Fact of the matter

He might have billed his latest book as a work of fiction, but Moloy Krishna Dhar’s We the people of India: The story of Gangland Democracy is creating a buzz in the capital’s political circles, mainly because the fiction deals with something called the Indian National Cow Party (INCP), a dynasty, transfer of funds to Italy and thinly disguised references to incidents that bear an uncanny resemblance to those witnessed in the country’s political history. Dhar maintains that his work is based on “history, the continuing present and the future and is meant to be a wake-up call to preserve the democratic setup”. Given his own experience with his first book Open Secrets and with Maj Gen (retd) V K Singh being booked under the Official Secrets Act and subjected to two extensive rounds of questioning by the Central Bureau of Investigation about his book on the Research and Analysis Wing, it seems to be just as well that Dhar has couched his writing as “fiction”. It, however, remains to be seen if this “fiction” passes muster with the establishment.