These are the books that will need to be published by the time the term of the current government in New Delhi ends.
1) Left, Right, Past March: Autocorrecting The Colonised
A listicle style flashback of non-BJP governments that looks at just one question: why the dominant Hindu feels that bias, outrage and policy have fed into minority patronage. Twenty examples drawn from multiple post-Independence news sources, with a bandwidth of commentators investigating the evidence. This book might get stuck if they make a committee.
2) Banistan: Revitalising Underground Cultures Through A Shut-Up Policy
This graphic novella comes with a CD of five 5-minute films – examples from Indian small towns of the second life of the banned: person, group or organisation. The shelf life of the post-ban "victim" will be analysed monetarily and emotionally and the sub-cultures it brewed, examined. Will be available in the comic books sections of most adarsh liberal bookshops.
3) The Achche Din Economy: 10 Steps To 10% Growth
A Radio Jockey’s debut as a non-fiction writer, as the Great Leader’s Mann ki Baat recordings will be decoded and evaluated for actions taken on the ground. It will be India’s first audio book in bullet points.
4) Ma, Beti, Biwi, Behen: The Autumn Of The Patriarchy
A ten-volume collection edited by right of centre stalwarts who invoke a classical myth/history story featuring women in relation to men. It will evaluate the current position of women in the geographies that the story inhabits. A new HDI (Hindu Development Index) will be drawn up and will be serialised on the Internet for comments. A Website will be created by the Central Government to crosscheck facts real time, open to the public for a certain mutually decided period, until the books go to print in EBAI (equated bi-annual instalments).
5) The Autocrat Sutras: Did China And India Over-centralise Power?
Commissioned by select regions in China and states in India, the book will capture the gaze of the states looking upwards at the Centre. For the first time, entire bureaucracies will be allowed to give recorded interviews in their native tongues. Challenging the trickle-down effect, the bottom-most rung of the establishment will go first. High-quality translators may be an issue, but help will be sought from American universities and, if needs be, the European Commission.
6) Why The Liberal Took To Drink & Writing: A Glass Act
Following close monitoring of purchases made at liquor outlets across the land, children will interview their liberal mamas and papas on their temperamental mood swings and tell their stories, meticulously listing their daily discipline in writing columns which few publish. Psychologists and psychiatrists will wring their hands in glee at this unexpected bounty of the new "depressed classes".
7) A History Of The Adarsh: 100 Posters
A partnership between a school of design serving only vegetarian food and a gurukula nominated from Nagpur. This will be in workbook format, available in serrated sheets with removable posters. It will have a new kind of gum which would make it unstickable in public places. At least 100 versions of Adarsh may then confuse the young and reaffirm our diversity, plurality and other ities.
8) Censoring Posts: What Social Networks And The Bureaucracy Have In Common
This book will really be a file which an enterprising journalist will access after a suitable leak made by a dissatisfied middling bureaucrat in 2018. A dossier which will be much in demand between governments as it will reveal the File Notings which some RTIs couldn’t. The dominant search engine will make money by getting the e-rights for this, pissing off the dominant social networking site, which will release the India report on posts it was asked to censor. Around this time, the journalist’s book will be turn into a bestseller, whereupon the proprietor will fire the editor and the journalist. No doubt under pressure from the right, left and middle in power. Heads may not roll, but outrage will.
9) The Powers That Ba Ba Black Sheep: 20 Bizarre Quotes
It will be open to the outraged to share and vote for the most bizarre quote in these five years. As the book goes to print, it might also sell TV serial rights into the back stories of the quoted and the misquoted. Online websites will design meaningless polls around them. It will not be kind, but some people will make a lot of money at your outraged expense.
10) From Cow Slaughter To Section 377: Choosing Histories To Kiss Or Dismiss
This will be a NRI gift to modern India. A book with two sides, available at two different rates. One readable, the other pointedly upside down. It will have cowdung and a condom dividing it in the middle. In some copyleft copies, there will be a beef deal voucher and a sex toy instead. Depending on your bovine, sexual and copy preference, you could read this slim book to find out more about India’s Xtra long traditions on both topics. Look out for this one, it is likely to offer a diversity of positions.
11) The New Hindu Rate Of Growth: Lessons Learnt In Job Creation
Ten entrepreneurs from rural India, whose profits and reach grew in the time period 2014-2019, will tell their own story in presentations. Available as an e-book only. Not sure whether presentations will still be in existence, but at least we will have defined what a village is and what, a town.
12) Biography Of A Power Yogi: Yoga Tips From The Leader In Pictures
A real coffee-table collector’s item on the leader at 5 am. This photograph-led classic will not be available to the public as it will be a gift to visiting dignitaries from other nations. An International Yoga Day that many countries already follow will now be a foreign policy benchmark. While someone is sure to leak pictures on Twitter, yoga participation will rise. Making this photo-book ripe for a sequel.
13) One Way Ticket: A Democratically Elected Leader's Media Policy
Foreign correspondents will get a chapter each to describe India’s Prime Minister and corollaries they see with other heads of nations, in their media policy. Indian journalists will get this free with a subsidised drink at their nearest Press Club. A token of appreciation for a view of an Indian head of state, who bypassed the Indian tribe and opened up to the foreigners. No doubt, a core aspect of foreign policy.
14) Order Order Ordinance: When Rarest Of The Rare Became Common
Legal luminaries will assess five years of Q&A in the two houses of Parliament and give us a comparative cheat sheet on ordinances issued by different governments. Because only lawyers and Parliamentary Committees will understand this, this will be one for the libraries of law schools and yet more committees. This might lead to an unexpected revival of legal correspondents in mainstream media and Parliamentary reporters who actually read documents.
15) Market Reform: Farmers, Do Not Apply
A state-funded ethnographic sketch of the lives of as many farmers as there are states in India. Since Indian NGOs will be banned entry in those farmer homes, NRI researchers will be invited to complete this in time for a Republic Day Launch in 2019. You can look forward to hearing the farmer’s voice and not the meddle men’s.
16) Labour Pains: The State Of The Unions
Trade union leaders will release this book. A combo of an Annual Report, a report card and a manifesto. It is likely to be a pavement bestseller, which those who write on the charm of pavement book shops and thelas might not actually read. Unexpected sales may come via charming magazines and fathers.
17) Inner-Party Democracy: Comparing The BJP & The Congress
The story of two party workers like you’ve not heard before. What they were asked to do by whom? Written like an A-Z guide to nowhere. This will bring at least one of the two houses of Parliament down for an entire session. Before you can get hold of it, it will become a potential Banistan case study. After which you might buy the bootlegged version to show off at private parties.
18) Faith In Moderation: Why The Left And Right Should Talk In The Middle
A series of roundtables in which both sides speak openly on the subject of what faith in moderation can mean in lived India. Rapporteurs will sit with buzzers which shut off participant voices when it veers away from personal anecdotes. As biases and long-held oppressions come to the fore, this primary material will be offered to national universities to focus their PhDs on. In Jawaharlal Nehru University of New Delhi, this will give some hostellers subsidised stay until they turn 40.
19) Kejriwal & Modi: What Worked, Who Didn’t
This book will not be written by anyone from Delhi or Gujarat, but might include the voices of those who took selfies with both. Their photographic views will include thoughts on corruption and the relative success or failure of these two in weeding it out. All the voices included would have given or taken bribes in their day-to-day affairs.
20) The RSS Feed: Inbox Me
Everything you wanted to know but didn’t know whom to ask. From the shakha to the top, written like a day in the life of a diary. With complete access to chosen writers and with no compulsion to show the final proofs to anyone before publishing. It will arrive quite like a RSS feed subscription in your inbox or tablet. Finally somebody will pay for news.
1) Left, Right, Past March: Autocorrecting The Colonised
A listicle style flashback of non-BJP governments that looks at just one question: why the dominant Hindu feels that bias, outrage and policy have fed into minority patronage. Twenty examples drawn from multiple post-Independence news sources, with a bandwidth of commentators investigating the evidence. This book might get stuck if they make a committee.
2) Banistan: Revitalising Underground Cultures Through A Shut-Up Policy
This graphic novella comes with a CD of five 5-minute films – examples from Indian small towns of the second life of the banned: person, group or organisation. The shelf life of the post-ban "victim" will be analysed monetarily and emotionally and the sub-cultures it brewed, examined. Will be available in the comic books sections of most adarsh liberal bookshops.
3) The Achche Din Economy: 10 Steps To 10% Growth
A Radio Jockey’s debut as a non-fiction writer, as the Great Leader’s Mann ki Baat recordings will be decoded and evaluated for actions taken on the ground. It will be India’s first audio book in bullet points.
4) Ma, Beti, Biwi, Behen: The Autumn Of The Patriarchy
A ten-volume collection edited by right of centre stalwarts who invoke a classical myth/history story featuring women in relation to men. It will evaluate the current position of women in the geographies that the story inhabits. A new HDI (Hindu Development Index) will be drawn up and will be serialised on the Internet for comments. A Website will be created by the Central Government to crosscheck facts real time, open to the public for a certain mutually decided period, until the books go to print in EBAI (equated bi-annual instalments).
5) The Autocrat Sutras: Did China And India Over-centralise Power?
Commissioned by select regions in China and states in India, the book will capture the gaze of the states looking upwards at the Centre. For the first time, entire bureaucracies will be allowed to give recorded interviews in their native tongues. Challenging the trickle-down effect, the bottom-most rung of the establishment will go first. High-quality translators may be an issue, but help will be sought from American universities and, if needs be, the European Commission.
6) Why The Liberal Took To Drink & Writing: A Glass Act
Following close monitoring of purchases made at liquor outlets across the land, children will interview their liberal mamas and papas on their temperamental mood swings and tell their stories, meticulously listing their daily discipline in writing columns which few publish. Psychologists and psychiatrists will wring their hands in glee at this unexpected bounty of the new "depressed classes".
7) A History Of The Adarsh: 100 Posters
A partnership between a school of design serving only vegetarian food and a gurukula nominated from Nagpur. This will be in workbook format, available in serrated sheets with removable posters. It will have a new kind of gum which would make it unstickable in public places. At least 100 versions of Adarsh may then confuse the young and reaffirm our diversity, plurality and other ities.
8) Censoring Posts: What Social Networks And The Bureaucracy Have In Common
This book will really be a file which an enterprising journalist will access after a suitable leak made by a dissatisfied middling bureaucrat in 2018. A dossier which will be much in demand between governments as it will reveal the File Notings which some RTIs couldn’t. The dominant search engine will make money by getting the e-rights for this, pissing off the dominant social networking site, which will release the India report on posts it was asked to censor. Around this time, the journalist’s book will be turn into a bestseller, whereupon the proprietor will fire the editor and the journalist. No doubt under pressure from the right, left and middle in power. Heads may not roll, but outrage will.
9) The Powers That Ba Ba Black Sheep: 20 Bizarre Quotes
It will be open to the outraged to share and vote for the most bizarre quote in these five years. As the book goes to print, it might also sell TV serial rights into the back stories of the quoted and the misquoted. Online websites will design meaningless polls around them. It will not be kind, but some people will make a lot of money at your outraged expense.
10) From Cow Slaughter To Section 377: Choosing Histories To Kiss Or Dismiss
This will be a NRI gift to modern India. A book with two sides, available at two different rates. One readable, the other pointedly upside down. It will have cowdung and a condom dividing it in the middle. In some copyleft copies, there will be a beef deal voucher and a sex toy instead. Depending on your bovine, sexual and copy preference, you could read this slim book to find out more about India’s Xtra long traditions on both topics. Look out for this one, it is likely to offer a diversity of positions.
11) The New Hindu Rate Of Growth: Lessons Learnt In Job Creation
Ten entrepreneurs from rural India, whose profits and reach grew in the time period 2014-2019, will tell their own story in presentations. Available as an e-book only. Not sure whether presentations will still be in existence, but at least we will have defined what a village is and what, a town.
12) Biography Of A Power Yogi: Yoga Tips From The Leader In Pictures
A real coffee-table collector’s item on the leader at 5 am. This photograph-led classic will not be available to the public as it will be a gift to visiting dignitaries from other nations. An International Yoga Day that many countries already follow will now be a foreign policy benchmark. While someone is sure to leak pictures on Twitter, yoga participation will rise. Making this photo-book ripe for a sequel.
13) One Way Ticket: A Democratically Elected Leader's Media Policy
Foreign correspondents will get a chapter each to describe India’s Prime Minister and corollaries they see with other heads of nations, in their media policy. Indian journalists will get this free with a subsidised drink at their nearest Press Club. A token of appreciation for a view of an Indian head of state, who bypassed the Indian tribe and opened up to the foreigners. No doubt, a core aspect of foreign policy.
14) Order Order Ordinance: When Rarest Of The Rare Became Common
Legal luminaries will assess five years of Q&A in the two houses of Parliament and give us a comparative cheat sheet on ordinances issued by different governments. Because only lawyers and Parliamentary Committees will understand this, this will be one for the libraries of law schools and yet more committees. This might lead to an unexpected revival of legal correspondents in mainstream media and Parliamentary reporters who actually read documents.
15) Market Reform: Farmers, Do Not Apply
A state-funded ethnographic sketch of the lives of as many farmers as there are states in India. Since Indian NGOs will be banned entry in those farmer homes, NRI researchers will be invited to complete this in time for a Republic Day Launch in 2019. You can look forward to hearing the farmer’s voice and not the meddle men’s.
16) Labour Pains: The State Of The Unions
Trade union leaders will release this book. A combo of an Annual Report, a report card and a manifesto. It is likely to be a pavement bestseller, which those who write on the charm of pavement book shops and thelas might not actually read. Unexpected sales may come via charming magazines and fathers.
17) Inner-Party Democracy: Comparing The BJP & The Congress
The story of two party workers like you’ve not heard before. What they were asked to do by whom? Written like an A-Z guide to nowhere. This will bring at least one of the two houses of Parliament down for an entire session. Before you can get hold of it, it will become a potential Banistan case study. After which you might buy the bootlegged version to show off at private parties.
18) Faith In Moderation: Why The Left And Right Should Talk In The Middle
A series of roundtables in which both sides speak openly on the subject of what faith in moderation can mean in lived India. Rapporteurs will sit with buzzers which shut off participant voices when it veers away from personal anecdotes. As biases and long-held oppressions come to the fore, this primary material will be offered to national universities to focus their PhDs on. In Jawaharlal Nehru University of New Delhi, this will give some hostellers subsidised stay until they turn 40.
19) Kejriwal & Modi: What Worked, Who Didn’t
This book will not be written by anyone from Delhi or Gujarat, but might include the voices of those who took selfies with both. Their photographic views will include thoughts on corruption and the relative success or failure of these two in weeding it out. All the voices included would have given or taken bribes in their day-to-day affairs.
20) The RSS Feed: Inbox Me
Everything you wanted to know but didn’t know whom to ask. From the shakha to the top, written like a day in the life of a diary. With complete access to chosen writers and with no compulsion to show the final proofs to anyone before publishing. It will arrive quite like a RSS feed subscription in your inbox or tablet. Finally somebody will pay for news.
Limited-time offer: Big stories, small price. Keep independent media alive. Become a Scroll member today!
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!