The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor

The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor marries "The Mahabharata (probably the greatest book ever written) and Indian polity during the pre and post independence. The resultant is, as expected, an Indian marriage ceremony. Grand. Dazzling. Filled with lots of laughter. Little sense of nostalgia. But, pointless. Nevertheless, the writing is brilliant. Informed. Ornamental. Intelligent. Humorous. But the parallels - forced. Not all. Some are really interesting. But it is not easy to mix two complex narratives. It was an audacious attempt. By the way, who do you think would be Dhritarashtra and Pandu in this book?"

"Well. He drew the parallel between Dhritarashtra and Nehru. Indira Gandhi was Duryodhan. Karna was Jinnah. And surprise surprise. Subash Bose was Pandu. Janta Party was the Pandavas with Jayaprakash Naryan as Drona." Gandhi as a modern day Bhishma: the renunciate, the grand old man of India's epic freedom struggle. This book should be compulsory reading for all those people who question Gandhi's role or the meaning of his legacy. To his credit, Tharoor paints a balanced portrait of the legend with all his 'weirdness', his 'theatricality' and a moist-eyed nostalgia for all that Gandhi stood for:
"Let us be honest: Gangaji (Gandhi) was the kind of person it is more convenient to forget. The principles he stood for and the way in which he asserted them were always easier to admire than to follow. While he was alive, he was impossible to ignore; once he had gone, he was impossible to imitate."

Democracy with its five pillars, was Draupadi. But here alone I wonder if Draupadi was Sushma Swaraj?

"Considering the tough format, there is some real inspired writing here."
The author’s ingenuity lies in recreating the political events of the last 250 years using characters from the great Indian epic of Mahabharata (from where the book also derives its name = Maha (Great) Bharata (Indian)).

The story begins and ends with the same sentence - " They tell me India is an underdeveloped country.

For more details - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Indian_Novel