Nectar in a Sieve

Kamala Markandaya's 1954 novel Nectar in a Sieve can be read as a historical artifact that illustrates issues extant in the years immediately after Indian independence. Some of the issues that Markandaya addresses in Nectar in a Sieve including income disparity, still plague Indian social and political life. The ambitious industrialization and modernization programs that Nehru undertook during his tenure as India's first post-colonial Prime Minister did churn wealth in some sectors, while it also exacerbated the already existing divisions between classes throughout the subcontinent. In particular, the shift from a primarily agrarian and self-sustaining farming community life in rural areas towards urbanization created more problems than the process was intended to solve. Without a cohesive community infrastructure, peasant farmers were mainly worse off than they were before factories like the one depicted in Markandaya's novel employed leagues of workers.

Nectar in a Sieve does reveal...
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