The year that was–13 | Great non-fiction books of 2024

BEING in the legal profession, my reading is generally limited to reading books on that subject, some new and others re-read. But, then, often you feel like getting away from the deary stuff of law journals, commentaries, case laws, etc., to get into the world of politics, history and philosophy. And, yes, some good books on law too. Here are some of the books that I read last year.Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East by Robert Fisk.Robert Fisk was the foremost journalist covering the Middle East. Fisk was based in Beirut and covered the Middle East for fifty years. His most famous book Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon, is the story of the Lebanese Civil War, the Israeli invasion, the massacre of Palestinian women, children and older men at Sabra and Shatila by the Christian Phalangists aided by Israel in 1982. Pity the Nation was followed by The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.Night of Power was published posthumously by his partner and colleague. Fisk died in 2020. The title of the book happened by chance. The ‘night of power’ falls on the twenty-seventh day of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and marks the day when the Quran was first revealed to the Prophet..Robert Fisk was the foremost journalist covering the Middle East. Fisk was based in Beirut and covered the Middle East for fifty years..According to Muslims, “Whoever prays during this night will be pardoned for many of their previous errors.” The Muslims of Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Lebanon “continue to live in fear and horror and in the faint hope that learning about history may help us comprehend the terrible nature of the tragedy”.Reading Night of Power is like watching history at close range— the antagonism, the drama, the horrors, the killings and the betrayals. With what’s happening in Gaza today, it is a must-read.War by Bob Woodward.The fascinating thing about Bob Woodward is how close he gets to the people in power and out of power to glean the goings on inside the White House and outside..The year that was–12 | 2024 in books: Love, hope and resistance—Part 2.I got hooked on to Woodward when in college with his books, The Final Days, All the President’s Men and The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court. Since then, I think I have read all his books. If one wants to get an inside view of the workings of the United States government, read him.War is the inside view of the goings-on in the White House discussing the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. President Joe Biden (though portrayed in the media as a bumbling, forgetful president), despite the pressure from his military and intelligence agencies to escalate the war in Ukraine by supplying state-of-the-art weapons, puts his foot down.Having experienced the fallout of Afghanistan and Iraq and the disastrous withdrawals, he did not want any more fiascos. Biden, as Vice President, had objected to Barack Obama’s force injections in Afghanistan. He was not going to make the same mistakes.In Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, a man with great communication skills, appears to have motivated the Ukrainians to fight back and hold their ground. But in this long-drawn war, Ukraine will likely go bankrupt and be in debt to the Western nations..Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, turns out to be a man holding his cards close to his chest..Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, turns out to be a man holding his cards close to his chest. In War, Putin’s only concern is that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the US are trying to encircle Russia and that Ukrainians trace their ancestry to Slavic Kyivan Rus and therefore, are Russians.In the book, Israel, with its acclaimed intelligence agencies, turns out to be caught napping on October 7, 2023, when Hamas entered Israel and killed civilians and army personnel in the thousands, just like the Yom Kippur war in 1973. According to War, Benjamin Netanyahu turned out to be revengeful and wanted retribution.He is insistent on bombing Gaza out of existence and pushing the Palestinians into Egypt. In fact, his defense minister had the gumption to say that he could not care less what Abdel Fattah El-Sisi President of Egypt, the Egyptian president, has to say about the Israeli agenda.Biden gives a mouthful to both Netanyahu and his ministers. The Israelis feared that Hezbollah might assist Hamas and wanted to attack Southern Lebanon. Biden was adamant that an attack would lead to a larger Middle East conflagration. In fact, Netanyahu almost went to war..Book review: Prof. Upendra Baxi’s life of law.The ruse was to tell Biden that there were many drones on the Israeli–Lebanese border and that an attack was on and his air force was ready to move in thirty minutes. But Biden was smarter. He asked his National Intelligence director to check. She came back in minutes and said there was no indication and that they were probably birds. Netanyahu backed off.Other than getting people to talk, Woodward gets the conversations double-checked with others in the White House or in the know. This lends credibility to the book and its contents.The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William Dalrymple.The first of Dalrymple’s books that I read was In Xanadu: A Quest. Maybe twenty years ago. I got hooked on to him. He started as a young travel writer and has over the years become a great historian and India-lover. His earlier historical books are Return of a King and The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire.The book has arrived at the right time when the current dispensation is trying to rewrite history, erasing Islamic rule in India from textbooks and belittling the achievements of modern secular leaders. Myths are being passed off as history and fueled by the ever-growing breed of WhatsApp historians.The Golden Road does not meet the expectations of the Hindu Right. And they are angry about it. In fact, an economist turned pop historian went to press criticising the book as lacking research. The book, incidentally, has almost a hundred pages of notes and fifty of bibliography.They want to deny that Ashoka, a Buddhist, was a great king. According to this pop historian, Ashoka, the Maurya emperor, never had a change of heart. He was already a Buddhist when he invaded Kalinga!.Dogra has analysed the reasons for the rise of an autocrat. It happens when the country is in decline, the economy is stagnating, corruption is high and when the people are not vigilant..What hurts the critics most is that the book states that it was the Buddhists who spread Indian mathematics (including the world-changing zero), science, astronomy and medicine to the West and to China and East Asia. That great Buddhist monks spread the teachings of the Buddha and Indian culture to the furthest corners of the world..Saurabh Kirpal’s new book offers a close examination of the 24-word equality provision in the Indian Constitution.Even with the Islamic conquest of the Buddhist regions in Northwestern India and Afghanistan, the Buddhist scholars who converted to Islam continued their deep interest in Indian science and mathematics. These Buddhist–Islamic scholars continued to serve in the courts of the Abbasid Caliphs.The Golden Road also credits the Pallavas and the Cholas as great sea-faring empires having established trading centers in Southeast Asia and being the cause for the spread Hindu religion. It was not a conquest. Local chieftains went on to become great Hindu rulers.The main reason was trade. Though Hinduism was the main religion in Cambodia (which included the current Laos, Thailand and parts of Vietnam), Java and Borneo, the tenets of Manusmriti such as the caste system and treating women as chattel never took root..Indeed, the denizens of the Pallava and Chola kingdoms, though practising Hindus, never adhered to the prohibition of sailing the “black seas”. They were great ship-builders building some of the largest vessels that ever sailed the oceans.While this was happening in the South, Northern India had spilled into the “dark ages”, seeped in superstition and ignorance. This is not palatable to the critics.Autocrats: Charisma, Power and their Lives by Rajiv Dogra.Rajiv Dogra was a foreign service officer who was ambassador to Romania and Italy. Having served in Romania, he has had a ring-side view of the Romanian communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu and his ambitious wife, Elena. Both husband and wife were shot dead in December 1989 after a summary trial. They were dragged to their execution kicking and screaming.Autocrats is an easy read, where Dogra has interspersed his observation with quotes from Plato to Plutarch, from Nelson Mandela to Harry Belafonte. The dictators studied by him include Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Ceaușescu, Putin, Qaddafi, Saddam and Assad.Sadly, he calls Napolean, a favourite of mine, a dictator. And one of the great US presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson, one too. I assume Donald Trump would also fit as one more US dictator in a later edition.According to Dogra, the characteristics of an autocrat are the trio of negative personality traits— narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. A dictator shows “disregard for the rights of others and has an inability to understand others’ feelings”..Book review— Practices of the State: Muslims, Law and Violence in India.Dogra has analysed the reasons for the rise of an autocrat. It happens when the country is in decline, the economy is stagnating, corruption is high and when the people are not vigilant.He also mentions the four stages of a dictatorship. The slide begins when a demagogue is elected. Next, he begins to change the administration by placing his favourites in pole positions.Dogra quotes Machiavelli here, “The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.” Later, he draws up new rules of governance. Finally, he uses these rules selectively to consolidate his position. “Everything done by my friends is lawful, for my enemies, the law!”.The book discusses various aspects of inequality in the rule of law, education, employment, business, democracy and marriage..Then a familiar script follows. History gets re-written, truth is in perpetual flux, constitutional and institutional frameworks are scorned and it is now time for alternative facts.While reading Autocrats, I had the eerie feeling that we are living in a similar era.Who is Equal by Saurabh Kirpal.Saurabh Kirpal is a designated Supreme Court senior advocate. The Supreme Court collegium had recommended his name for a judgeship. But apparently, considering his sexual orientation, the government is yet to consider it. That in itself violates the principle of equality enshrined in our Constitution. Possibly, this led him to write this book.Kirpal, in Who is Equal, while discussing Article 14 of the Constitution, narrates the inequality prevalent in the country despite the principle guaranteed in our Constitution. He discusses equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome as well as formal and substantive equality. The book discusses various aspects of inequality in the rule of law, education, employment, business, democracy and marriage.I recommend practising advocates, law students and persons with an interest in law to read this book. It will help them develop their understanding.There were other great books that I read but the lack of space restricts their mention. I suggest readers look up Gujarat under Modi: The Blueprint for Today’s India (2024) by Christophe Jaffrelot, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society (2024) by Joseph Stiglitz and the two books by Timothy Snyder, On Freedom (2024) and On Tyranny (2017).

The year that was–13 | Great non-fiction books of 2024

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