Must-Have Books To Read Before Republic Day: Keep the Thinker in You Alive

The current contemporary needs to understand one basic understanding of India becoming a republic, which is thinking, questioning, remembering, and understanding the idea of humanism, sociology, philosophy, and literature. Republic Day is not as a ceremonial milestone but changes the perspective of Indians on India being a republic: it is to think, to question, to remember, and to continuously negotiate the ideas of nationalism, patriotism, sociology, humanism, and philosophy. Adding this collection, you can understand the deep realities, not just the surface freedom and liberty, but also the dark, uncomfortable truths about violence, caste, borders, loyalty, and moral responsibility.

Train to Pakistan: When Freedom Came at a Human Cost

Have you seen people giving long speeches on independence and republic? The flag hoisting, freedom and liberty brought by independence, and India becoming a republic are not very uncommon. The best part about this book is that it can teach you how freedom and independence came at a high price of human cost. The book discusses the human cost of social freedom, independence, and India becoming a republic. The forte of this book can be it is teaching you how patriotism without empathy can be brutal and violent. The book discusses the issues of mob making, politics and personal life's interdependence, and politics entering the private sphere at any and every point in life. The ultimate test of freedom and morality and righteousness is not in long or short spoof speeches and Republic Day parades but in understanding the depth of morality and politics at the time of survival. 

TAMAS: Hindi Paperback: A Novel Of Bhism Sahani

The republic nation not just talks about how justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity were achieved; it talks about how these ideas can be curated, understood, and kept alive. Adding this book, TAMAS, to your reader's guide, you can get one of the best novels to read about justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity as absent ideas in nations. The novel beautifully portrays how the rumors can overpower reason and human intellect. You can understand how a common, ordinary, peaceful individual becomes a tool of ultimate psychological, physical, and social violence in society with ease and propaganda. The best part of Bhism Sahani is about how violence is not spontaneous, but it is a socially constructed process with misinformation, religious manipulations, and compliance. You can also go for top productivity books to add to your everyday a new motivation. 

The Shadow Lines: From bestselling author and winner of the 2018 Jnanpith Award 

Dive into the realm of philosophical interrogation about the concept of nationalism and the idea of borders. Adding this to your collection, you can get one of the best books for readers to stimulate the concept of borders as just imagined lines. The best question this book asks is about what is the basis of separating one nation from another: the walls, maps, political propaganda, or stories believed for ages. The novel deals with the idea of how apparent peace and freedom are myths in societies where the concept of violence travels through memory across generations and how it repeats itself through time and geography. 

Annihilation Of Caste: Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Get the fire of intellect about how the caste system in India worked and how it still works and was established and reestablished with time. The Annihilation of Caste is an undelivered speech that reflects how Ambedkar said he "would not change a comma" in order to make the speech non-controversial. The book seems to tell the bitter truth about the Indian caste system, aiming to free Indians from the chains of caste discrimination and its consequences. The best part about this book is that it talks about how social systems like patriarchy and the caste system need no redefinition, but they need reinvention and should never be erased till the end to create something liberal in the society. Add to your must-read books for readers list some spice of intellect and broad conceptualization of society. 

Broke and Patriotic: Duina Francesco

In nations like India, where every public holiday, like Republic Day, brings to you the questions of economic disparity and poverty. Adding this book, Broke and Patriotic, to your readers' list, you can understand the relevance of being loyal to a nation that fails you economically. Read the analysis of Duina Francesco about how nationalism actually works. The economic dignity of developing nations like India for some individuals lags behind the national pride, and how does it work for their psychology? It will urge you to question things like, is loyalty sometimes a substitute for justice? In a nation like India, the relevance of loyalty and patriotism and their consequences can best be analysed with books like these books for readers.

Buying Guide

• Choose the philosophy that either attracts you the most or the least. This is because the former will urge you to read, and the latter will make you question your already set beliefs.
• Go for Train to Pakistan if you wish to understand the political and emotional aspects of partitions, violence, and bloodshed in the independence process. Basically the cost of borders.
• If philosophy and memory are what attract you the most, The Shadow Lines can be your choice.
• For those who prefer questioning the existing society and its norms, Annihilation of Caste can be your trusted foundation this Republic Day.
• For the social issue of patriotism vs economic reality, which most non-resident Indians are questioned about, you can go for Broke and Patriotic. 

Conclusion

Understand how being a republic for India is not a finished achievement but a flame that needs to be kept alive with time, intervention, and efforts. What brings together this collection is not the genre or language it is written in but the very intention of making and keeping Republic Day truly Republic. The glorification of things done in the past doesn't make the Republic as a concept achieved or completed by the Indian subcontinent but a thing to be re-established, established, and re-understood time and again.