Shashi Tharoor served for twenty-nine years at the UN, culminating as Under-Secretary-General. He is a Congress MP in India, the author of fourteen previous books and has won numerous literary awards, including a Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Tharoor has a PhD from the Fletcher School and was named by the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1998 as a Global Leader of Tomorrow. His Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India was a Sunday Times bestseller and named as a Financial Times book of the year.
'A profound book on one of the world's oldest and greatest religions.' -- The Hindustan Times 'An influential and thought-provoking book, shedding light on many of the contradictions and anomalies of this ancient religion and its chequered history.' 'Shashi Tharoor is the most charming and persuasive writer in India. His new book is a brave and characteristically articulate attempt to save a great and wonderfully elusive religion from the certainties of the fundamentalists and the politicisation of the bigots.' -- William Dalrymple