Dated. Still, there are few useful salient points that Naipul makes about Indian intellectual thought. I've had similar notions in the past but I don't share the certitude of the author, which to my untrained eyes, seems to be unjustified given the scant living experience he's had in India. Limited research and evidence which doesn't support the strength of the conclusion that Naipul makes in this book. Also, it's written at least a decade before India opened its economy to the wider world in 90s.

3/5.

I really liked how this book gave a nuanced depiction of Indian society, a way that previous histories have faltered in due to nationalistic pride, and understandable insecurity. Though in the same vein, it seems that few authors can reach a point of not being too nationalistic, but also not being too pessimistic. What I mean by that is that Naipaul seems to equate modernization with westernization, and at times it feels as though the fault in Indian society is intrinsically tied to Indian culture. I disagree with this thesis in that it feels very western-centric; maybe I would take the idea more seriously if the author himself was one who grew up in India.

Ok this is kind of an odd (?) book to read when I am in my "white person becomes obsessed with india"(sorry.) phase since VS Naipaul is looking at India as a member of the Indian diaspora returning to the country and going "Wtf is this garbage". I'm sure some of his critiques have validity, like people who refuse to bring running water to villages because they espouse some Gandhian belief in the toiling of peasants being spiritually worthwhile or w/e, but he is just so bleak about Indian (or, as he usually generalizes, Hindu) culture being doomed. My understanding of the 70s Indian sociopolitical context is pretty feeble tho; I would like to revisit this book after I learn some more. I suspect I still won't agree much, since his attitudes seem uh...right-wing?

This is a difficult book to feel qualified to comment on, not being Indian myself. The author pulls no punches in his blistering criticism, which other Goodreads reviews have detailed well enough. Again, I am hardly the right person to speak to the accuracy or the validity of those criticisms, except to say that I do not think it is the self-forgetting or pain-loving antiquarianism or intoxicating romanticism which induced the author to turn with passionate interest toward national criticism. Rather, the author must have been impelled to do so by the crisis of his time. Another review put it well that "one criticizes because he cares".

It is inevitably a glib and facile reduction to isolate one factor among many in an overdetermined historical analysis. Yet it seems to me that the cultural problems which Naipaul describes can all be traced to the metaphysical biology of the caste system. I shall not speak of that doctrine which was developed by the illustrious and rich Hindu tradition. I shall simply say that the doubt of the natural character of both castes and divisions of the human race into distinct political and ethnic groups finds its thesis that all men are by nature free and equal. This is a distinctly western idea which it seems was forced upon India and integrated with some difficulty, and perhaps not integrated at all, but transmuted and neutralized back into ideas and metaphysics from older traditions. The difficulty, with India as with the rest of the world, is in reconciling notions of modern right with classical right, and with the natural character of different groups.

The writer portrayed a pessimistic picture of India. The writer tried to please his western readers because at that moment the readers of English books in India almost in non-existence, the literacy rate in India was too low. So the writer wrote the book for his western readers and tried to flatter them by depicting a gloomy picture of India and Indian poverty. The author identified religion is the cause of India's poverty. Because the Hindu believes that the world is an illusion they do not try to change their economic condition. Identifying religion as the cause of poverty is an interesting idea which underpins the Marxist thought regarding religion. Religion is opium for the masses-Marx.

Nvidia manufactures big, complicated chips; Vidia N. had one on his shoulder. Actually he had several chips on his shoulders, and made a career out of transmuting them into literature, but the subject of this book is one of his biggest and most complicated: the land of his ancestry, and his shame at it (and, I suspect, his unacknowledged shame at feeling ashamed).

Part travelogue, part literary criticism, part political essay, and all Naipaul, India: A Wounded Civilization accuses its subject of smugness, passivity, incuriousness, false pride, snobbery, laziness, and an inability to adequately define itself as a nation (I'm sure I missed some), finds it guilty on all counts, and sentences it to dismemberment (Naipaul seems to predict the dissolution of the country before too long). The travel narrative consists of a few dinner parties, and guided visits to a Bombay slum and a rural irrigation project. It's barely adequate, but Naipaul's gift for observing and analyzing the people he meets is ever in evidence. The book talk focuses on R.K. Narayan (whom he convinced me I'm long overdue to read), the Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar, and the novel Samskara (both of which I think I can skip for now). The political essays, written (like the rest of the book) at the time of the Emergency, in the mid-70's, when Indira Ghandi suspended the constitution and effectively implemented a dictatorship, I found dull and hard to understand. There's a scathing takedown of the original Ghandi, based mostly on his autobiography (and what's not in it), and that and Naipaul's visit to an institute of rural technology where intellectuals try and reinvent the bullock cart and the plough were the only parts that made me laugh.

The thing about V.S. Naipaul is, he was such a jerk — pantomime villain territory, really — but his prose is always impeccable, and these two things mean I'll always be happy to pick up something by him for 50 cents from a library book sale, as I did this.

V.S. Naipaul's India: A Wounded Civilization is not an easy book to digest—especially for nationalist Indians. In just 180 pages, he lays bare the many shortcomings of our nation, ridiculing everything from religious beliefs to politics, politicians, journalists, and even revered figures like Gandhi, Nehru, and Vinoba Bhave. His recurring theme of India's decadence is more saddening than infuriating—because so much of it rings true.
What’s most striking, and quite unsettling, is how relevant the book remains nearly 50 years after its publication. The same challenges that Naipaul highlighted—caste politics, demigod worship, brain drain, and the lack of national ideology —continue to plague India today. When he speaks about the absence of research facilities and the government's failure to foster discovery, he could well be talking about today's Satya Nadellas and Sundar Pichais, forced to take their brilliance abroad.
The book contains many memorable observations. One of the most oft quoted lines is his critique of Indian journalism: "Indian journalism developed no reporting tradition; it often reported on India as on a foreign country." That line, unfortunately, still feels accurate today.
As for the writing—marvelous, engaging, and thought-provoking. Naipaul was truly a once-in-a-generation writer. His ability to blend analysis with literary depth is evident throughout. Consider this gem: "Like a novelist who splits himself into his characters, unconsciously setting up the consonances that give his theme a closed intensity, the many-sided Gandhi permeates India." Such insightful prose is woven throughout the book, which makes it worth reading, despite its brutal honesty.

For me, it lived up to its hype. A difficult read, but an essential one. Can't wait to get my hands on other parts of this trilogy.

Brilliant.

After more than 1100 years of invasions and nearly 800 years of foreign rule India is left a broken country. Though if you ask the people, they will say everything was great until British rule. They don't know about about the fate of Chitor in 1567 or the annihilation of Vijayanagar 1565. India is far off from an understanding of its History. In "India: A Wounded Civilization" Naipaul brings careful and focused thought on understanding the country's condition and offers up the only way forward- the use of the mind as opposed to old decaying ways of dealing with the world and its difficulties. The development of the idea of inquiry is a start.

Some of reviews here are simplistic, "this book insults the country so its bad!" maybe one should visit the ruins of Vijayanagar near Hampi and find out what happened there first and then read the book.

Es un libro que surge de un viaje a India de Naipaul en el 75. Ilustra el proceso de intentar comprender sus raíces y el sentido a rituales que vivió desde niño, la psique de una sociedad altamente compleja. Qué placer cuando uno encuentra un retrato no edulcorado de lo que sea! Es una excelente descripción, admirable porque es concisa y durísima, desprovista de sentimentalismo. Las anécdotas como los 5000 voluntarios cantando mantras para dar vida a imágenes religiosas son interesantísimas y muchas observaciones sirven incluso para entender la India actual. La prosa es maravillosa y uno comprende al instante por qué recibió el Nobel.

As a distant insider (an East Indian from Trinidad), Naipaul feels free to ridicule almost everything about mother India he can get his hands on. It's refreshingly anti-reverent, and recalls the blazing self-righteousness of youth.

It speaks of India that I haven't seen and will never see. The book being based on India's dark periods of the post - Independence Socialist era makes it difficult to relate to in the present Capitalist Society. I recently read Ramachandra Guha's India After Gandhi, in which he acknowledges Democracy's success in an impossible India. And so, Naipaul's criticism seems further unreasonable and incredibly biased against a culture he is almost alien to.

So much talent wasted on such bitterness.