A must-read for all those interested in the challenges facing rural India today, whether or not they agree with all the arguments.
ABOUT THE BOOK
A Rural Manifesto sparks a national conversation on rural distress, highlighting the potential solutions to putting the village economy on an even keel, while exploring how the vast majority of India ekes out a living.
In this heartfelt and timely book, covering facets of the Indian rural economy, Feroze Varun Gandhi shines a bright light on the travails of the marginal farmer and asks searching questions on why the rural economy remains in doldrums, six decades after Independence.
Through a series of vignettes, the book explores rural India’s innate perseverance and highlights potential solutions in development policy with a focus on making the rural economy resilient.
KEY SELLING POINTS
• In this wide-ranging book, Feroze Varun Gandhi presents an alternative approach to mainstream ideas of rural development.
• Varun Gandhi shares his experiences as a Member of Parliament for ten years, an academic and a keen observer of the country’s rural life and landscape, while drawing lessons from sociological experts and development policy.
• Rich in its detail and insight, A Rural Manifesto will help shift the contours of the Indian rural economy into a more positive direction.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FEROZE VARUN GANDHI is a second-term Member of Parliament, who represented the Pilibhit constituency in 2009, and was elected from the Sultanpur constituency in 2014. He was the youngest ever National Secretary of the BJP from 2008–11, and the youngest ever National General Secretary of the Party from 2011–14. He is a member of its National Executive.
A member of the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Gandhi has been a member of several Parliamentary Standing Committees, including those on defence and external affairs.
He is a widely respected opinion leader and policy analyst, writing widely in English for The Hindu, The Economic Times, Hindustan Times and NDTV, and subsequently in Hindi for Amar Ujala, Navbharat Times, Rajasthan Patrika and Hindustan. Gandhi also writes in other important regional languages for Lokmat, Malayala Manorama, Sambad, Vijayvani, among others, which make him the most widely read columnist in the country, reaching over 200 million readers.
A poet by inclination, Gandhi published his first collection of poems, The Otherness of Self in 2000, at the age of twenty. His second volume of poetry, Stillness, was published in 2015. He lives in New Delhi with his wife Yamini and their daughter Anasuyaa.
