Subordinate Ally:
The nuclear deal and Indo-US strategic relations
by Prakash Karat
LeftWord, 2007
The nuclear deal between India and the US is part and parcel of a wide-ranging alliance being built between Washington, DC and New Delhi. Joint naval engagements in the Indian Ocean helped to create the platform for the alliance, and the entry of major US firms into India firmed it up. The nuclear deal was to have been the garnish, the final (fatal) embrace. But then India's communists stood up, in an attempt to decontaminate this radioactive deal. As part of the struggle, the CPI (Marxist)'s general-secretary, Prakash Karat, wrote a series of articles on the project, which have been now collected in this brief signpost. Karat pulls no punches. "As far as the Left is concerned," he writes, "the United States is an imperialist power that oppresses countries and peoples of all faiths." (Vijay Prashad)
The Battle for No 19
by Ranjit Lal
Puffin Books India, 2007
Ever since it was Indraprastha of the Mahabharata, Delhi has suffered and survived multiple sackings and slaughters, looters and plunderers. But the pogrom of Sikhs in the wake of Indira Gandhi's assassination in November 1984 was particularly horrifying for two reasons: it revealed the communal nature of the Indian establishment, exposing the utter vulnerability of minorities in supposedly secular India. For the victims of Partition, the carnage of 1984 was a nightmare come alive. Perhaps it is difficult to capture the evil of those few days in any non-fiction work. Ranjit Lal tries tell the tale, but with indifferent effect. Dubbed 'teen fiction', this book deserves the adjective. (C K Lal)