Mark Tully is incomparable. No foreign commentator has a greater understanding of the passions, the contradictions, the charms and the resilience that constitute India. In India in Slow Motion, Tully and his colleague Gillian Wright delve further than ever before into this nation of over one billion people, attempting to unravel a culture that, famously, has always resisted unravelling. India in Slow Motion is the account of a journey that for Tully and Wright has no true beginning or end. Covering a diverse range of subjects-from Hindu extremism to child labour, Sufi mysticism to the crisis in agriculture, the persistence of political corruption to the problem of Kashmir-this book challenges the preconceptions others have about India, as well as those India has about itself. India is often depicted as a victim of forces too wild to be controlled-of post-colonial malaise, of religious strife, of the caste system, of a corrupt bureaucratic machine. India in Slow Motion refutes this, probing into the heart of the Indian experience and arguing that change is possible and that solutions do exist. In the process it brings the country and its people brilliantly alive.

Probing into socio-political issues of post-independent India.

A provocative, humorous, searching and deeply humane portrait of India. This book is an account of a journey that for Tully and Wright has no true beginning or end. Covering a diverse range of subjects, from Hindu extremism to child labor, Sufi mysticism to the crisis in agriculture.

Sir Mark Tully is one of the world's leading writers and broadcasters on India, and the presenter of the much loved radio programme 'Something Understood'. In this fascinating and timely work, he reveals the profound impact India has had on his life and beliefs, and what we can all learn from this rapidly changing nation. Through interviews and anecdotes, he embarks on a journey that takes in the many faces of India, from the untouchables of Uttar Pradesh to the skyscrapers of Gurgaon, from the religious riots of Ayodhya to the calm of a university campus. He explores how successfully India reconciles opposites, marries the sensual with the sacred, finds harmony in discord, and treats certainty with suspicion.

Since the Indian economy was liberated from bureaucratic, socialist controls in 1991, it has developed rapidly. A country once renowned for the backwardness of its industries, its commerce and its financial market is now viewed as potentially one of the major world economies of the twenty-first century. But there are many questions which need to be asked about the sustainability of this rapid economic growth and its effect on the stability of the country. Have the changes had any impact on the poor and marginalised? Can India's democracy contain the mounting resentment of those left out of the new economic order? Can a high growth rate be sustained with India's notoriously corrupt and inefficient governance? Can the development of its creaking infrastructure be speeded up? How is India going to feed itself unless agriculture is reformed? This timely book will answer these questions through interviews with industrialists and cricketers, God men and farmers, plutocrats and former untouchables. Full of fascinating stories of real people at a time of great change, it will be of interest to economists, business people, diplomats, politicians, as well as to those who love to travel and who take an interest in the rapid growth of one of the world's largest countries, and what this means to us in the West.

India’s Westernized elite, cut off from local traditions, ‘want to write a full stop in a land where there are no full stops’. From that striking insight Mark Tully has woven a superb series of ‘stories’ which explore Calcutta, from the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad (probably the biggest religious festival in the world) to the televising of a Hindu epic. Throughout, he combines analysis of major issues with a feel for the fine texture and human realities of Indian life. The result is a revelation. 'The ten essays, written with clarity, warmth of feeling and critical balance and understanding, provide as lively a view as one can hope for of the panorama of India.’ K. Natwar-Singh in the Financial Times

India is heralded as the world's largest democracy. Yet, there is now growing alarm about its democratic health. To Kill a Democracy gets to the heart of the matter. Combining poignant life stories with sharp scholarly insight, it rejects the belief that India was once a beacon of democracy but is now being ruined by the destructive forces of Modi-style populism. The book details the much deeper historical roots of the present-day assaults on civil liberties and democratic institutions. Democracy, the authors also argue, is much more than elections and the separation of powers. It is a whole way of life lived in dignity, and that is why they pay special attention to the decaying social foundations of Indian democracy. In compelling fashion, the book describes daily struggles for survival and explains how lived social injustices and unfreedoms rob Indian elections of their meaning, while at the same time feeding the decadence and iron-fisted rule of its governing institutions. Much more than a book about India, To Kill A Democracy argues that what is happening in the country is globally important, and not just because every third person living in a democracy is an Indian. It shows that when democracies rack and ruin their social foundations, they don't just kill off the spirit and substance of democracy. They lay the foundations for despotism.