Book Review Imagining India

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"Slowly, ideas lead to ideology, lead to policies that lead to action."

GENRE Story, Management

AUTHOR Nandan Nilekani

PAGES 568 

YEAR OF PUBLISH 2008

RELATED BOOKS India Unbound, In spit of the Gods

About the author

 The co-founder of Infosys, an active bureaucrat and prime contributor of ADHAR CARD. 

Nandan Mohanrao Nilekani (born 2 June 1955) is an Indian entrepreneur. After the exit of Vishal Sikka, Nilekani was appointed as non-executive chairman of the board effective 24 August 2017. He was the chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). After a successful career at Infosys, he headed the Government of India's technology committee, TAGUP. He is a member of Indian National Congress but not active in politics as of 2019.

It is a singular thinking and concept to write down a book. The author himself has done a deep reasoning, research and introspection on every topic. along side his personal observation there also are analysis of experts also.

Summary Of Imagining India

The book generalized India post-independence, its personality and the behavior of different regions. Most of the discussion is on ideas in progress like better schools, better cities, and roads. Ideas in controversy like economic and labor reforms. Interesting contexts include a contradiction that India went through like dealing English, fear of technology, and how Indians overcome. Nilekani explained the birth of IT and how it progressed to reached the pinnacle of the money-making machine.

The book shows an altogether a special facet of the Nandan Nilekani as an author which has nothing to try  to together with his entrepreneurial skills. In fact, together with his writing skills and his awareness about various issues in India has been jotted down within the book, very adeptly and wonderfully much to the delight of the reader. 

So what's the book all about. 

It's about the ideas which are embraced by India. Ideas which are ongoing in India and concepts which has arrived in India but are in nascent stage. 

On this basis the book is split into four parts.

• Ideas That Arrived
• Ideas ongoing 
• Ideas in Battle,
• Ideas to Anticipate.

Part 1

Discusses about the ideas which faced severe resistance among the Indian before becoming the integral a part of our life. Like birth control, entrepreneurship, globalization, english language and democracy, technology and computers. Indians have rejected these new ideas breeding in India only to simply accept them with open hands and minds afterward. Such a lot so today we can’t think our life without computers and our sons and daughters speaks fluent English. 

Part 2

Ideas which made their way into India but decade after decade these ideas haven't taken the specified shape. Like basic education to all or any , well developed cities, infrastructure, simplified legal system etc. Every government works on these ideas but never manage to implement them properly which is hindering the expansion of India. Issues like economic reform, labour reforms and better education are corrupted by the private interest of political parties and business houses. There's a mode of stagnation in these areas which is pulling our country back. 

Book Review Imaging India

The book has all the fabric to stimulate the thought provoking process of the reader. It's a fat book and might take sometime to read. There's no point in gulping the book sort of a fruit crush instead should be drunk as a wine. A little sip at a time enjoying the taste. Imagining India should be read there in that way.

It's a pearl of knowledge to understand India as a growing superpower. I believe, the big players like TATAS, Ambanis, Bhargava, Birlas, Kirloskars perceive India in a completely different perspective. Businessmen & Politicians are the ones who understand this country better than anyone else. 

It is a delight to read book like Imagining India from a personality like Nandan Nilekani. To write such an profound book on India's present which is the composite  of its history and culture. He gives a brief description on the society right from its colonial period to the modern IT era. 

He analyses bit by bit .He gets deep into how businesses were looked at in the past and how they have evolved themselves in the present and what kind of development is needed for India to reach a developed nation's status in the future. Besides all these , he orients to focus too much on capitalism and views everything from that point of view.

He says world knows ancient India as illiterate and completely backward but the truth is, it was not illiterate , it was completely different from the western society in terms of education , family set up , values and everything .

 It may be a compulsion that we want to catch up with the developed nations in the way of capitalism but it doesn't mean that we are lagers ,as he says.

 Apart from this , he has written a stupendous book which is solely enough to make us understand on the golden path of India to reach 9 % growth in GDP and the bottlenecks to be cleared for attaining developed status..

It is good to find business tycoons sharing their philosophy.

 

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