Remembering India’s perennial ‘Young Turk’ and the country’s most unassuming and successful prime minister, Chandra Shekhar, on his death anniversary on 08 July 2019
About the book: This is the story of an ordinary man who did not inherit a grand legacy from a well-established and renowned family; who did not rely on family wealth and eminence; who did not attend any of the prestigious educational institutions in the country or abroad; and who did not command a dedicated vote bank of any specific class, caste or community. Yet he took on the most powerful prime minister of his time and became a formidable opponent of her politics and policies.
It is the story of a man who came from a lower middle-class family and who, despite stiff opposition from the most powerful Indian prime minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi, won the nomination to the Congress Working Committee, not once but thrice.
Chandra Shekhar: The Last Icon of Ideological Politics is an up-close and extraordinary life story of an ordinary person who rose to become one of the tallest figures in Indian politics.
About the author:
Harivansh, currently the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, started his career as a journalist. An economist trained at BHU, Varanasi, he is a seasoned journalist who has worked with the premier Hindi magazine Dharmayug and the Hindi weekly Ravivar. He took over as the editor of Prabhat Khabar and successfully steered a nearly defunct newspaper to emerge as the largest circulated Hindi daily in eastern India.
An author of several books, Harivansh had worked in Chandra Shekhar’s PMO as his additional information advisor.
Ravi Duct Bajpai has written for various Hindi and English media outlets. After years of experience in the IT industry, he is now pursuing his Doctoral research on civilizational exchanges between China and India at Deakin University, Melbourne. Australia.