Short Book Review: This Unquiet Land by Barkha Dutt

This Unquiet LandSBR:  This Unquiet Land is a historical account of  a bunch of issues faced by India today, the content mostly deriving from the author’s work as a journalist. It covers issues like our wars with our neighbors, Kashmir, religious tensions, caste, class, gender justice, liberalization, politics etc. It makes for a pretty good read, although there is no extraordinary insight you get if you are a regular consumer of news. Once in a while, you get to see something of the personal side of important people, or Barkha Dutt’s impression of them, but that isn’t something I would read the book for. It is also surprisingly uncontroversial, the tone that of strict journalistic neutrality, and judgments, when passed, reserved for the non-contentious issues. The right-wing Internet trolls wasted their time in writing those one-star book reviews on Amazon as soon as the book came out.
The pages spent chronicling her personal growth, or her long replies to her critics can tire you, but otherwise it is a well-written summary of the issues it intends to summarize.
To read or not to read: If you are bewildered with 24/7 news like me and find it difficult to keep track of even the important issues, this book is a good way to catch up. Else you won’t benefit much and can skip.