Acknowledgements
This book would not have been written if Lohit Jagwani had not met me over coffee at the India International Centre one afternoon last summer. Lohit is a persuasive editor. Even though I had no immediate desire to write a book, he had, during that short meeting, succeeded in planting in my mind an idea whose execution in the form of a book is in your hands. As they say, the perspiration is mine, but the inspiration behind the book is Lohit. The credit should go to him for inspiring me with the idea that India’s journey as a democratic country could be better understood by analysing a series of disruptions that took place in the last seven-odd decades.
I must also acknowledge my gratitude to Business Standard, where I have worked for almost a quarter of a century, for allowing me to undertake this venture. I will remain indebted to T.N. Ninan for his permission to write the book. He has been my editor for the longest period of my nearly four decades of career as a journalist, and he set before me standards in journalism that I have always strived hard to follow. I have had the privilege of discussing with many colleagues and experts the many ideas that have been expanded in this book. The list will be very long if I were to name all of them. But I would be failing in my duty if I do not mention at least some of those who made a signal contribution to a few of the chapters in the book. Deepak Lal explained to me the policy environment that led to India’s turn towards statism. Surinder Sud outlined the forces that were at play behind India’s Green Revolution. They also went through the chapters that I wrote on the basis of these meetings and made important suggestions. Others who took the trouble of reading the chapters included: Vijay L. Kelkar, Coomi Kapoor, T.C.A. Srinivasa-Raghavan, Mahesh Uppal, Tamal Bandyopadhyay, Arun Kumar and Satya Poddar. All of them made relevant and useful suggestions. Suveen Sinha kindly and very readily agreed to draft a short biographical sketch of mine, a task that I was uncomfortable doing myself, and stayed well within the word limit Lohit had imposed on it. I am grateful to each one of them. Of course, I am solely responsible for whatever shortcomings the book stills suffers from.
I have also benefitted immensely from the wisdom and knowledge of the many authors whose books I had to read while writing this book. I need to record my deep gratitude to each of these authors. A list of the authors and the books is given in the Bibliography section.
I will be failing in my duty if I do not record my deep gratitude to all the members of my family for the support I got from them while I was busy writing the manuscript.
THE BEGINNING
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This collection published 2019
Copyright © A.K. Bhattacharya 2019
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The Rise of Goliath Page 46
