Undaunted: Saving the Idea of India

by P. Chidambaram

  1. ISBN: 978-93-5333-373-7
  2. Pages: 240 pages
  3. Date: 8 February 2019

ABOUT THIS BOOK

History repeats; it also instructs. History familiarizes; it also warns.

These prophetic words find resonance in Undaunted, the latest book by P. Chidambaram, in
which he helps readers understand what has happened to India in 2018, rather than what has
happened in India.

Like every free citizen, thinker and liberal, he feels deeply and strongly about the developments
of the Modi era, which, in his own words, have been the ‘most challenging and adventurous that
I have spent as an Opposition politician’.

Carrying on undaunted by the power of the State, he writes boldly on a plethora of subjects—the interference of the central government in institutions, the complete derailment of an economy that was previously cruising at a growth rate of 7.5 per cent and the polarization of an ancient civilization that threatens its very survival. He also casts a sharp eye on the sweeping changes in the political battleground and the significant setbacks suffered by the government in the foreign policy arena.

In this collection of incisive essays published in 2018 as a weekly column in The Indian Express,
Chidambaram brings to bear a wealth of experience, mastery of the subject matter and an engaging writing style to critically examine the most defining question of 2019—Are we facing the end of the ‘idea of India’ given to us by our founding fathers?

Undaunted serves as a contemporary record of the most important events that affected the country—for better or worse—in the year gone by.

AUTHOR OF THE BOOK

P. CHIDAMBARAM is a former Union Minister of Finance and Home in the Government of
India. Currently, he is a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) and heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs. He is an eminent lawyer practising in the Supreme Court of India and various high courts. A public intellectual and author, collections of his essays in 2016 and 2017 were published to wide acclaim under the titles Standing Guard and Fearless in Opposition, respectively.

P. Chidambaram writes a weekly column on economy, politics, social issues, foreign policy and
contemporary affairs in The Indian Express, a leading newspaper. He is a member of the Indian
National Congress, the country’s oldest political party, and a trustee of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.