The Undying Light

This remarkable memoir, and history of India after Independence, by one of India’s most distinguished public intellectuals, begins with his memories, at the age of three, of the assassination of his paternal grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi. From this poignant opening note, the book expands into numerous encounters with personalities both Indian and foreign, ’eminent’ as well as little known, and original insights into key events and turning points of modern Indian history, many of which he was an eyewitness to as secretary to presidents R. Venkataraman and K. R. Narayanan, and as governor of West Bengal and Bihar.

The book is divided into eight sections. The first section deals with the hopes and dreams of a newly independent nation, and the tragic events of Partition following the birth of the nation. Section Two recounts notable events that ushered in democracy such as the adoption of the Indian Constitution in 1950, the first general election (1951-52), and the formation of the Swatantra Party by C. Rajagopalachari, the last governor general of India and the author’s maternal grandfather. In Section Three, we witness, among other things, the 1962 Sino-India War that convulsed a young democracy, the deaths of India’s first president, Rajendra Prasad, in 1963, its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1964, and second prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, in 1966. Section Four starts out on a promising note as the author, now a young bureaucrat, begins his life and career as an assistant collector in South Arcot district before he leaves for Sri Lanka to work as First Secretary in India’s diplomatic mission there, in 1978. He witnesses the rise and transformation of Indira Gandhi as prime minister, the protest spearheaded by Jayaprakash Narayan, and details the grim events of the Emergency (1975-77) that took place soon after. The next section deals with the horrific events that shook the country during the 1980s-the Nellie Massacre (1983); Operation Bluestar and its devastating consequences-the assassination of Indira Gandhi (1984) and the pogrom against the Sikh community that followed; and the Bhagalpur riots (1989); there were also a few occasions that were worthy of celebration such as Rakesh Sharma becoming the first Indian cosmonaut to orbit the Earth in a spacecraft as part of the Russia-India joint space mission in 1984. Section Six begins with the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir in the early 1990s; the anti-Mandal protests by students all around the country, the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE (1991); the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the riots that ensued (1992); the outbreak of the bubonic plague in Surat (1994); Operation Shakti (1998); and ends with the beastly killings of Graham Stuart Staines and his two sons in1999. In the penultimate section, the author, as secretary to President K. R. Narayanan, gives us a ringside view of dramatic events that took place at the start of a new millennium-the hijacking of IC 814 by the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (2000); the visit of US President Bill Clinton to India (2000); the highly successful state visit of President Narayanan to China (2000); the devastating earthquake that shook Bhuj, Gujarat, in 2001, followed by the communal riots in Gujarat (2002); and the Nandigram violence (2007); in this section he also touches upon significant events that took place during his tenure as governor of West Bengal and his stint as governor of Bihar.