India; from Midnight to the Mi - Softcover

In chapters devoted to such diverse topics as caste, the free-for-all nature of Indian democracy, the troubled legacy of Indira Gandhi, and the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, Tharoor both explicates the history of India since independence and attempts to define what makes India one country and Indians of various ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds one nationality. He is forthright in his discussion of the sectarian violence that has ripped through the country, the corruption that is rife throughout the ranks of the Indian civil service, and the difficulties that face a nation in which 48 percent of the population remains illiterate. Yet Shashi Tharoor writes of these problems with a sense of optimism about the future, confident in the ability of his countrymen to find solutions within a democratic political system.

Shashi Tharoor has worked at the United Nations since 1978 and is the executive assistant to the secretary-general of the United Nations. He graduated from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and took his doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. His first novel, The Great Indian Novel, was published to international acclaim and won the Federation of Indian Publishers-Hindustan Times Literary Award (1989-90) and a 1990 Commonwealth Writers Prize.