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A Short Review of Anand Ranganathans Hin
A Short Review of Anand Ranganathans Hin
Shrikant G. Talageri
I rarely buy books on Amazon: I doubt if I have ever bought more than two or
three (and the first one, and the one that I remember, was Devdutt Pattanaik's
book "Jaya"!). But when I saw this book in my cousin's house and glanced
through it, I knew that I just had to buy it. To my surprise (the price on Amazon
I think must go on changing), this 135 page hard- cover version, priced at 399/-
was available at 119/- + delivery 70/- = 189/-, and so I ordered two copies,
which I received today morning.
After the Voice of India corpus of books and most of the books by Arun
Shourie and Koenraad Elst, and the two parts of Rajiv Malhotra's "Breaking
India" series, this book (with due apologies to other writers who may also have
made significant contributions whom I may have inadvertently missed out on
mentioning here), this present book by Anand Ranganathan is one more
absolutely must-read book. the title of the book itself says it all, but, in
addition, we appropriately have other comparable stalwarts like Meenakshi
Jain, J Sai Deepak (who also writes the brilliant foreword to the book) and
Vikram Sampath (who also writes the brilliant afterword to the book), along
with eminent SC lawyer Vishnu Jain, giving their full support and endorsement
to this book on the front cover, back cover and the Advance praise section:
Vikram Sampath: "If, even after reading this scholarly and evocative
work−a small masterpiece in its own right−the Hindus and the
governments of this country do not wake up to take control and address
these issues, the fate of the community will sadly be akin to that of lambs
being quietly led to their own slaughter".
Vishnu Jain: "A searing commentary, a manifesto of sorts for the modern
Indic age. One hopes it is not reduced to just a cry in the wilderness".
This book does not require my endorsement: Anand Ranganathan has millions
of fans, as do the above masterminds giving their strong endorsement of this
book. But I want to place my respects on record, and I urge everyone to buy
this book or to read it from wherever they can, and to propagate its
contents. The big advantage of this book is, that it is "crisp and powerful",
only 135 pages including everything! I myself am never able to keep my
writings crisp, however much I want and try to do so, so I am all the more
aware of the importance of crispness in writing. After all, in my opinion, the
greatest book on politics ever written is "Animal Farm" by George Orwell,
and just see the size of that book!
I will not go into detail about these chapters. Let it suffice to say that they are all
brilliant, and absolutely must-read and cannot be summarized by me here.
Ultimately, the book is more than likely to still remain "just a cry in the
wilderness", since a wilderness is precisely what India has become today,
under treacherous pseudo-Hindutva rule − even more than it was under
"secular" rule. It is not enough if the book is read, understood and supported by
millions of Hindus: ultimately the people who those millions of Hindus vote
for and bring to power will be the ones who will be in a position to do
something more concrete than just becoming aware of the true situation
(though this awareness itself is no mean thing, and is a necessary first step
towards further concrete action). And there is no real hope that anyone, least
of all the pseudo-Hindutva Parivar, will ever have even the slightest desire
to do anything really concrete for Hindus.
Question: How does BJP benefit from the Waqf act? That too in 1995! Why
would Ram Ratan move that amendment? This is what I don't get, can you
elaborate this, Sir?
Reply: Please buy and read this book. Read the chapter on the Waqf Act 1995
in full and in detail. Understand the full horror of the act.
Hindus should learn to look at facts with open eyes, instead of modestly
averting their eyes from unpleasant facts and asking foolish escapist questions.
When one sees a man getting drunk and beating up his wife everyday, does one
ask "How does he benefit from this act?". When the BJP gives over 70000
crores of public funds looted from Hindu temples to minority-only schemes,
you cannot escape the fact by asking "How does the BJP benefit from looting
funds from Hindu temples and giving them to the minorities?"
The only psychology we need to examine (if we want to spend our time
examining psychology) is why Hindus have this suicide mentality which makes
them defend and whitewash those who make a joke out of their existence, like
the daily-beaten wife who defends her husband against anyone who tries to save
her. Why the BJP does or does not do something - whether out of sheer villainy,
out of extraordinary stupidity, or out of gross mercenary miscalculation - is not
important.