Vishnu’s Crowded Temple

Novelists of the twentieth century were not the only ones who dismissed India. So did any number of British politicians and academics.

In 1947 the British establishment, always more pro-Muslim than Hindu in those days, was convinced Pakistan would have a bright future. India would be balkanized. Just before the 1967 elections, The Times’ correspondent in Delhi gloomily forecast that this would be the last election in India. 

India has defied all such doom-merchants and, while the lavish Western praise for India as the next great superpower fit to rank alongside China may be overdone, it is not the idea of India that is ridiculous but past Western estimates of India.

Maria Misra’s book is a rare attempt by an Indian historian to explain how India has managed this feat. The rarity lies in that Misra uses narrative history, a technique many Indian historians considers old fashioned.