The document presents an overview of Dr. K. Prabhakar's work, emphasizing his diverse expertise and center-left perspectives on contemporary India's political, social, and economic crises. It critiques the post-2014 narrative of 'new India' and discusses the significance of the 'Faustian deal' in political contexts. The content is structured around various essays addressing significant themes in India's polity and society.

1. Reading Sessions
By Dr.K.Prabhakar
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2. The author
• “He is a renaissance man, an economist, public policy professional, corporate
consultant, a public opinion pollster, a political activist and analyst, a writer, Telugu
Litterateur and scholar”.
( Foreword by Sanjay Baru,page9-12)
• His learning of Gurram Jashua, Gurajada Apparao, Sri Sri and Dasarathi indicate his left
leanings. However, Dasarathi is not a leftist and his literary journey is may be termed
more of centrist or center right. He is not a far left. However, his thoughts to a large
extent are center left and open for discussion.
• His profession-“ I have been in the business of conducting surveys and data analytics
for almost three decades. I design questionnaires, design sampling, oversee execution,
verify field data, weed out suspicious entries that could vitiate the data and assign
weightage and finally interpret data”. (page-91)
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3. The Title- The Crooked
Timber of New India
The Republic in Crisis
• The author uses the New India in the context
of post 2014 being projected as Aachaa din,
Amrit Kal, Karthaya Kal with total disdain of
what is being achieved over seventy years
prior to 2014. He posits that India is in crisis of
polity, society and economy.
• The author brings disparate elements to grasp
the reality of crisis.
• We the citizens are too busy with quotidian
lives to devout any attention to the bigger
picture of the New India. Probably we are the
guests of Nero.
• (Image courtesy: Dalle)
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4. Immanuel Kant
“All natural capacities of a
creature are destined to evolve
completely to their natural end.”
(image: Bing)
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5. Crooked Timber of Humanity
• Proposition of the essay Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim (1784) Kant
famously states that “From such crooked timber as humankind is made of nothing
entirely straight can be made.” That humankind is made from crooked timber is why
Sixth Proposition says that the problem described in the Fifth Proposition “is both
hardest and the last that will be solved by the human species,” and one to the
which we can never expect more than an “approximation” or “gradual approach”
(Annäherung) (Idea 8:23).
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6. Key Words
• Faustian deal
• Abnormalize and eventify
• Egocracy
• First-past-the-post voting
• Quotidian lives
• Voodoo Economists
• Rabbit and duck illusion
• Tiraskar~Sanskar~Punaskar
• Image courtesy: www.kapwing.com
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7. Faustian Deal
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8. The legend of a man selling his soul to the devil ‘seems
to have resonance at times of moral crisis
•
“Politicians promise you heaven before an election and give you hell after,” wrote the
anarchist Emma Goldman. The experience of the legendary Doctor Faustus, who sells
his soul to the demon Mephistopheles in return for worldly knowledge and pleasure,
has been treated as a metaphor for unholy political pacts.
• It may even shed light on our own populist moment, from Brexit to the election of
Donald Trump. Why does this 500-year-old folk legend resonate in times of crisis, and
why does it continue to haunt the Western imagination?
• The legend is loosely based on the life of Johann Georg Faust (c 1480–1540), an
alchemist and practitioner of necromancy, a form of ‘black magic’. A chapbook
speculating on his infamous exploits circulated in the late 16th Century, inspiring
Christopher Marlowe’s play The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor
Faustus, first performed in London around 1592. At approximately the same time, the
legend of Pan Twardowski, a sorcerer who sold his soul to the devil, began to take
root in Polish folklore.
• The most influential interpretation of the Faust legend was written by Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). (What the myth of Faust can teach us
(englishstylestudio.ru))
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9. What, How and Why?
• An argument that republic is crisis, and this can be
discerned only by assembling different political, social,
economic data and events.
• The author wish to tell truth to the powers and wish
not to get into the trap of suggesting solutions and
suggested that constitutional mechanism should be
followed.
• The book is based on data collected both quantitative
research and qualitative research.
• It is for whoever is interested in India and Indian polity,
economy and society.
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10. Essays
• Modi vs Modi
• The rise and rise of BJP
• BJP-RSS
• RSS
• BJP population politics
• Religious India, Political India and Pew Report
• Abnormalize and Eventify
• Egocarcy, Digital freedom and Data privacy
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11. Essays
• Subhash Chandra Bose and New India’s Legacy riders
• Amrithmahotsav, IMF and Reimagining Indian State
• Bonsai Universities and ripped jeans
• Our Universities S
• Hijab vs Saffron Scarf
• Oxfam’s Inequality report, Piketty and New India
• Poverty data and data poverty
• PSU mega sale
• Who killed Stan swamy
• Farm Laws
• Lakhimpur Kheri
• A Pandemic log book
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12. Readings and recitation
• I wish to start with Farm laws, unemployed and unskilled, population
politics, Bonsai Universities and go for other topics.
• However, distinguished panelists may choose any essays and any
sequence.
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