Since the 13th century, numerous European have travelled to India. Driven by a thirst for adventure or trade opportunities, they embarked on extraordinary voyages across the sea to India. Their journeys were fraught with obstacles, including attacks by marauding gangs and animals, exposure to harsh climates, treacherous terrain, and unknown tropical diseases. Nonetheless, the desire to explore India’s exotic and distant lands propelled them forward.

Almost all of them kept meticulous journals of their travels, chronicling the course of Indian history. Crossing Continents explores the stories of several such travellers: Niccolao Manucci, William Hawkins, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Mark Twain, Athanasius Nikitin, Fanny Parkes, etc. All these travellers were relatively unknown at the time and were of little significance in their native homes. They were not bound by their rulers to report in a certain way, which was why their reports were largely unfiltered, unbiased, and unhindered. Each of them travelled to India with different objectives. One seeking precious gems while another a means to fend off debts. Others were driven purely by a desire to travel. They arrived in India during different periods and had unique stories to share. Their untiring pens stitched together a dispassionate history of India—a land of unfathomable contradictions—where sadhus meditated in high-mountain caves and merchants haggled in bustling markets.

After nearly ten centuries of invasions and colonial rule, and seven decades after achieving a bloodied and partitioned freedom, the Indian nation-civilisation is experiencing a remarkable surge in nationalism. There is a strong urge to revive and assert itself politically, culturally, and economically.

India, that is Bharat, is challenging its colonised mindset and manners, striving to write its own story and history, which were distorted by its colonisers and tormentors. India’s New Right captures this pivotal moment in Bharat’s life. The book seeks to understand this exceptional period in Bharat’s history through the eyes of the many protagonists driving this change. Some of these individuals are prominent public figures, while others are faceless individuals working behind the scenes to bring about change.

The book features nearly fifty full-length interviews woven into the larger narrative. It covers a wide range of subjects, from youth to economy, history to popular culture, law to gender identity, minorities to ghar wapsi, and the demographic war.

India is expected to become a $25 trillion+ economy by 2050. With a size like that it will be the world’s second- or third-largest economic power, enjoying unprecedented influence over global affairs. This will also make India the third pillar of a tri-polar world—the US and China being the other two.

Will India seize the opportunity and assume leadership with responsibility? This book seeks to answer that. Besides becoming an economic and military superpower, it will also increasingly dominate in the culture sphere. India is already claiming its place in a new global order in the making, and in less than a decade, it will begin to assert itself globally in the realm of culture too. The book seeks to highlight these trends—spanning across society, government, diplomacy, economy, military, and culture— through the visions of leading Indian thinkers and public intellectuals who are considered experts in their chosen fields.