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In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce
Perhaps the overwhelming impression I received from my very limited experience in India is the diversity of the people. There seemed to be at least twenty different nations jammed up against each other with not quite enough space, although seemingly oblivious to each other.
While cows, donkeys, goats and even a camel wandered around, poor construction workers sought to wash their dusty children with little more than a cupful of precious water, while a hotel full of ramrod straight staff with handlebar moustaches did their best with the shabby premises they had to work with, obviously proud of what they were doing. In a local shopping centre, the gilded youth mixed with rural women who did not know how to stand on an escalator.
Clearly, things were changing quickly, but it would be wrong to say that everybody was participating in or benefiting from that change. That EDWARD LUCE fully understands and elucidates this complexity, with some style and numerous illuminating observations, persuades that he knows what he is writing about and cares for it too. Luce has spent several years in India writing for the Financial Times and so his access to the great and good is exemplary. Interviews with members of the Gandhi dynasty, prime minister Manmohan Singh and many other big names dot the text, although he does not disdain the small people too. The methodology makes for a believable text.
Luce first establishes the importance of recent economic events, including the growth of the IT industry and the outsourcing phenomenon. Though a million people are benefiting from this boom, it is rightly pointed out that this is really a drop in the ocean when considering the country has a population well in excess of a billion and set to become the world's biggest within the next few decades.
That does not mean that the lifestyles of the privileged elite taking advantage of new opportunities has not received fevered media coverage, of course. However, the vast bulk of the population remain locked in the same lifestyle that they have endured for generations. There are nearly a million villages in India and the villagers have seen little difference to their prospects over the years. Luce identifies the rampant and systemic corruption in Indian society as being the main cause of this. Most poor Indians want a government job because of the high level of income that they can provide and also because of the job security -- since it is impossible to be sacked, few people seem to bother to turn up for work at all. Consequently, although government departments have enormous payrolls, few of those involved have any incentive to do meaningful work and so nothing improves.
Further, the plethora of political parties that exist do so primarily for the purpose of supporting one or a coalition of caste, sub-caste or ethnic groups. Parties, according to Luce, rarely offer any manifesto beyond the acquisition of patronage and jobs for its supporters. Hence, there is little prospect for any political change emerging from the current democratic system. Like any good economist or FT writer, Luce sees innovation and improvement arising almost exclusively from the private sector or from mavericks in the public sector who are able to escape from the stultifying effects of the bureaucracy. Well, of all the countries of the world, India is probably one the finest candidates for analysis of this sort and, in any case, the author does little to disguise his bias and, indeed, sees no reason to do so.
The title of the book refers to the perception common among many western visitors to and admirers of India that the country's main wealth is to be found in its religious thought and values. This idea is often repeated by many Indians as well. However, Luce sees the religious obsessions and their necessary partisan and divisive effects these bring as being largely negative. He does not criticize people for holding religious beliefs but he is able to see how those people have so often been manipulated and let down by those who have held power based on religion. His account of an audience with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is hilarious in its deadpan revelation of the inanity of both the questions and the guru's responses.
It is difficult to imagine a better introduction to modern India for the non-expert. This book is in turn amusing, trenchant and enlightening.
John Walsh
06/04/2007
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John Walsh is Assistant Professor at Shinawatra International University, Bangkok. |
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