Notes From Another India

When India appears in the Western media, it does so principally as the site of communal violence, atrocities against women, casteism, backwardness, poverty and disease. Other images also come through. India is popularly perceived as a land of ancient and unchanging tradition and, in Britain, the myth of the days of the Raj persists in the media. This book is a record of a journey exploring some of the positive initiatives taken by the people’s movements and non-governmental organisations in present-day India to counter this image in the West. It is also a celebration of the alternatives in the popular movements, resistance to mega-projects and to environmental and developmental violence. Written by a journalist who knows India well, Notes From Another India is both a guide and a signpost to these alternative developments. It places in context the rise of fundamentalism in the country and analyzes why such a response should have occurred at this time. Through evocations and descriptions of place - from degraded village to city slum - and diverse accounts in the words of the people themselves, it provides the general reader, the traveller and all those interested in India with a positive insight to the country.