Bhairavi Jani’s debut book Highway to Swades explores the role of community and heritage in India’s nation-building

In a climate where the country is beset with regrets, Bhairavi Jani’s book, Highway to Swades: Rediscovering India’s Superpowers, lends some calming notes of hope.

In the spring of 2014, as the country busied itself for its 16th Lok Sabha elections, Jani with her husband and two close friends in tow, set off to travel the length and breadth of India. Together, they covered a distance of 18,181 kilometers over 51 days. Their expedition took them to Kashmir and Kanyakumari, to Kohima and to Kutch, where they touched towns, districts and cities and interviewed hundreds of diverse groups of people.

In doing so, Jani and her companions discovered a simple truth – that the framework of Indian democracy is seeded in Indian values and its vision is dependent on young individuals and homegrown enterprises. That political democracy cannot exist without social democracy, and for them to coexist, one must engage one’s own people and encourage them to participate in India’s growth story. Jani’s book, therefore, is a cohesive and well-researched account of India and its people and their many strengths.

In the chapter ‘Power of Enterprise’, for example, we are introduced to Rewaj Chhetri of Turuk village in south Sikkim who, in a state where young people only seem to opt for government jobs or choose to remain unemployed, went against the odds to become a serial entrepreneur. By the time he was twenty-seven, he had initiated 38 enterprises. In ‘Power of Community’ Jani writes about the power of community as seen within the Young Mizo Association (YMA) which has over 800 branches and more than 4,25,000 Mizos as its members committed to development of the Mizo society white keeping their traditions alive. And in ‘Power of Beauty’ she marvels at the lineage of the country’s art through the caves of Ajanta and Tamil Nadu’s humble kolam, which requires mathematical dexterity.

A lot of our observations about what’s happening in the country is formed on the basis of how and from where we consume news. And a large portion of this observation is derived from social media chatter, which, to say the least, is one of the most unreliable mediums of consuming any content.

In writing this book, Jani and her friends do what many of us won’t trouble ourselves with. They make an effort and go into the field to speak to the people on ground to tell their insightful stories about an India that’s not all bad.

Highway to Swades: Rediscovering India’s Superpowers is a book that attempts to understand its country from a deeper lens; it uncovers some hidden gems that serve as reminders that perhaps all is not lost, not just yet.

Arunima Mazumdar is a Delhi-based independent writer