When we talk about society and politics, one often encounters trends which are clear to people on the ground, but remain largely hidden from outside observers. Unfortunately, in many cases such tectonic shifts in popular sentiment, values and cultural fashions remain hidden within a thick cloud of rhetoric and accepted wisdom. If actual developments don’t agree with widely accepted ideological cliché, people, including insiders, tend to remain silent on such changes, since even obvious things might appear controversial.

Thus, it is always refreshing when one comes across an article or book whose author is both independent enough and brave enough to call a spade a spade, to challenge widely accepted fictions and bring attention to a reality which to many is unpalatable.