Multiple ideas of India

This book is a collection of 20 interviews with 20 figures from different walks of life, including writers, translators, artists, filmmakers, theatre persons, musicians, dancers, teachers and activists.

- NEHA KIRPAL

This book is a collection of 20 interviews with 20 figures from different walks of life, including writers, translators, artists, filmmakers, theatre persons, musicians, dancers, teachers and activists. All the conversations, which cover issues concerning culture, democracy and dissent, are edited versions of videotaped interviews or lengthy exchanges on email, most of which were published in their original form on the Indian Cultural Forum's website.

The core point of the book is a question that Delhi-based author and editor of this anthology Githa Hariharan asks: "Is it possible to be a writer or an artist, a reader or a student or teacher, or indeed a citizen, in a political vacuum?" The answer is provided in the questions, debate, dialogue, and conversations in the book that highlight the many facets of the Indian nation and society.

Nayantara Sahgal was among the first of a group of writers who returned their Sahitya Akademi awards in 2015 in protest against the growing attacks on free speech, rationalism and diversity. Two years later, she spoke to Ms Hariharan on how the nation is being transformed in the name of Hindutva—through violence, exclusion, the suppression of dissent, and the growth of an ideology that parades as religion and distorts Hinduism. "We must heed the warning that we are not a Hindu Rashtra yet. We are very much a secular nation, and we must remain that way," Sahgal cautions.