I Am on the Hit List

Starred review from June 17, 2024
The death of a crusading Indian journalist opens a window onto poisonous national politics in this searching debut exposé. Journalist Romig recaps the murder of Gauri Lankesh, the proprietor of a small weekly magazine in Bangalore, who was shot to death in 2017. Lankesh’s leftish, antisectarian views and inveterate muckraking meant there were many possible suspects and motives, the most likely being right-wing Hindu nationalists incensed by her harsh criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP party, and by her support for Indian Muslims, disadvantaged lower castes, and others stigmatized by the BJP. Romig uses the murder and police investigation to center an intricate examination of modern-day India, with intriguing digressions into everything from controversies over the ancient origins of India’s Christian communities to the sensational 2001 case of a fast-food mogul who ordered his employees to murder a man whose wife he wanted to marry. Romig’s profile of the feisty but warmhearted Lankesh makes her the embodiment of a tolerant, progressive India that rejects prejudice and extremism, but unfortunately doesn’t seem to be winning: later chapters highlight the BJP’s intensifying efforts to silence liberal dissent and strip Muslims of rights and possibly citizenship while fomenting violence and genocidal rhetoric. The result is both a riveting true crime narrative and an insightful and ominous forecast of India’s political direction.

Starred review from June 15, 2024
A journalist's murder demonstrates India's increasing vulnerability to terror. In September 2017, Gauri Lankesh, a self-described "activist-journalist," was killed at her home in Bangalore. Her assassination sparked protests and drew international attention to India's rising culture of intolerance. Following years of reporting on southern India for the New Yorker and New York Times Magazine, Romig uses the story of Lankesh's life and work, her murder and its investigation, to track India's risky path from the "world's largest democracy," known for its religious plurality, toward the autocracy spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Covering a vast and diverse country, with centuries of relevant mythology and history, the author impressively synthesizes the various narrative threads that not only comprise Lankesh's story, but also cast an urgent warning about India's trajectory. This is an ambitious project, and it can be challenging to track both time and characters over the course of the text. Lankesh's murder case alone spanned more than five years and involved a multitude of co-conspirators and investigators. Romig considers the backstories for each possible motive and provides useful details on her subject's family and the radicalized factions determined to define India as a Hindu state. Each time the narrative twists and turns between past and present, with militant groups, former colleagues, and acts of corruption and inefficiency beginning to bleed together, Romig smoothly, steadily reminds readers of the enormity of what is at stake. With religious discrimination and formerly fringe activists gaining notoriety and momentum, the compelling, sometimes chilling, text serves as a powerful vehicle for exploring India's precarious position; questioning the role of religion and other institutions; and promoting the possibility for exemplary multicultural nationhood even as current events challenge such optimism. A sharp, captivating, penetrating inquiry that evolves into something more profound than just a true-crime book.

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Starred review from August 1, 2024
As is deftly exposed by New York Times Magazine feature writer Romig, populism, nationalism, and sectarianism in India, often described as the world's largest democracy, are unceasingly and inexorably pushing the country towards an unjust and inequitable authoritarian state. Romig focuses on the tragic murder (and the subsequent investigation) of journalist Gauri Lankesh, who was ruthlessly gunned down in front of her home in 2017. Lankesh was a self-described ""activist journalist"" and editor of the weekly newspaper Gauri Lankesh Patrike. In reviewing her intelligence and vitality, her family, and career, Romig probes intimate details of Gauri's life, chronicles the history of cities and states, such as Bangalore and Karnataka, and examines chilling and sweeping political and religious trends and movements in India. In the process, Romig forms undeniably dark linkages between a single deplorable and deadly act and the larger forces behind it. Underlying key events, as Romig describes, include the rise of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ruling India since 2014, and its leader, Narendra Modi; the history of the influential Hindu nationalist organization, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS); and faithful members of a mysterious, spiritual, nongovernmental charitable trust, Sanatan Sanstha. Throughout, Romig captures the trending violence, hate, and economic oppression directed at Muslims in India, who exist on the peripheries of democracy.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.