Bookstrapping: Gopalkrishna Gandhi’s ‘The Undying Light’

Are Prime Ministers nervous too?

It is still August and independence month! So we will take the opportunity to review another book about India.

Career administrator and diplomat, Gopalkrishna Gandhi’s book, ‘The Undying Light- A Personal History of Independent India’, is a guided tour inside the corridors of power.

Sample this observation from the book, 'when the Lok Sabha elections were announced, R Venkatraman’s Presidential instincts came to the fore. He read up precedents, Indian and British for all contingencies. He also knew that all reading and preparations help that much and no more. Ultimately, contingencies call for contingent responses.”

I found myself wondering how much erudition is required to take on such roles and the weight of it all, overwhelmed me. The other aha moment I had, was that readers of non-fiction want anecdotes. And this book has them by the droves. I'm going to narrate my top five, as #BookStrapping insights.

1. The first one pertains to the moment when Chandrasekhar took oath as the PM. The author noticed a somewhat clumsy incident, as follows. “Chandrasekhar, no novice in politics, no greenhorn in public life, was still new to high office…..his hand was in a mild tremor as he picked up the stylus, dipped it in the ink pot and before he could put the nib over the paper, let a drop of the black ink fall on the broad open page! It is difficult at such moments for the most dogged rationalist to be unaffected by such a ‘sign.’"

2. Talking about the aftermath of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, a time when the author was Jt.Secy to R Venkatraman, he remembers being indundated with calls seeking urgent meetings with the President. He recalls, “Deaths in India are magnets. Every manner of metal, precious, semi-precious, base, rusty, alloy, tin is drawn to it. And funerals are a moving mound of emotions mixed with some open and many more concealed emotions.”

3. Like many such sweeping tomes, this book is an intersection of personal history and public memory. Gandhi masterfully blends archival research with his personal witness to history, showing how India’s challenges—communal strife, political transitions, and social upheavals—are experienced and interpreted by those living them. Is national transformation, best understood not just through grand events, but through the lived realities of individual citizens and families? Your guess is as good as mine.

4. The non-political anecdotes are riveting too! Bharat Ratna MS Subbulakshmi once sang in Dzongkha, the local language of Bhutan, during an official trip with President R Venkatraman. There’s no dearth of sharp wit either. “Bureaucratic pedants are ants who think they are scorpions” Gopal says in his book! Ouch!

5. Towards the end of the book, I felt that Gandhi was asking his reader a question. Has the “light” envisioned by the founders, grown brighter or dimmer with time?

Through eight chronological sections, Gopal reflects on the country’s travails and triumphs, from the scars of Partition to the evolution of modern politics, always blending the nation’s public story with his own journey as a civil servant and observe. That he is the grandson of two monumental figures, Mahatma Gandhi and C Rajagopalachari, seemed incidental to this vast effort in writing the book.

Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ Asia's first reading coach, you can find her on Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta.

Read More: How sports biographies are hooking the youth on reading

Read More: Bookstrapping: A.L. Basham’s 'The Wonder That Was India'

Read More: Why fulfillment, not fame, is the ultimate victory: Jim Murphy on the heart of high performance