Reportage on a planet without equitable or sustainable development.
The curious lack of fiction set in rural India
during my tihi days, i felt for the first time that only fiction could do justice to the immense changes that this village was seeing. it is a feeling that has been reinforced over time.
for instance, at the contested site where posco’s industrial complex is supposed to come up, only two of the three panchayats whose land is involved support the industrial project. in the process, the space between the two panchayats supporting the project and the panchayat opposing it has become a no man’s land. surely, there is enough grist for a story in such a conflict within communities that had amicably coexisted till now.
in this little column, i wonder why we see hardly any fiction, either written in english or translated into english, about present-day rural India?
note: the definition of the role of journalism — to monitor the centres of power — is from robert fisk’s ‘the great war for civilisation’. it is what israeli journalist amira hass tells fisk.
I am an Indian journalist with interests in energy, environment, climate and India’s ongoing slide into right-wing authoritarianism. My book, Despite the State, an examination of pervasive state failure and democratic decay in India, was published by Westland Publications, India, in January 2021. My work has won the Bala Kailasam Memorial Award; the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award; five Shriram Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism; and, more recently, been a finalist at the True Story Award and GIJN’s Global Shining Light Awards. Write to me at despitethestate@protonmail.com.
“Westland closure: Titles that are selling fast and a few personal recommendations,” by Chetana Divya Vasudev, Moneycontrol. (Because this happened too. In February, a year after DtS was released, Amazon decided to shutter Westland, which published the book. The announcement saw folks rushing to buy copies of Westland books before stocks run out.)
Fractured/Earth 
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