Past two months were laid back..which reflects little deviation and keeps in line with the past twenty years of my life. However, some instances from the months past coupled with some literary adventures provided a quaint unsettling feeling.
In the background were few books- "Inspite of the Gods" & India After Gandhi by Edward Luce and Ramchandra Guha respectively, being the prominent ones. These two men seemingly apart yet brought together by the common thread of journalism in and about India.
Edward Luce's account of the strange rise of India, which aptly forms the subtitle of the book- traces and tracks the footprints of India's sudden emergence on the global conscience. Over the pages Luce takes you on a hithchiking trip through India over the ages- with disappointment and the anguish of the Emergency era to the hope and optimism of the India shining times. This book also, (yet again) brings you face to face with the disparity which so unashamedly marks todays India- something Aravind Adiga, made everyone to stand up and take note of (We need some good Gini, people). Luce is a correspondent with the Financial Times and this is reflected in his work. He has the journalistic eye and throughout the book, he makes one lament how we could have done so much better, financially and economically, over the years. The idea of India, what it could have been and what it ought to be,- the idea envisaged by BR Ambedkar & Nehru has been raped time and again in favour of power hungry politicians willing to cash in on the cheapest flavour of the season- from religion to region or skewed policies, success or failure of which, to be fair was anyones guess.
It was a nasty co-incidence that while I read about the idea of an India, an idea the writer felt disintegrated and degenerated with every passing day, at the hands of different people, the disintegration that manifest itself in the politically instigated sectoral violence in Maharashtra.
Ramchandra Guha-
I am not a prolific reader and I read at a pace dat may put a snail to shame. Hence it would have taken me eons to finish India after Gandhi- a work epical in proportions. Nevertheless I couldn’t resist the temptation to pick up the book- knowing completely well that I will not have the patience to sit through the sedulously written account on India- by the only anthropologist I would care to read. The theme was recurring. Hindu rate of growth, policies gone wrong, Nehru's tryst with destiny and a li'l more, the fabian socialism et all. And yet again, I couldnt help feeling the common pulse ~ there existed an idea somewhere in the hearts and minds of people an idea which is definitely not reflected in the times we live in.
As I traversed through these pages ~ and imagined the zeitgeist of a new born India, a newly independent India young and donned in the chic secularist, sovereign democratic constitution - the types world hadn’t seen earlier- I wondered how little sense it all makes now. This time around, it was a debate doing rounds in the journalistic circles and editorials, that made me wonder about the idea of “sovereignty.” The right to self-governance. How is it that a value enshrined in Constitution is so blatantly violated in one part of the country? Just how far should we go in the name of national integration? Is India not doing to Kashmir what the Brits did to India as a whole before independence? I am all for unity of Kashmir with India but I also feel for the plight of people of Kashmir. Somewhere we have to draw a line, because dying people are never a reflection of good governance. The capitalist in me cries aloud too- when everything else fails to resolve your socio-political-economic dilemmas, resort to the Gods of cost benefit analysis.
The idea of an integrated India needs some rethinking, it needs some social engineering that Mayawati or the like are utterly incapable of…
