Aleph Book Company is delighted to announce the publication of

India Shastra by Shashi Tharoor at India International Centre on 27 February 2015.

Rajdeep Sardesai will be in conversation with the author.

This has been a time of unprecedented change in

the country. The transformation of India’s
politics, economy, foreign policy, media, civil
rights, governance and a myriad other aspects of
our society and government has been swift and
disruptive, sometimes brutally so. Narendra
Modi, the nation’s new Prime Minister, and his
Bharatiya Janata Party, dominate the political
scene, as the Congress once did, and are
attempting to change the way we work, think,
pray and conduct ourselves as citizens of the
planet’s most populous democracy. There are
signs that the nation is moving in directions that
will benefit its people—the economy has begun to
revive, its foreign policy appears to be
purposefully pursuing a visible place in the world,
polls show that a significant percentage of the
nation’s youth are optimistic about the future; at
the same time, there are serious concerns about
the rise of majoritarianism and religious
fundamentalism (often, this is one and the same
thing), a disquieting intolerance of free speech, dissent and religious freedom; moreover,
there appears to be no end to corruption, hate speech, criminals in politics, terrorism,
violence against women, bureaucratic lethargy, governmental incompetence, endemic
poverty, environmental degradation, and a host of other problems that India has been
struggling to overcome for decades.
What does the future hold? Is the promise of good times a mere illusion? Have we forgotten the
democratic, humane, secular and liberal values that our founding fathers endowed us with? Are
high-speed trains and missions to Mars eclipsing the vital need to achieve universal literacy,
eradicate poverty, and provide food, shelter and health-care for all?
Shashi Tharoor, one of our most distinguished and insightful writers, attempts to answer these
and other important questions and demystify the complex issues that have been thrown up by
the ongoing transformation of the nation. After chronicling India’s transformation over the
years in several previous books, he brings his insights into Indian society, economics and
politics up to date in wide-ranging short essays that extend the narrative right up to the present
time. Lucid, brilliantly argued, balanced and illuminating, India Shastra is required reading for
anyone who wishes to understand today’s India.

For more information about the book and regarding author interviews, please contact:
Vasundhara Raj Baigra, Head of Marketing and Publicity, Aleph Book Company.
Email: vasundhara@alephbookcompany.com. Tel: 011 49226627.
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SHASHI THAROOR is the bestselling author of fourteen previous books, both fiction and
non-fiction, besides being a noted critic and columnist, a former Under Secretary-General of
the United Nations and a former Minister of State for Human Resource Development and
Minister of State for External Affairs in the Government of India. He served 29 years at the
United Nations, culminating as Under-Secretary under Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s
leadership. As India’s official candidate to succeed Annan as UN Secretary-General, he emerged
a strong second out of seven contenders. On returning to India he contested the 2009 elections
on behalf of the Indian National Congress, and was elected to Parliament from
Thiruvananthapuram. Re-elected in 2014, he chairs Parliament’s External Affairs Committee.
Shashi Tharoor’s books include the path-breaking satire The Great Indian Novel (1989), the
classic India: From Midnight to the Millennium (1997) and most recently, the visionary Pax
Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century (2012). He has won numerous literary awards,
including a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, was honoured as New Age Politician of the Year
(2010) by NDTV, and pioneered among Indian politicians the use of Twitter, where he has over
two and a half million followers, as of 2014.
Dr Tharoor earned his Ph.D. at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at the age of 22, and
was named by the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1998 as a Global Leader of Tomorrow.
He was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, India’s highest honour for overseas Indians.

For more information about the book and regarding author interviews, please contact:
Vasundhara Raj Baigra, Head of Marketing and Publicity, Aleph Book Company.
Email: vasundhara@alephbookcompany.com. Tel: 011 49226627.