Books

Inside The Complex: Family, Power, and India in Turmoil

Carnegie Endowment
Carnegie Endowment•Apr 8, 2026

Why It Matters

By dramatizing the intersection of family legacy, reactionary politics, and economic change, The Complex helps readers decode the cultural forces fueling today’s Indian power shifts, offering valuable context for business and diplomatic decision‑making.

Key Takeaways

  • •Novel uses Delhi compound to explore post‑independence family dynamics
  • •Author blends personal memory with extensive research on 1970‑90s India
  • •S.P. Chopra symbolizes vanished patriarchal authority and hidden financial ruin
  • •Story highlights reactionary politics emerging from privileged Brahmin family
  • •Violence against women portrayed as loyalty‑driven family complicity

Summary

Grand Tamasha hosted author Karan Mahajan to discuss his new novel, The Complex, a multigenerational saga of the fictional Chopra family set against India’s turbulent decades from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The conversation, recorded at Carnegie’s Washington headquarters, framed the book as both literary work and social commentary on the nation’s shifting political and economic landscape.

Mahajan explained that the novel’s central setting—a sprawling Delhi compound called The Complex—draws on his own memories of joint families in South Delhi and extensive oral‑history research on the Mandal Commission protests, the license‑raj, and the 1991 liberalization. By interweaving real‑world events, actual political figures and diaspora experiences, he creates a hybrid of fiction and documentary that forces readers to question where history ends and story begins.

Among the most striking passages cited were the portrait of the deceased patriarch S.P. Chopra, described as a revered independence‑era tycoon whose hidden bankruptcy haunts his children, and the harrowing scene where Gita’s assault is rationalized by a family elder. Mahajan likens the family’s power struggles to those in “Succession,” emphasizing how loyalty can mask systemic misogyny and reactionary ideology.

The novel’s relevance extends beyond literary circles: it offers a vivid case study of how elite families internalize and amplify nationalist grievances, a dynamic that continues to shape contemporary Indian politics. For policymakers, investors, and cultural observers, The Complex provides a narrative roadmap to the social undercurrents driving India’s current upheavals.

Original Description

On this week’s show, Milan sits down with the novelist Karan Mahajan. Karan is an associate professor in Literary Arts at Brown University and the author of the books Family Planning and The Association of Small Bombs.
Karan is also the author of a much-anticipated new novel, The Complex. Karan and Milan discussed the book at our first ever live Grand Tamasha event at Carnegie headquarters in Washington, DC on March 16.
In The Complex, readers are introduced to the fictional Chopra family as they navigate the personal and political turmoil of late 1970s India. As each member of the family struggles to forge an identity in the shadow of patriarch SP Chopra’s legacy, buried tensions surface and rival visions of power, belonging, and ambition collide.
Set against a nation in upheaval, The Complex traces the roots of many forces that continue to shape contemporary India—from political radicalization and shifting class structures to the pull of the global diaspora and the evolving meaning of family itself.
The New York Times calls the book "magisterial” and writes that “[Mahajan's] work has always woven a subversive, contemporary sensibility into a traditional, almost 19th-century approach to form and style.”
During the recording, Milan fielded written questions from audience members, and you’ll hear these as well on this week’s show.
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The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace generates strategic ideas and independent analysis, supports diplomacy, and trains the next generation of international scholar-practitioners to help countries and institutions take on the most difficult global problems and advance peace.

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