Incarnations: India in Fifty Lives

Written by Sunil Khilnani

Narrated by Vikas Adam

For all of India's myths, its sea of stories and moral epics, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place. In Incarnations, Sunil Khilnani fills that space, recapturing the human dimension of how the world's largest democracy came to be. His trenchant portraits of emperors, warriors, philosophers, film stars, and corporate titans-some famous, some unjustly forgotten-bring feeling, wry humor, and uncommon insight to dilemmas that extend from ancient times to our own. As he journeys across the country and through its past, Khilnani uncovers more than just history. In rocket launches and ayurvedic call centers, in slum temples and Bollywood studios, in California communes and grimy ports, he examines the continued, and often surprising, relevance of the men and women who have made India-and the world-what it is. We encounter the Buddha, "the first human personality"; the ancient Sanskrit linguist who inspires computer programmers today; the wit and guile of India's Machiavelli; and the medieval poets who mocked rituals and caste. Incarnations is an ideal introduction to India, and a provocative and sophisticated reinterpretation of its history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Sep 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781515978541

Sunil Khilnani

Sunil Khilnani, born in New Delhi and educated at Cambridge University, teaches politics at Birkbeck College, University of London. The author of Arguing Revolution, he is at work on a biography of Nehru (forthcoming from FSG).

Reviews for Incarnations

[jigarpatel-6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This series of essays is ambitious. In its choice of individuals, it cuts across time, place and theme. In the description of each individual, it attempts to encapsulate in a few pages their origin, personality, contributions and impact. I split my analysis into categories because the nature of Khilnani's writing changes subtly depending on the topic. Several characters transcend these boundaries, Tagore and Gandhi to name a couple, but in general they hold true. It is also true that favoured topics evolve as you progress through time: for instance, early chapters depicting the founders of religion, kings and warriors contrast with later chapters describing film-makers and champions of industry.Religion: Earlier chapters include ascetics and founders of religions, including the Buddha, Mahavir and Guru Nanak. Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism are broadly represented as movements created to overcome the inadequacies, or chauvinistic interpretations, of Hinduism. These are instructive to those new to the breadth of South Asian religions, both across and within them.Royalty: We have a cross-section of kings, emperors and warriors. Most blurred into insignificance, so I've looked them up again: Ashoka, Rajaraja Chola, Rani of Jhansi. These are almost mythological entities, you are relying as much on Khilnani's imagination as historical records. I didn't find these interesting, as I could see little, if any, impact of these figures evidenced in India todayArt: In this category, I include artists, film-makers, poets and authors. You have the expected, Kabir and Tagore; the specialists, Iqbal and Manto; and the popular, Raj Kapoor, Satyajit Ray and MF Hussain. Personally, not having experienced the works of many of these artists, I struggled to appreciate their significance. Khilnani does a good job of describing their emotional impact through select scenes and excerpts. It encourages me to plan some reading Manto and watching Satyajit Ray.Scholarship: Indian scholarship is underrated. I believe this is partly due to the understandably narrow emphasis on industry-relevant jobs, which mean that top Indian students and educators reside in management and science departments. Thankfully, Khilnani corrects this impression by including Panini, the Sanskrit grammarian; Charaka, a founder of Ayurveda (albeit with mocking undertones); Aryabhata, the classical mathematician-astronomer; William Jones, the linguistic scholar / judge; and Ramanujan, the self-taught maths prodigy (with references to Kanigel's excellent The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan). I highly recommend these essays.Politics: The later chapters pay particular attention to recent Indian history. I found many of these a bit dry. They assume a certain amount of prior knowledge, some of which I could recall from Guha's India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, the rest I found akin to an unwanted history lesson. This broad category includes: Subhas Chandra Bose, Gandhi, Jinnah, Ambedka, Sheik Abdullah, VK Krishna Menon, Indira Gandhi. Of these, I really appreciated the renegade Subhas Chandra Bose, Mahatma Gandhi, Dalit-inspiring Ambedka and contentious Indira Gandhi.Other figures are also covered with some success, such as mystics, philosophers, freedom fighters and industrialists. What would I have changed? Target the layperson, not the scholar. Khilnani's style, and sometimes choice of content, seems aimed at the well-read and well-informed Indian. Among the words I had to look up: iconoclastic, excoriate, vernissage, excrescence, syncretism, labile, palimpsest, stratigraphy, solipsistic, quisling, peripatetic, anodyne, epigones, fealty, counterfactual, aesthete, parvenu, dervish, dargah, tropes, arrantly, hagiography. Khilnani should take a leaf out of Orwell's writing, e.g. his A Collection of Essays. If you know all the aforementioned words and wish to expand your knowledge of Indian historical figures, you will doubtless enjoy this work. Otherwise, it feels like hard work, albeit well rewarded in the end.The choice of pictures could have been improved. I didn't glean much from pictures of Iqbal, Jinnah, Gandhi, Ambedkar, Menon lounging about. I did enjoy the sculptures, paintings and poster-art. Choose the Kindle option if you, like me, need to frequently look up unnecessarily technical words. Nevertheless, this is a thoughtful attempt at covering India in 50 lives through well-researched and broadly standalone essays.

[auntmarge64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An engrossing look at 50 people whose lives exemplified major trends in the last 2500 years of Indian history, politics and culture. This is not a history book, per se, and it would help the reader to have a little grounding in the country's past. The personalities portrayed here include some who are well-known and some who will be completely unknown to most readers, and there are some expected names deliberately left out. So we have Mahatma Gandhi, Jinnah, and Indira Gandhi, but not Indira's father, Nehru. Vivekanada is in here but not his guru, Ramakrishna. There are political, economic, spiritual and industrial leaders, artists, filmmakers, and authors. Together their lives and accomplishments limn the directions taken in Indian history.A very rewarding read for anyone interested in Indian past or present.