Since May 2014, under a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party, the Nehruvian-read liberal, secular, scientific-Idea of India appears to have come utterly undone. Institutions of governance that weathered great turbulence in the past are now disintegrating. The economy, once the celebrated 'India story', is in a shambles. Large sections of the media genuflect to the ruling dispensation. Meanwhile, the grand old party of India remains trapped in its glorious yesterday and unsure about its future.
In 2014, named after the year the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance first came to power under Narendra Modi, Sanjay Jha takes a long, hard look at what all of this means for India. What are the reasons for the Congress's acute lack of Oppositional ability? Can the party look beyond the easy fallback of the Gandhi-family charisma and embrace transformational change? Can it sell its vision-of inclusive growth and social justice-to a nation that seems mesmerised by a polarising rhetoric and the rise of muscular, populist nationalism?
Though Jha asks tough questions of the government and his former party, he has not lost faith in Mahatma Gandhi's India. He writes of renewal, of hope. And the Congress, he firmly believes, is central to that revival of India.