There is a time when we are growing but we merely grow and a time when we start understanding how things around us function. Some things make sense and some don’t, and we begin to ask why . . . Suddenly life takes on a meaning and we start searching for more meanings. Over the course of more than three decades, Bela Bhatia’s work and concerns have brought her face-to-face with the harsh nature of people’s lives in India’s ‘forgotten country’—the hamlets, villages and slums—and the oppressive forces that rule and ruin the lives of Dalits, Adivasis, bonded labourers, women and other downtrodden groups. She has also witnessed how their everyday lives are pockmarked with violence and the brutality—often organized—they face when they resist. India’s Forgotten Country captures Bela’s early years as an activist in rural Gujarat, her research on the Naxalite movement, her investigations of violations of democratic rights in different regions, and her recent years dealing with the ongoing conflict between the state and Maoists in Bastar.