience to a compulsively readable new book, The Dismantling of India. It is the story of India told in 35 concise biographies, beginning with Jamsetji Tata and ending with Narendra Modi.

400 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 3, 2022

Reviews

[Darshan · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is so astounding that a writer being a journalist for a long time is not able to put all the facts about most of the incidents in the book. A sense of antagonism, against a particular party, is clearly visible in the book. I wouldn't recommend it if you are novice in political reading. Inclusion of many people such as Rana Ayyub, Disha Ravi and Umar Khalid and exclusion of many great personalities who contributed in the development of the country is highly questionable.

[Divya Pal · Rating 3 out of 5]

One may disagree with the author, but TJS George does offer some probing questions to the present ruling dispensation, although, conversely, he appears to have a single point agendum – criticise Modi. Whether he is talking about JRD Tata, Rahul Gandhi etc, the arguments veer back to Modi – Modi is an autocrat, tyrant, megalomanic, intolerant, etc etc.
However, there are some really thought provoking articles.
At times the title seems to be at odds with the contents – how have JRD Tata, AB Vajpayee, APK Abdul Kalam P Lal contributed to the ‘dismantling’ of India? Why include Ustad Vilayat Khan and why has he subsumed Pandit Ravi Shankar. The antics of the anti-Hindu MF Hussain are justified in the name of art. The dismantler-in-chief Lalu Yadav (the shameless guzzler of cattle-fodder of millions of ruminants) is conspicuous by his absence, as is Mamta Banerjee.
If Amitabh Bachchan is included why are Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, JP, Sachin Tendulkar excluded?
To redeem the narrative and justify the title of the book, the real dismantlers of India the cadre of the secessionist ‘tukde-tukde gang’ are included – Rana Ayyub, Umar Khalid, Varavara Rao. Also, other dismantlers like Veerappan, Harshad Mehta, Dawood Ibrahim, Raja Bhaiya are rightly included.
I loved this quote from JRD Tata

‘While I usually come back from meeting Gandhiji elated and inspired but always a bit sceptical, and from talks with Jawarharlal, fired with emotional zeal but often confused and unconvinced, meetings with Vallabhbai were a joy from which I returned with renewed confidence in the future of our country. I have often thought that if fate had decreed that he, instead of Jawaharlal, would be younger of the two, India would have followed a very different path and would be in better economic shape than it is today.’

[Atul Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘿𝙞𝙨𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙛 𝙄𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙖 𝙗𝙮 𝙏.𝙅.𝙎 𝙂𝙚𝙤𝙧𝙜𝙚

🇮🇳Everyone wants to prosper and develop, in a upwards spiral not the downward one right. But is it really that easy to do so ? There is no right answer to this question, the only statement that suits the best is that whatever happens situations play a major role in these decisions one makes.

🇮🇳It's these situations and phases that defines a person. Good or Bad is just a perspective, something is true for one and the same thing can be biased for another person. Though presentation can make people believe in things that they cannot comprehend.

🇮🇳The same can be said for this book. The author is a journalist and he shares the same philosophy of presentation and belief as above. Throughout his career he wrote thousands of articles on political people, even on events too in some of the best newspapers.

📌After some time he came to a conclusion of writing some of his best articulated works into a form of book. The book covers descriptive portraits of 35 people which had a huge impact on India according to the author.

📌The potraits are presented ina very articulated manner bringing out the most about the people in a very few words. The timeline covers portraits from JRD Tata to Shree Narendra Modi, as a matter of fact I was a bit surprised by some facts presented about the featured portrait that weren't heard of. Some of the readers might objectify these facts, yet they are there

📌If you've a keen interest in Politics, History, and National Issues, or if you're interested in reading some exclusive facts but don't have time to read multiple biographies then this might be a good fit for you.

[Sadiq Kazi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Profiles of 35 Indians – living and dead, with insights throwing up about those from the fields of arts and culture, not so about the political leaders. Overall a good read.