Fear and suspicion abound as rumours of Arulmozhi Varman's death at sea spread throughout the Chozha land. Anger grows against the powerful, scheming Pazhuvettaraiyars. As leaders scramble to handle the fallout, Nandini Devi, the captivating wife of the elder Pazhuvettaraiyar, continues her machinations against the Chozha royal family. She vows that the sword of the last Pandiyan king-killed by Prince Aditta Karikalan-will take the lives of countless enemies.
Astute he may be, but is Chief Minister Aniruddhar Brahmarayar up to the task of diplomacy in such a volatile political climate? Can Princess Kundavai fight her way through the web of political intrigue and deceit in which she is trapped? Will the valiant Vandiyatevan continue to surmount the colossal challenges fate throws at him?
Kalki paints a study in contrasts in The Slaying Sword, the third in the Ponniyin Selvan series, and Gowri Ramnarayan translates his world of conflicts with empathy and adroitness.
Kalki Ramaswamy Krishnamurthy (1899-1954) was a pioneer of modern Tamil literature whose active involvement with India's freedom struggle inducted him into journalism. A liberal humanist and true-blue Gandhian, he had a passion for his mother tongue and took pride in his pan-Indian heritage. Krishnamurthy was a fiery, often controversial, crusader for political freedom, social reform and cultural revival. He adopted the pseudonym 'Kalki' after the apocalyptic avatar with the avowed intention of destroying repressive regimes and creating a new era with radical writings. Kalki's prolific output includes essays, fiction, travel writing, art critiques, songs, poems and even a screenplay or two. He is lauded for his mesmerizing storytelling, conversational style, lyricism, wit and trademark humour. The serialized historical romances that made Kalki a cult figure appeared in the eponymous nationalist weekly he founded in 1944. His magnum opus Ponniyin Selvan remains a bestseller in the Tamil-speaking world.
Gowri Ramnarayan is a writer, translator, journalist, playwright, theatre director and educator. Formerly deputy editor of The Hindu and vocal accompanist to the legendary Carnatic musician M.S. Subbulakshmi, she has authored children's books, a biography of M.S. Subbulakshmi and profiles of iconic Indian artists. The 2017 collection Dark Horse anthologizes her original plays. Gowri has translated Kalki's short stories, his award-winning novel Alai Osai (The Sound of Waves), a two-volume biography by M.R.M. Sundaram titled Kalki Krishnamurthy: His Life and Times, as well as two plays by Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar. She is the chairperson of the Rukmini Devi Arundale Trust, senior associate editor at Sruti magazine and adjunct faculty at the Asian College of Journalism. Gowri has served as a jury member of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) at film festivals and holds a PhD in comparative aesthetics from the University of Madras.
Independent India has so far seen twenty-five finance ministers, each of whom stayed long enough in the saddle to have presented at least one full Budget. The role of a finance minister is uniquely important and critical in governance and policymaking in any nation. Understanding the manner in which a nation's finance ministers deal with policy matters is also another way of revisiting its economic history. A finance minister's job is not just to present the annual statement of government finances or the Budget. It is also to provide leadership to all the key economic policies pertaining to the finances of the government and its policies on trade and industry. Politically also, the finance minister is a key member of a government's top policymaking team, or the Cabinet. The finance minister's relationship with the prime minister is a key element when it comes to the manner in which the economic policies of a government are framed and implemented. Indeed, the quality of the relationship between the prime minister and the finance minister often determines the quality of policy and economic governance in a country. India is no exception.
In an ideal world, the performance and exploits of all the twenty-five finance ministers of India so far should be captured in a single volume for ease of access and readability. However, the sheer scale of what these finance ministers achieved and the economic policy challenges each faced and tried to address is difficult to compress in a single volume without doing injustice to most of them. Hence, the present volume focuses only on ten finance ministers, who led the Indian government's exchequer from 1947 to 1977. It is interesting to note that during this period two prime ministers (Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi) presented a full Budget each while holding additional charge of the finance ministry.
These thirty years were not only eventful for India's economy and its many public institutions involved in economic governance, but they were also witness to the new direction the finance ministers during that period gave to India's economic development.
It is important to note that this period broadly corresponds with the longest uninterrupted rule of the Congress at the Centre for three decades when there were three prime ministers: Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi. Politically, this is an important phase, as it captures a period that began with India gaining independence in 1947 and ended with it hurtling into the Emergency in 1975, when the democratic rights of Indians remained suspended for the next nineteen months. It is needless to point out that economic policies too reflected the swinging political mood in these three decades.
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