"When priests and bishops them selves turn heretics", asks the author, "who will save the church?" That almost sums up the book. It is a story of how, starting from the high moral pedestal raised by the Mahatma, Indian politics has sunk to abysmal depths of corruption and criminality. It gives a blow by blow account of the gross transformation of a politics of faith and trust into one of breach of faith and betrayal of trust, of a politics of commitment into one of commerce. It is the tale of a nation which, in the prime of its life, has not only lost its agenda but also its horizon. From electoral corruption to criminalisation of politics, from the gimmicks of ‘Garibi Hatao’ and employment generation to youth alienation and breakdown of institutions, nothing escapes the author’s brutally frank dissection of India’s distorted political dispensation. Through an uninhibited and no-holds-barred account of the country’s political adventures and entrepreneurs, who have turned politics into a flourishing business enterprise, the author exposes the grotesque face of political corruption comprehensively as no one has done before. His close interface with corruption of politicians in course of his professional life, with small beginnings during early post-independence years till it reached Juggernautian proportions by the 80’s, has given him a rare insight to do so. The book explodes many assiduously created myths about India’s politics, economics, development and progress. It may evoke more arguments, praise, criticism, even outright condemnation, than perhaps any other book on contemporary political scene. It may be loved or hated, but cannot be ignored. It will excite, stimulate the reader to no end, and should be read by every one concerned about the state of the nation. Irreverential and explosive, it is a fitting stock-taking of post-independence India’s political slide down at the fag end, the flickering cigarette / butt of the twentieth century about to extinguish in the ashtray of history.
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