Book Review: Chanakya's New Manifesto

Book:  CHANAKYA’S  NEW MANIFESTO 
 

Author:  Pavan K. Varma 
 

ISBN:  978-93-82277-09-5 
 

Genre:  Non Fiction

Price:  295 ( I got it from Blogadda in a book review program) 
 

Pages:  248 
 

Publisher:  ALEPH BOOK COMPANY 

 Introduction:

Whatever state we are in at present has a direct incentive of our past performance, our present actions based on the correlative implication of our past and present and our future implementation and execution of goals considering all the three timelines taken into prospective.  This isn’t a book to read in a single sitting and grasp everything out of it. It’s meted out of sincere efforts put up to bring out the real scenario of the country with summoned realistic counsels to overcome from rather deplorable condition the country is facing today. This book is laid on connoting the thoughts and preachings of one of the greatest scholar world has ever known Chanakya along with the beliefs and teachings of our father of the nation Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, encompassing the present scenario.  Author's vitalizing feat can also be sensed from the 65 references which he made to make a stronghold case of his treatise.

         An eye opener for all the Indians who aren’t awake yet

Cover Page:

Black hole is of prime importance as it devours everything else. How would you represent a black hole in terms of color? Black isn’t it? Yes this color has significance in the cover page of this book as it encompasses everything India needs to do to envision itself as “Sarvagun Sampoorna” (To bring out the best in terms of completeness).  If an adequate action isn’t taken now we would drown our self to a pitiful grave which is looking more promising similar to engulfing in a black hole.

About the Author:

Pavan K. Varma,studied history at St. Stephen College, New delhi and took a degree in law from Delhi  University.He has been press secretary to the president of India, official spokesman of the Foreign Office, director general of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and India's ambassador to Bhutan. Having taken premature retirement from the Indian Foreign Service, he now seeks to be actively involved in public life.

Pavan K. Varma has authored several acclaimed and bestselling books, among them, Ghalib: The Man, The Times; Krishna: The Playful Divine; The Great Indian Middle Class; Being Indian: The truth about why the 21st century will be India's; Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity and When Loss is Gain. He has also translated into English the poetry of Gulzar, Kaifi Azmi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Compostional Report:

Prologue of this book covers the bases or the roots from which a theme is derived and later matured into a fully fledged blueprint for a change.  Starting with Chanakya's preachings from Arthashastra , an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy  written by the great scholar dating back 2300 years BC Era, captivating  to our present day scenario which needs an immediate alteration.

Author of this book Pavan K. Varma has succinctly exploited the prowess of demarcation to mark 5 significant areas which requires a prominent stance in terms of actual implementations. This book covers an equitably devised areas of concern viz. Governance, Democracy, Corruption, Security and the creation of an Inclusive society with a prior liaison with our immediate Past, since our Independence in 1947 highlighting all the pros and the cons linked with each and every decision taken by our fore founders of the country.

This book covers all the 5 eminent lurking dangers with detailed analysis of each with the basic knowledge of what is the current situation, why are we in such a state and what is the probable outcome if we continue to progress or rather regress with such a rate and most importantly what needs to be done to overcome our stricken state and be amongst the fortified nations. This book has sought 354 lines of immediate action points covering all the cornerstones along with the detailed reasoning of each and every point stated (57-Democracy, 87-governance, 111-corruption, 58-security and 41-creation of inclusive society)

The best part according to me was the presentation of real India to its mass and the detailed action plan mentioned to root out all the evils from our country. This is not a novel for a literate person but a bible to an educated citizen, perhaps this is the best and the worst thing which it contains.

Worst- let us take an example mentioned in this book
“5 years ago shortage of coal was 43 million tones and now it is 140 million tones. India being a 4^th largest in cola reserve this is something unbelievable.”
 What will a common person understand with 43 million tones and 140 million tones except that it has further decreased?

Best- As I said this has nothing to do with a literate mind but means a lot to an educated citizen. The reason being the exponential decrease of coal reserves in spite of all the planned (unplanned) strategies that let to shrinkage of reserves, policies of the government (governance), Use of resources ( democracy),Coalgate scam(corruption), Proper utilization and growth of available resources along with its security (Security) and harnessing resources for a sustainable progress(creating an inclusive society). This book covers everything and that’s why I recommend it to all educated minds, a must read as I always believe a knowledgeable citizen is much better than an ignorant one when it comes to tackling a situation at hand.

I agree with the author “it’s time to change and if we fail, India may never succeed. Our future is at stake.” I would rate this book 4.5 out of 5.

Life Adjudication of the book:

This is a book to awake our sleeping brains and start acting towards our cumulative goal to progress

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