VOXINDICA REVIEWS

Reviews of ‘TWISTING FACTS TO SUIT THEORIES’ & OTHER SELECTIONS FROM VOXINDICA posted on Amazon listing pages and elsewhere are reproduced here.

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June 5 2019

INDIA IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

RATING: 5/5

By Maruvada

A democratic or representative form of government can only work, let alone thrive, when the Press (which today encompasses all forms of public media) is free and objective. In India a few years after independence from British rule, the print and broadcast media had abandoned objectivity to a large extent and became house organs of one of the dominant political parties. The emergence of the Internet and platforms for New Media it created have made it possible for bloggers and citizen journalists independent of “Main Stream Media” (MSM), such as Mr. Narayanadas Upadhyayula to provide a fresh and personal perspective on events and state of affairs in the country.

For about forty years after emigrating to the US, I had not been following political and cultural developments in the Indian subcontinent for various reasons. During a trip to India a few years ago, I learned that Mr. Upadhyayula, after retiring from a marketing career, started a blog VOXINDICA and has been publishing commentaries on current events, media coverage of events and societal changes. Reading this book brought back and illuminated many of the concerns I used to feel about the left-ward drift of the political establishment and the hypocrisy of claiming India was a secular republic while one religion was treated as more equal than others. Mr. Upadhyayula’s incisive insight helped me understand the cultural and socio-political framework of present-day India.

Mr. Upadhyayula has produced a snapshot or brief video of life in contemporary India with copious facts and detail with citations that fully support his claims and opinions. As far back as 1953, the Congress party saw India as “a socialistic pattern of society” in the words of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. His descendants and followers may not be doctrinaire socialists but they have managed to enshrine many socialist concepts as integral to governance. The unequal treatment of the major religions in India, Hinduism and Islam, is also baked into the cake of Indian society. Mr. Upadhyayula’s book provides plenty of evidence for both these trends.

Even in the early years of independent India, the regulatory environment as well as the control of newsprint paper and ownership of the airwaves by the Congress governments made honest criticism of governments a hazard. Even after the growth of especially the broadcast media to provide a wide choice of news sources, the MSM seems to have remained far to the left of the general population. This might be due to the tendency of schools of journalism to want their graduates to be not purveyors of objective news but "social justice warriors to protect the world against the evils of capitalism". Mr. Upadhyayula has escaped this kind of brainwashing indoctrination by avoiding such institutions.

I, of course, cannot attest to the accuracy of the mountain of factual material Mr. Upadhyayula used to support his opinions and commentary. However, it all rings true due to two reasons: one, the happenings and the treatment of them by government and the MSM follow the direction I had known as a young adult in India; second, there is an eerie similarity between the institutions of government, academia and media to what I am seeing in the US. Other than specific events and names, much of the analysis in this book would apply to the contemporary American scene if the Democratic party is substituted for the Congress party and Hindu is replaced by Judeo-Christian. Also, the basic tenets of this book reflect what is happening in the European Union and the United Nations as well.

Congratulations to Mr. Upadhyayula on his thorough analysis in this well-written book.

(Full disclosure: The author, Mr. Narayanadas Upadhyayula is a second cousin of mine; however, due to about ten years difference in our ages and the fact that I emigrated to the US in 1971, we had very little contact of any kind until very recently. The contents of this review are my opinions based entirely on my impressions of the book and not colored by our familial connection.) 

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A BOOK LIKE THIS IS LONG OVERDUE

March 25 2017

Rating: 5/5

By Amazon Customer

Bold. Incisive. The book critically examines secularism as it is practised in India, the skewed history that is taught in Indian schools and colleges and the blatantly partisan approach of the Indian media for matters concerning Hindus and Hinduism. A book like this is long overdue. I congratulate the author for bringing the issues to the fore. More such literature is needed. I strongly recommend the book. A must read.