Author: David Van Praagh
Publication: www.mqup.mcgill.ca
Date:
URL: http://www.mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=1657
India's Race with Destiny and China
An in-depth exploration of modern
Indian democracy and India's struggles with its neighbours, particularly
Pakistan and China.
The Greater Game offers a fresh
look at India, showing it to be a dramatically changing democracy after
decades of domination by the Nehru-Gandhi family dynasty and a newly emerging
strategic ally of the United States.
David Van Praagh argues that Hindu
nationalists, the country's new paramount political force, are creating
a new kind of coalition politics that discourages religious clashes. Led
by the Bharatiya Janata Party they are also bringing about needed economic
liberalization. Since coming to power in 1998, the Hindu nationalists led
by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani have brought India out of
the nuclear closet with a series of tests confirming its status as a nuclear
power. After the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 on America and
three months later on the Indian Parliament, the United States and India
have quietly become "allies in the cause of democracy," with an eye to
containing not only terrorists but China. Van Praagh, a journalist with
many years of experience in India and Asia as a correspondent for the Globe
and Mail and other Canadian and U.S. newspapers, combines first-hand coverage
of events, historical narrative, and timely analysis in this clearly written
and provocative book. The Greater Game details India's political evolution
and that country's emergence as not only the preeminent power in the Subcontinent
but also a major world power.
Review quotes
"Praagh has a well-honed sense of
history and a keen eye for the human element in the events that unfolded
since 1947. His critical account of the trajectory of socio-economic and
political developments in postcolonial India vividly describes the devious
and self-serving ways in which the Congress conducted the affairs of the
nation. Praagh also sheds light on how the party repeatedly rode roughshod
on popular aspirations both at home and in neighbouring countries in its
bid to subjugate them. His most trenchant criticism is reserved for the
Nehru 'dynasty' and the hordes of minions who unquestioningly carried out
its diktats during its years in office."
Badrinath Rao, Department of Liberal
Studies, Kettering University.
(David Van Praagh is adjunct professor
of journalism at Carleton University and the author of Thailand's Struggle
for Democracy: The Life and Times of M.R. Seni Pramoj.)