India by Stanley Wolpert.
An excellent general introduction
to Indian history, culture and politics.
Everyone Loves a Good Drought by T. Sinath.
Discovery of India by Nehru.
Should be available in bookstores
or in any public library. Written when he was in prison in 1944,
an accessible introduction into the idea of modern India, to the struggle
for Independence, and Indian nationalism in its broadest sense.
Map of India.
In an atlas, locate the eight largest
cities. E.g., find Bombay, Pune, Madras, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bhopal,
etc. Locate the states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra,
Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab. Find Bangladesh and Dhaka. Find
Karachi, Islamabad, and the Pakistan border. Locate Tamil Nadu.
"Gandhi".
"Apu Trilogy".
Three Films by Sanjayit Ray.
These give a good picture of both rural and urban life among relatively
well-to-do Indians (who will not seem well-to-do to Americans.) They are
about Bengal, but rural life in all parts of India has parallels.