Why India remains Bharat

This is the author's fourth book, but the first in the non-fiction genre, an innovation from the 1950s, merging responsible journalism and engaging fiction in impactful storytelling.

- SANJEEV AHLUWALIA

The result is a sparkling flow of thoughts sustained by their own sometimes convoluted logic. The author quit as editor of the Open magazine to write and explore alternative opportunities.

So, why don't more upper-class Indians get slaughtered in their beds by the numerically overwhelming poor, many of whom serve the former in their homes, know their secrets and have both adequate motive and opportunity? Think of the ultimate luxury—being served bed tea—and the accompanying security dilemma of in-house help. Keeping a dog is a safeguard. But not if walked and fed by the house-help as most upper-class pets are.

The poor attacking the rich is relatively rare in India. Sordid jails and the snail-paced judiciary are effective disincentives for voluntary criminal acts. The resilience of the Indian social order can be attributed to the preservation of "social distance," as in not eating on the same table, not sitting on the same furniture, and not eating from the same crockery. Oddly, rather than detract, these add to social cohesion, albeit of the stratified Indian kind.