Book Review: Prasenjit K. Basu’s India Reborn: The Epic Story of a Civilization’s Rebound from Two Centuries of Decline

In his magnum opus, titled The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology (1937), the great Indian sociologist and philosopher Prof. Benoy Kumar Sarkar (1887 – 1949) once laid out a period-specific account of Indian civilisation’s this-worldly (or ‘positive’, as Sarkar called it, borrowing the French philosopher Auguste Comte’s terminology) achievements. But Prof. Sarkar’s work wasn’t merely historical in nature. Its scope extended much beyond historiography. In it, he offered a rigorous method as well as a philosophy for appraising the positive (i.e., scientific, economic, social, political, and aesthetic) life of the Indian civilisation, shunning the usual Western tropes of projecting India essentially as a land of metaphysics and spirituality, with little or no control over the practical aspects of her life.

It's been nearly nine decades since Prof. Sarkar published The Positive Background. Very few authors have followed in his footsteps since. Considering the depth and the vast scope of Sarkar’s rigorous scholarly work, only three other authors come to mind: First and foremost of whom is the historian Radhakumud Mookerji (1884 – 1963), who was Sarkar’s contemporary and shared a common vision for the project of restoring, through rigorous scholarship, the material and secular aspects of Indian civilisation; second, the great historian of Southern India, Prof. K.A. Nilakanta Sastri (1892 -1975), who pioneered the political and cultural histories of the region; and finally Prof. Sisir Kumar Das (1936 – 2003), who pulled off a similar feat in the field of Indian literary history.

In recent years, the economist Sanjeev Sanyal has successfully popularised aspects of Mookerji’s scholarship through his books, aimed at the general readership. Sanyal’s works have been quite effective in raising public awareness about the material prosperity and political influence of ancient Indian civilisation. Beyond specialists and more serious students of Indian civilisation, readers interested in the area can now lay their hands on a fresh title that builds on the works of Sanyal and those of some foreign popular historians.      

The title in question is India Reborn: The Epic Story of a Civilization’s Rebound from Two Centuries of Decline by Prasenjit K. Basu. It’s a longue durée account of India's political-economic career spanning roughly four centuries — from the early 1600s to the current era. In this book, Basu offers a breezy – and often witty – narrative of the Indian civilisation’s journey from its long-standing global dominance from the very beginning of the Common Era, through a period of decline under British colonial rule, to the present-day Indian Republic’s ambitious recent resurgence as a civilisational state. Basu populates the landscape of his historical narrative with economic insights and copious amounts of trivia, resulting in a book that informs as much as it entertains the reader. He examines several centuries of transformation taking place in the Indian Subcontinent as well as in ‘Greater India’ (i.e., the historical sphere of Indian political, economic and cultural influence), and makes the case for a new India poised to become a global anchor and a moral power after almost three centuries of decline.

Basu begins with Angus Maddison’s economic-historical assertion that India was the world’s largest economy for much of recorded history. According to this view, not only did India account for up to a third of global GDP during the first millennium CE, but she also remained the world’s largest economy until as late as 1700. Ancient India’s maritime and overland trade connected her to far-flung corners of the world, including other ancient civilisations such as Greece, Egypt, Persia, and China, as evidenced by twentieth-century archaeological discoveries and by Indian religious, linguistic and general cultural influences still extant across China, Japan, Korea, and much of Southeast Asia.  

The author focuses especially on Indo-Southeast Asian cultural exchange, describing at length Hindu and Buddhist influences on Southeast Asia’s religious cultures, scripts, languages, and temple architecture. While discussing mainland India’s golden age, Basu rightly pivots to the Gupta era, which saw advances in science, mathematics, literature, and art. It was also a time when India was home to not one but two globally renowned centres of learning: Nalanda and Taxila.

A few assertions made by the author are questionable, if not misleading – such as describing water and its flow as being beyond the attributes of the Hindu deity Saraswati. As a matter of fact, the idea of Saraswati encompasses both the personification of the famed River Saraswati as well as the presiding deity of speech, knowledge and the arts in the Vedic literature.

Quite a lot of the information provided in the book lacks references, which, had they been supplied, would have attracted the more serious readers to engage with the book. Here’s a matter to which popular history writers should pay a little more attention: Since the references are anyway tucked away in the ‘Notes’ section, usually placed at the end of such books so as not to encumber the flow of the main text with heavy footnotes or endnotes after every chapter, the writers don’t have to shy away from providing detailed references in the Notes, after all. That way, they can expect to attract more serious readers as well as university libraries in addition to their primary target readership, i.e., the general readers.

The book details the mechanisms and consequences of British colonial domination, beginning with the East India Company’s transition from traders to territorial conquerors and administrators, a process aided by strategic bribery and subterfuge – notably in the Battle of Plassey (1757). Basu offers a critique of both the economic exploitation and the cultural denigration wrought by colonial domination and imperialist ideology, exemplified by James Mill and Lord Macaulay’s dismissal of India’s intellectual heritage. Britain’s Colonial policies decimated India’s thriving textile industry as Britain imposed blanket bans and tariffs on Indian goods, while funnelling Indian wealth to fuel her own industrial revolution at home, and enforcing destructive agrarian and educational reforms that catastrophically undermined indigenous prosperity and knowledge networks.

Interestingly, the book doesn’t follow a linear chronological narrative. Sometimes, while discussing a period or event in early Modern Indian history, it goes back a century or two to provide detailed historical context before eventually picking up the thread. An example of this can be found in the second chapter, where Basu begins with the East India Company’s gradual takeover of the Indian Subcontinent, but suddenly detours to the Mughal-Maratha conflict during Aurangzeb’s reign, showing how the Europeans took advantage of the situation with the Mughal emperor as well as the Maratha aristocracy distracted by war and court intrigues. The effect is a bit jarring for the reader, but it does leave one with an impression of historical causality and the interconnectedness of history’s dramatis personae.

The book deserves special praise for highlighting the complexity and diversity of methods deployed by Indian nationalists in their anti-colonial resistance. Basu foregrounds revolutionary movements, including the 1857-58 war (described as India’s First War for Independence), military mutinies, the Swadeshi-Swaraj campaigns, the Ghadar movement, and Subhas Chandra Bose’s INA, arguing that not only were these crucial to Britain’s retreat, but that these were often more consequential than non-violent techniques. What is important is that Basu contrasts Gandhi’s nonviolent failures with the tangible victories of armed and mass struggles, examining the interplay between the moderate and revolutionary approaches across different historical moments in the Indian struggle for independence. Thus, we get new perspectives on figures such as Bose, Nehru, and several lesser-known revolutionary nationalists.

The book sees the 1947 partition of India as one of the greatest tragedies and failures of Indian political leadership, exacerbated by British strategies of divide et impera as well as a British commitment to the creation of Pakistan before departing India. It also describes the horrors of communal violence, the machinations of the Muslim League and British administrations preceding and during the pogrom against Hindus and Sikhs in Bengal and Punjab, and the lasting impact on the national psyche. Basu also examines the attempts at political reconciliation and the agenda of social unity, devoting extensive attention to post-Independence policies, constitutional debates, and the legacy of colonial structures (especially in education and bureaucracy), and how these continue to shape India’s trajectory—even as Indian politicians and leaders have debated the contours of multiple forms of economic and linguistic futures. These tensions are exemplified by streaks of coalition politics and legacies of the old contestations between Nehruvian socialism, Gandhian cottage-industry advocacy, and Bose’s radical planning.

Basu uses this historical backdrop to make sense of India’s rather sluggish economic evolution from a phase of post-colonial stagnation to one of reform and resurgence. He brings out the political and strategic blunders committed by Congress under Nehru rather well, and then proceeds to provide a substantial analysis of how policies under Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Narasimha Rao, Vajpayee, and Modi successively remade the economic landscape. Basu is particularly critical of Nehruvian central planning and “import substitution”, charting the painfully slow progress until liberalisation in the 1990s and subsequently the ambitious reforms under Rao and Vajpayee changed the situation for the better. He pays special attention to Modi’s initiatives: the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity, digital financial inclusion, the rapid expansion of infrastructure, labour code reforms, GST, and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. The resulting narrative thus reveals a democratisation of opportunities, improvements in (mainly rural) sanitation, and India’s steady growth as a business-friendly, entrepreneurial landscape – while also noting persistent challenges in the areas of employment and productivity.

More importantly, Basu adopts a civilisational perspective, arguing for the rediscovery and revitalisation of India’s rich heritage through her art, philosophy, and pluralistic traditions. The story of India Reborn is thus interspersed with analyses of how Indian influence has shaped societies across Asia, and how modern India is reclaiming her place through a renewed cultural confidence and a remoralised public life. In the concluding part of the book, Basu delivers a call for a transformation of worldview – urging New India to become a developed nation by carefully balancing tradition with innovation, and embracing a future rooted in indigenous values, meritocracy, and social justice.

The final chapters reinforce a hopeful vision for India as a world power, blending economic prowess with moral leadership. Basu stresses the imperative for continued reforms, inclusion, and overcoming colonial hangovers in education, governance, and socio-political practice. He brings candour and liveliness throughout the book as he discusses some of India’s key present-day challenges: structural transformation of employment, ongoing efforts to reduce corruption, and the challenges of constitutional revision and communal harmony. Ultimately, Basu presents India’s journey as one that is yet unfinished – a dynamic process of rebirth that connects ancient legacies to global futures.

In the ultimate analysis, India Reborn is a story of crisis and resurgence in the Indian context, told from a perspective that is empathetic to India’s civilisational ethos and heritage, an invitation to understand India’s long civilisational journey through a critical look at how she fared in the last four centuries of her career, and to interrogate how historical memory, administrative policy, and moral vision have shaped the possibility of a true national rebirth.