Resurgent Bharat and Other Issues- An Anthology of Essays

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Jay Bhattacharjee, the author of this book, was born in Mumbai (or Bombay, as it was then) in 1946. He spent his initial and later years in the western metropolis, as well as in Kolkata J (Calcutta) and Delhi. He did his BA in Economics from Presidency College, Calcutta, followed by a post-graduate degree in Economics and Sociology from Cambridge University (Christ's College). Returning to India, he taught at the IIT, Delhi, before moving to the corporate world. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

In his corporate career, he has worked in a number of corporations and financial institutions, including Tatas, Grindlays Bank and Dalmias. He started his own consultancy practice in the early 90s and also ran a broking company as a Member of the Delhi Stock Exchange. He started writing for the media in the early 90s, and also appeared in TV programmes on economic and business matters. His life-long interest in Indic civilisation was inspired by both his parents, while his own work- experience led him to study how India could reclaim its earlier greatness by overhauling the entire governance and administrative structures. This anthology of essays covers his diverse areas of interest.

Resurgent Bharat And Other Issues - An Anthology of Essays, is a scintillating collection of thoughtful essays and reviews by Jay Bhattacharjee that were published in various journals and newspapers between the mid-1990s to 2021. When put together in a single tome, they convey a significant message that India has undergone a major change one that is not merely wedded to the fortunes of its two major political parties, the Congress and the BJP and its allied organisations.

Another significant change is the near-permanent wilting away of the dogmas of Socialism and Secularism as they were practised by the Nehru Parivar, and their replacement by Hindu aspirations that had been denied their natural flowering earlier. This suppression was perpetrated under the previous colonial yoke, as well as during the successor regimes under Gandhi and Nehru.

Through the sheer vitality of his arguments, the author unmistakably conveys that the direction of change is irreversible, no matter how much resentment, rebellion, chicanery or sabotage the beneficiaries of the earlier established order may provoke or drum up.

Very early in the book, he takes up the question of why the creamy classes resist the change so vehemently. Is it their education in the Christian convent schools or their monolingual grooming through the English medium? The writer points out something more. The classes to whose good fortune fell the enjoyment of governing India after the "Transfer of Power", were colonised not jus by Macaulay but also by eight hundred years of Islamic rule before the British came to our country. The syndrome of ingratiating oneself before the invader has a longer. recorded history. It is a result of such a humiliation, such a dhimmitude, that the official historians of the Nehru-Indra era denied the ravages of Islamic rule and concocted the story that British historians should be credited with the depiction of Islamic oppression.

Jay Bhattacharjee has no hesitation in pointing out that the core ethos of India is under siege today. There is a blatantly negative treatment of Hindus, particularly by the agencies of social reform. The bias is ingrained into the Constitution which calls for social reform only for Hindus while the minorities, namely Muslims, are exempted from that burden. On the contrary, they are provided with state-sponsored facilities of being as conservative as possible. He gives clear examples of the provisions in Article 25 and the reversal of relief granted to Muslim women who seek divorce.

Resurgent Bharat And Other Issues - An Anthology of Essays is a valuable compilation of Jay Bhattacharjee's (JB's) work over several decades. This may sound like a cliché, but the truth is that JB's essays are unputdownable. He is sharp, witty, acerbic and irreverent, and it seems as if he regularly dips his keyboard in a trough of sarcasm!

JB has his pet aversions, and they make his essays eminently readable! They include the denizens of Lutyens Delhi (The LZ Gang) and pseudo- intellectuals of all varieties, especially pseudo-secularists, who go by the delightful acronym SS (Sarkari Secularists) and "media honchos", including foreign correspondents stationed in Delhi. These two terms were clearly patented by JB at some stage of his writing career.

As one reads this book, one soon realises that it is indeed not advisable to ever get into his cross hairs, for JB can be punishing, unrelenting and unforgiving. Once he takes aim, there is little chance of survival for the victim. It is a lethal fusillade of words that hits the bull's eye.

If this was indeed a battlefield, the images that come to mind are those of his bruised and battered opponents being carried away in stretchers by the International Red Cross.

If you find him irascible at times, forgive him, because he is doing your job! While you fret and fume all your life about the frauds and fakes you shake hands with at the Delhi Gymkhana Club, India International Centre and other watering holes in the Capital, JB goes for the jugular, so that your spirits may be buoyed by vicarious pleasure, as you enjoy your drink!

Sarcasm is a very special weapon in the armoury of a writer. Most writers who deploy it generally cause some damage to reputation. But, in JB's case, you could get bludgeoned!

**Contents and Sample Pages**