THIS LAND WE CALL HOME BY NUSRAT F. JAFRI

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BOOK NAME: THIS LAND WE CALL HOME 

AUTHOR NAME: NUSRAT F. JAFRI

GENRE: BIOGRAPHY / POLITICAL NONFICTION

PUBLISHER: PENGUIN INDIA

BOOK BUY LINK: https://www.amazon.in/This-Land-Call-Home-Conversions/dp/0143465546



BOOK COVER IMAGE




BOOK REVIEW

Who would have thought that I would endorse a nonfiction so strongly when I was almost convinced that I already had enough of them? The last time I read such impactful nonfiction tracing the history of partition was almost two years ago, and it was a spell-binding book called 'The Map and the Scissors' by Amit Majmudar. I was seriously so so sceptical about this book. But guess who couldn't stop swooning over it all along? That's right. 


Jafri takes creative liberty and carves out this nonfiction with fictional prose in the third person narrative, in which she talks about her lineage starting from her great-grandparents. Every family event of Jafri's is linked to a political occurrence in India, and she shifts gears and switches to the nonfiction narrative, diving into Indian political history, starting from the invention of the caste system to the current day.


Trust me, I honestly had no idea how the caste system came into place and how it proliferated. Thanks to Jafri's in-depth research and analysis, I now know more than I had intended to learn. She has spoken not just about the division of castes in Hinduism but also about the unspoken caste-like divide among Christians and Muslims. The history of casteism and how conversion came into existence is written so brilliantly that it makes you reflect on it for a long keeping aside the hate and vengeance.


She talks about pre-independent India, the freedom struggle, the partition, the reign of Congress over India, the birth of BJP and other political parties, the Emergency under Indira Gandhi's rule and the Babri Masjid issue with accurate data and utmost sincerity and honesty. With her own family chronicle where her great-grandparents willingly converted to Christianity to escape casteism, her mother willingly married a Muslim man and embraced Islam,  she chose her Hindu partner as a practising Muslim and gave her son a Christian name to honour her history, Jafri inspires and elevates the book to another level. The kind of women this book showcases, who are self-sufficient and feisty, from her great-grandmother, aunts, and her mother to herself, are the true face of feminism. Anyone who is not a right winger and who is confused with thoughts such that no Muslim will be affected by the CAA and other such acts needs to read this book right now. 


MY REVIEW: 5/5

This is a part of Blogchatter’s #TBRchallenge

#penbooksandscalpel

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