My Country : My Life
Contents: Acknowledgements. Foreword/Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Prologue. Phase One: 1. Triumph of freedom, tragedy of partition. 2. Sindh and India: an unbreakable bond. 3. My first twenty years in Sindh. 4. Partition: who was responsible? Phase Two: 1. Migration from Sindh to Rajasthan. 2. My work as a RSS Pracharak. 3. Mahatma Gandhi\'s tragic assassination. 4. Dr Mookerjee and formation of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. 5. The thrill of participating in the first general elections. Phase three: 1. Moving from Rajasthan to Delhi. 2. The Organiser years. 3. The bliss of family life. 4. My entry into the Delhi metropolitan council. 5. Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya. 6. The beginning of my parliamentary career. 7. The journey from Kanpur to Kanpur. 8. Two events that changed history. 9. Emergency: democracy imprisoned. Phase four: 1. The end of the darkest period in India\'s history. 2. My stint in the information and broadcasting ministry. 3. The people betrayed: the fall of the Janata Government; return of Indira Gandhi. 4. The lotus blooms. 5. The 1980s: the BJP\'s phoenix-like rise. 6. The Ayodhya movement. 7. The trauma and triumph of Punjab. 8. The entry and exit of two Prime Ministers in two years. 9. Five years of P.V. Narasimha Rao\'s government. 10. Three Prime Ministers in two years. 11. The Swarna Jayanti Rath Yatra: a patriotic pilgrimage. Phase Five: 1. The beginning of a new era. 2. The Kargil War: a decisive victory for India. 3. The NDA returns to power. 4. Review of the working of the Indian constitution. 5. At the Helm of the Home Ministry. 6. Cross-border terrorism. 7. Pakistan\'s proxy war. 8. Dealing with the Kashmir issue. 9. Vajpayee-Musharraf Summit in Agra. 10. Securing Assam and the North-East for the future. 11. Naxalism, other challenges and initiatives. 12. Communal violence in Gujarat: propaganda versus reality. 13. Defeat in Polls, Turmoil in the party. 14. My Pakistan yatra. 15. I have no regrets. 16. Atal Bihari Vajpayee: a statesman with a poetic soul. 17. Reminiscences and reflections. 18. In pursuit of meaning and happiness in life. Epilogue. Appendices. References. Glossary. List of acronyms. Index.
"My Country My Life is an extraordinary self- portrait of India\'s leading political personality --L.K. Advani. As an immigrant who was forced to abandon his beloved Sindh, which became a part of Pakistan after India was partitioned in 1947 on the basis of the communally inspired \'Two Nation\' theory, Advani gives a poignant first-person account of that tragedy. With a career spanning six decades as a political activist in post-1947 India, during which he has been a ring-side viewer of, and participant in, almost all the major socio-political developments in India, Advani is uniquely qualified to offer a perspective on Independent India\'s political evolution.
The apogee of Advani\'s achievement was his seminal contribution, together with his senior colleague Atal Bihari Vajpayee, towards ending the Congress Party\'s dominance over India\'s polity by building the Bharatiya Janata Party as a viable alternative for governing India.
The book provides a riveting, insightful and assertive account of Advani\'s fight for democracy during the emergency, his Ram Rath Yatra for the reconstruction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya that resulted in the biggest mass movement in Independent India since Independence and catalysed a nationwide debate on the true meaning of secularism, and his years as India\'s Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister in the Vajpayee-led government of the National Democratic Alliance between 1998-2004.
My Country My Life is a testimony to what Advani\'s admires as well as his critics have always known him for: the gift of clarity of thought, strong convictions and forceful articulation. This is a candid reflection on himself, his party and his nation that is likely to engage readers in a tour de force with India\'s leading statesman. In a country where political memoirs, especially by those who are still active in politics, are rare, this book is a landmark." (jacket)
