The Congress' golden years

Book review of The Lotus Years: Political Life in India in the Time of Rajiv Gandhi

Every time they sit down to write a story, political reporters are beset by two gnawing anxieties: Whether their version of events is accurate and not slanted even unconsciously in favour of x or y source; and how much to say — and not say. A lot of what you know cannot be written (those two silly clauses, Section 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code governing defamation, you know) and as a result, a huge amount of information goes unreported.
 

Ashwini Bhatnagar’s book on Rajiv Gandhi, because of his enormous depth and breadth of knowledge about politics in