Sunday, June 2, 2019

Book Review - The People Next Door by TCA Raghavan

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." - Francis Bacon

If we go by Bacon's quotes, this one would surely fall in the last category. In fact, this one is meant to be digested and savored multiple times.

Pakistan, its politics, its people and their outlook and ties with India are topics that interest every Indian to some degree or the other.

It is quite safe to assume that people who otherwise don't take any interest in politics surely hold an opinion or two about our western neighbor.

It is with assumption that I call this book a must-read (a multiple time read as I wrote above).

The book smoothly takes the reader through the timeline of creation of Pakistan and its journey since then.

The internal affairs, the government and the leaders, the cultural affairs and the life of the common man is brought out vividly and their evolution traced to the modern day.

What the author does brilliantly is project that journey against that of India. There are phases when India has a strong democratic setup and Pakistan a dictatorial one, and vice versa at others. One country has a strong political will at a time when the other faces a leadership crisis, and these roles keep flipping through time.

The author does the tough task of touching upon almost all the major political and cultural developments in both the countries across the years, occasionally brining to use his magnifying lens to dig deeper.

This one is a must read if you have even a passing interest in the enigma that is Pakistan.

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