Evolving with Subramanian Swamy by Roxna Swamy
Book review
Fiction
No spoilers since it’s non fiction but lots of revelations which is better if you read them yourself!
Having seen Subramanian Swamy in debates I have immense respect for his detailed argument backed by well documented research and cool minded approach. He destroys his opponents in debates in news or court which such acumen and poise that many want to fight or argue with him just to hear him speak!
Recently I had read the autobiography of both Margaret Alva and Pranab Mukherjee Just to get an insight which is code to get some juice and spice! Unfortunately though both those books were written with one eye closed and steered clear of any obvious controversy!
Imagine being at the helm in the center and both fail to mention much about the emergency or the 1984 riots!
At least in this book Roxna does go into detailing the exploits of Swamy during the emergency! For me who had just read Coomi Kapoor’s (Roxna’s sister) book on emergency where an entire chapter was devoted on the one bright streak in the dark cloud of emergency that is Subramanian Swamy and his great escapes; it was in a sense a big deja vu; a good one though I may add!
Rest of the narrative is third person and Roxna doesn’t mince any words when she has to be frank about someone or something which is quite refreshing for a change!
Then again this is the book about Subramanian Swamy, the veritable king of defamation cases (ask Kujliwal if in doubt!); So I don’t really want to risk writing something and getting a summons from the swamy so to speak!
Though the story is told in a more or less chronological order, Roxna does meander at times but mostly without breaking the train thankfully!
Of course this is only the early years, only recently Subramanian Swamy is again in the spotlight and that has not been covered in this book. Maybe that’s in the offing.
Apart from the heroics of emergency and that he had a major role in economic reforms; the chief aim of the book (as it should be since it’s Swamy!) Is to give an account of his cases!
The fight with Vajpayee, Ram Jethmalani, Jayalalithaa and R K Hegde has been nicely covered and listed.
Rarely you get to see a political entity who can be non corruptible to an extent. Of course since it’s written by his wife there is bound to be a bias which Roxna herself mentions in the book!
So having lakhs of Twitter followers, and as such having such a clout, this book gives us a good insight from the inside!
Though Swamy has good many achievements I would say that his biggest one is that his wife has written a positive biography on his life! What more can a man (that too a Swamy so to speak!) Can ask for!??
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