From veteran journalist TJS George, a personal rather than objective account of the India story in The Dismantling of India in 35 Portraits | Books and Literature News,The Indian Express

Through brief portraits of personalities from diverse fields, the nonagerian draws attention to the people who have shaped India's destiny for better or worse

Few are more qualified to tell the India story than TJS George, a Padma Bhushan winner and legendary journalist, who has worked in a wide variety of prestigious publications, both in India and abroad. At 94, the author has witnessed changing developments and regimes over 75 years and his column, Point of View, had an unbroken run for 25 years. The author is deeply disturbed by the changes in the country’s political and social climate and is nostalgic for the ideals, philosophy and heroes which held sway at the start of his career. However, George’s forte is not objective reportage but subjective opinion and his views influence his assessments of the characters he writes about.

In the book’s last section, the author singles out several who he feels have courageously confronted the present establishment, despite a heavy personal cost and sacrifice. For instance, plucky Priya Ramani, who was one of the first women in Indian journalism to publicly accuse a former boss of sexual harassment. Her moral courage and her ability to see herself as a representative of a larger human predicament made her a symbol of her times. Another woman journalist, Rana Ayyub, was undeterred by her Muslim identity and considered it her duty to report on the ground reality of Gujarat. JNU student leader Umar Khalid, accused of provoking people ahead of former US President Donald Trump’s visit, was jailed and dubbed a Maoist. Yet, he remains undeterred even though aware that the political climate is unfavourable for detainees in general, and with a Muslim name, one could expect the worst.

The author’s best pieces are of personalities whom he knew personally or had closely covered as a newsperson. His revealing life history of Bal Thackeray, who sat on a desk adjacent to his during their years together at the Free Press Journal newspaper, provides interesting less-known details of the Shiv Sena icon’s colourful life. Thackeray, who started life as a newspaper cartoonist, was built up by Bombay’s Congress boss SK Patil, who wanted to cut to size his party colleague, the south Indian VK Krishna Menon. The author’s portraits of folk-hero southern figures, including politicians CN Annandurai, MGR, and J Jayalalithaa, as well as others, such as film star Rajinikanth and sandalwood smuggler Veerapan, shed light on how personality cults are built in south India.

George’s knowledge of music and literature is reflected in his take on the lives of playwright Girish Karnad and musician Ustad Vilayat Khan. The author concludes that Karnad was fortunate to bloom in what was India’s best time, the 1950s and the 1960s: “By the mid 1970s, the unfamiliar political trends which began to crush the spirit of India, turning the country into a collection of mutually suspicious little Indias…” had begun.

The author’s nostalgia for the past and disdain for the present does not exactly qualify him to be considered an objective raconteur. Like so many Indian writers, he falls into the trap of polarised thinking which can detract from a fair and balanced portrayal. His sketch of Narendra Modi fails to mention the amazing delivery systems Modi’s government instituted along with the lifestyle-changing innovations at the grassroots. He does not even refer to Modi’s most recent assembly electoral successes. To remark that Arun Jaitley’s academic record was “minimalist’’ because his first class degrees in B Com and Law were from Delhi University rather than Oxford or Yale suggests a colonial hangover that equates a person’s standing by approval ratings from the West. On the other hand, Sanjay Gandhi is given credit for a “constructive streak’’, including promoting the Maruti car, forgetting that his sole contribution to the entirely Japanese manufactured Suzuki Maruti car venture in India is no more than the pre-fix Maruti, before Suzuki.

https://indianexpress.com/article/books-and-literature/veteran-journalist-tjs-george-personal-account-india-story-dismantling-of-india-in-35-portraits-8250247/


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