India’s parliamentary elections next year, like each of its predecessors, will be the biggest in history. They are also set to be among its most engrossing.
Mostly this is down to personality, given the rowdy contest between Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of the opposition Bharatiya Janata party; and Rahul Gandhi, scion of the ruling Congress party’s family dynasty. But the battle also offers an ideological choice: the former’s centre-right agenda of better governance and economic reform against the latter’s focus on social welfare.
Yet, as a true contest of ideas, or a deeper debate about the type of country India wants to become, the poll will inevitably fall short, lost amid the hullabaloo of campaigning in a nation of 1.2bn. It is against this backdrop that a book such as Reimagining India is to be welcomed.