India was never a country until Mughals and later the British united it and ruled it as one country. Indian states were run by dictatorships, where the majority of the population was poor and ruled by ruthless rulers. Even though there was a huge diversity of language, customs, food, and even gods, all these people did not want to go back to any kind of dictatorship of the last 2,000 years. They all came together to build a just, democratic and prosperous country. Today, that hypothesis is challenged. Unrest in Kashmir, extreme poverty in eastern states, high unemployment and poverty across the majority of India’s population, and increasing crime, makes for a perfect storm for its people and states to go on their own way.

Waiting For Us raises an alarm that if the problems are not fixed at the fundamental level, India, as we know today may...