The New Delhi conspiracy by Meenakshi Lekhi

​"The New Delhi conspiracy" by Meenakshi Lekhi with Krishna Kumar- Politician’s fiction!

This book is published by HarperCollins India in 2019 and has 304 pages. 

Fynn Jansen, a Dutch scientist in the field of AI is killed by a sniper in Hong Kong. His colleague Samar approaches Indian MP Vedika Khanna from Hong Kong to reveal a secret. He is killed just before the meeting. Before dying he manages to tell Vedika that there is a conspiracy to kill PM Raghav Mohan. Prof. Bakshi, a pseudo secular, liberal intellectual is devising a plan to defeat PM Raghav Mohan and his party . A billionaire businessman runs NGOs in India, but he has his own agenda. A robot (Lakshmi) who has a mind will be given Indian citizenship. 

Who is hatching the conspiracy? How will it be achieved? What’s the Hong Kong connection? Who is behind the conspiracy? What is Bakshi’s lieology? Does the robot really have a mind? We know AI, what is BI?

This book exposes the elite liberal facade. To create narratives that legitimize the ruling class and curry favor in return is their modus operandi. This particular community is called Lutyens’ elite. These liberals are financed by multiple overt and covert NGOs run by a billionaire philanthropist with ulterior motive of ejecting Raghav Mohan from power.  The book introduces us to Political Lieology, an art of shouting lies loudly and repeatedly, propagating narrative that suits you, ignoring achievements of the opponents etc.  The idea is to peddle the lies with such frequency and vehemence that it renders the truth irrelevant. 

Characters in this book have obvious resemblance to real life politicians. Raghav Mohan is the PM with no family legacy. Nation comes first for him. He is very popular and is referred as RaMo. Opposition can’t defeat him politically. Akshat Mahnayak is the leader of opposition. He likes good life style and isn’t really interested in politics. He is PM in waiting for a very long time owing to the family legacy. He sometimes appears stupid. Samarendar Singh is Home Minister. He is strong and a patriot. I suppose you guessed them. Vedika Khanna is a fire brand MP from ruling party. Her character appears to be based on the author herself. 

It appears as if the author was unable to determine if she wants to write a political thriller or a historical fiction. She tries to excel in both and manages neither. Either she should have written about the Buddhist history and the cryptic clues or she should have written about the political assassination plot.  The readers end up dissatisfied. To add to it, the story doesn’t have a good pace. 

This is author’s debut novel. She has done a good job for a first timer. However she still lacks some attention to detail. Why would an MP employ a reporter and a hacker rather than entrusting the job to security agencies who are better equipped? Why would MP be involved in the investigation? Why would one leave cryptic clues when simple message would have sufficed? Green Dolma is erroneously referred as White Tara and White Dolma is erroneously referred as Green Tara. Etc. I believe, with time the edges would be rounded off. 

Why did I read this book? Curiosity of how a politician writes fiction. 

What did I like? Buddhist history. 

What I didn't like? As mentioned above. 

Not a must read.