India Reborn (Hardcover)

India Reborn offers a sweeping global history of India’s dramatic economic decline between 1757 and 1990, its turnaround beginning with Narasimha Rao’s reforms, and how Narendra Modi’s push for moral and institutional regeneration may restore India’s civilizational state to global prominence. The book challenges dominant narratives by showing that India’s revolutionary freedom struggle—often overshadowed by its nonviolent strand—played a decisive role in ending British rule. It traces how the wealth extracted from India funded Britain’s industrial revolution and exposes the imperial calculus behind Partition. Reconnecting forgotten historical threads, the book links the 1857 War of Independence, the 1905 Swadeshi-Swaraj movement, the Ghadar uprising, Subhas Bose’s INA, and the 1946 naval and air force mutinies. These uprisings, often brutally repressed, forced key British concessions and ultimately made continued rule untenable. Post-independence, India largely preserved colonial-era economic controls and governance, stalling development. Leaders like Shastri, Rao, Vajpayee, and Modi gradually reoriented the economy and strategic thinking. Yet true transformation was delayed by widespread poverty and systemic neglect. Modi’s expansion of basic services marked a turning point, but deeper reforms—especially in labour markets—remain essential to achieving a Japan- or South Korea-style trajectory of inclusive prosperity.