Holistic account of authoritarian regime

Eager to finish it, Loved it, Documented various aspects lead to authoritarian regimes; Narration is quite impressive.

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Good one on Modern India's political history..!!

Emergency Chronicles is a book that actually makes you live in the early independent India (1950s-1970s), events are so elaborately described that you feel like they are happening around you (though sometimes the writer deviates to elaborate minor instances too much, thus leaving no option but to fast forward some minutes). For people who are mostly oblivious of recent political past of modern India, this book allows you to gain a first hand understanding of the events in development of Indian political system and its democracy… and how it is sabotaged at times by powerful personalities, most influential of them being Mrs. Indira Gandhi.
When you submerge yourself into the flow of the narration, you will experience how Indira Gandhi transformed from being a ‘Dumb Doll’ to ‘India is Indira, Indira is India’ and how she (along with her tyrannic son) took all possible advantages of the country’s politico-legal system. I especially like the chapter titled ‘Lawful suspension of law’ where the situation and scenario of emergency is explained. ‘Aftermath’ is also enjoyable which discusses how emergency was removed and what happened when it was removed. Pretty interesting!

Some observations about the text, and as I already notified above, the book sometimes loses track and start explaining minor events in such detail that I felt like missing the major track. At some places, the writer gives too much facts about law and political science so being a layman I got a bit bothered.

On the audio compilation part, there are some linguistic mistakes coupled with narration immaturity. For example, ‘rallied’ is pronounced as ‘railed’, ‘Impasse’ is pronounced as ‘impass’, many unexplained 1-2 second blanks are there in soundtrack, page turning sound is captured at some instances etc. I hope Audible takes note of these and improve future compliations, to brings its Indian products at par with world.

Overall, I can say I am feeling enlightened about my country’s modern political history after finishing this audio-book and I recommend it to my fellow audiblers. 😊

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Thoroughly researched

I have to admit that I am no expert in history and whatever I know of the dark period of democracy in India is mostly from literary works. But this has been an excellent starting point to know more about Indira Gandhi's rule and how a single leader with immense power can be the end of democracy. Highly recommended if you are worried about the current state of our country.

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very interesting and informative unravling the roo

very good narrative brought out the past plans of beautiifying delhi also showing the history of maruti the changes brought about by the emergency showing how difficult it is to run acountry so diverse as India exposed the power lust of polititions and suffering of innocent people brings out the strong personality of Indira and her popularity revealed how different she was from nehru in the end she paid with her life for her mistakes

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Overall, a good book

The book is good. But, a little more insight into reaction of the-then establishment would have made it better. “The Judgement” by Kuldip Nayyar did a better analysis in this count.
But, as a whole, Recommend for listeners.

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1 person found this helpful

Top. Book

Must read book. Highly recommended to you and everyone at home. Such a major project

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Shallow Overview of Events in a Dreary Monologue

A tedious, mundane monologue providing a dreadfully superficial overview of the emergency days that completely lacks in depth and engagement. Gyan Prakash's left leanings are apparent throughout the outsized references to CPI and JNU while lacking any insights on the role of the RSS and Jan Sangh that I was hoping to learn more about. His lack of depth and engagement is only matched by Rajiv Dadia's monotonous cadence and editing horrors with frequent repetitions of whole sentences.

An uninspiring listen that is best avoided.

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2 people found this helpful

poor book, wasted a lot of time and credit

more than emergency, it's reasons and impact it talks about Sanjay Gandhi and his chronicles. it seems that author was settling some score with him.
disappointed to see such a waste on such a critical topic.
although narration was clear and good

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