A flawed review of “India After Gandhi”

A close friend recently shared with me Sanjay Kak’s review (login required) of Ramachandra Guha’s book, “India After Gandhi.” The review is flawed for the following reasons:

• Killing the Messenger: Guha’s book is a historical account of India and if history did not quite follow the course of perfection that Kak demands, it’s not Guha’s problem.  For example, what is Guha to do if early elections did not fully represent Kak’s definition of democracy.  Of course, the real tragedy is Kak’s complete dismissal of India’s early elections as “procedural—rather than the substantive—aspects of democracy….”  Kak reminds me of myself who finds fault in the “way” the guy in the park is exercising forgetting the irony that he’s at least exercising.

• Focusing on the Trivial: Kak’s litany of issues with Guha’s book are dominated by trivial criticisms.  For example, Kak finds fault with (1) the sub-title (“not A History, mind you, but The History”), (2) “even the small selection of pictures … fixated by the man—or woman—of power, from Lord Mountbatten to Amitabh Bachchan”, (3) Guha’s methodology describing it as “curious” (academic speak for “something wrong”) for utilizing both primary and secondary sources, and (4) using “hugely contested words like ‘Jihadi’ and ‘Terrorist’.”

• Criticizing the Absence of What was Supposed to be Absent: Guha – to my own disappointment – refuses to engage deeply with the 1990s and 2000s because it’s not distant enough for a historical perspective.  But these periods are probably the closest to the average reader (not the exacting pseudo-academic that Kak is) and so Guha addresses them briefly.  Kak finds the author’s prerogative to define “scope of work” unacceptable.  I guess every aspiring author needs to have his / her subject validated by Kak before proceeding to write it.

• Questionable Intentions: Kak’s review is so intensely negative of Guha that I began questioning his true intentions.  So I asked, “Who on earth is Kak?”  It is “curious” that both Kak and Guha were born in 1958 and attended St. Stephens according to Wikipedia (the source will sorely disappoint Kak).  Is it likely that both overlapped at St. Stephens and Kak finds it difficult to reconcile to the fact that Guha has done more things with his life?  Kak’s (seemingly slim) body of work “includes films on the theme of migration, looking at people of Indian origin in the fringes of the city of London.”  Isn’t it insane that someone who studied the “problems” of NRIs should question Guha – who began his career with “The Unquiet Woods” – for not adequately addressing India’s development refugees?

• Lousy Writing: Let me just say that I was able to complete Guha’s 900-page book but gave up on reading the last two columns of Kak’s three-page review.

Tharoor’s travails

Shashi Tharoor must quit or be fired.  That is the price for his lack of (and refusal to learn) political sensibility.  Beginning with a series of minor but irritating indiscretions that did not amount to anything more than speaking insensitively or out of turn, Tharoor has now landed himself in serious trouble.  (As an aside, for the 30 odd years spent at that temple of global diplomacy called the U.N., Tharoor demonstrates little skill at being diplomatic or understanding new cultures as reflected in his insensitive “cattle class” tweet.  The rumors of the U.N. being a moribund institution populated by ineffective, narcissistic wonks are perhaps not exaggerated.)

He is accused of supporting the Kochi IPL Cricket franchise because of the potential to profit, albeit by proxy.  Besides financial impropriety, the issue is marred by personal slander.  This controversy is a distraction at a time when there are larger political issues and Tharoor is no albatross the government need carry.

Of course, this blog is no fan of Tharoor.  We were lukewarm to Tharoor’s foray into politics because we do not share the popular but misplaced perspective of India’s middle class that professionals and the educated must be accommodated in politics.  The underlying assumption is that professionals’ educated mindset equips them better to serve India’s interests while their experience results in skills transferable to administration.  Humbug.

Our view is that electoral support at the grassroots must be the sole arbiter of political influence.  Political experience at the grassroots provides leaders with:

-         a true understanding of the issues that matter,

-         an ability to implement ideas and policies,

-         the maturity to cooperate with different stakeholders, and

-         the strength to assume and stand strong on positions.

While professionals will likely have a richer understanding of issues and policy alternatives, they are often ineffective because of the inability to push initiatives.  These weaknesses are accentuated by continual insecurity and the resultant hesitation in speaking truth to their political masters.

The history of Indian politics is replete with failed professionals-turned-politicians.  The firebrand journalist Arun Shourie spent his days as a minister conducting studies on how long files take to navigate the government bureaucracy.  Mani Shankar Aiyar overstepped his brief as interim petroleum minister to be relegated to an inconsequential berth.  Manmohan Singh has been an honorable exception but he has been uncompromising with ideas (e.g., economic reforms in the 1990s and the nuclear deal this decade), ethics, and integrity.

Finally, in the year that Tharoor has spent in power, he has been in news for his many indirections rather than for having been an effective foreign minister.  Of all worker classes, it is professionals who ought to know that performance appraisals are conducted annually, contributions matter over visibility, and that there are consequences for falling short.  Unless, of course, one spends their life at an organization such as the U.N. with a sense of self-entitlement gained only at St. Stephens.

Who is the “educated” voter?

En route to Delhi yesterday, my friend in Newark told me that her mother in Mumbai voted for the Congress because she could not find the symbol her kaamwali had passionately campaigned for. 

So much for those who suffer from the illusion that India’s illiterates are why we get incompetent governments and politicians.  My friend’s mother might neither think so nor might her kaamwali be illiterate.  But a large number of highly-qualified, middle-class Indians (often non-resident Indians, curiously) frequently couch their refusal to thoughtfully engage with the electoral process as cynicism. 

These “cynics” argue that their “carefully considered votes” are inconsequential given that the majority of the electorate is illiterate and, therefore, unable to weigh in as thoughtfully on issues and candidates.  (Interestingly, even Jawaharlal Nehru shared this elitist view in the early years of independent India but was convinced otherwise after India’s first two elections.)

I vehemently disagree.  India’s electorate has been predominantly illiterate for a long time.  Yet, since 1947, voters have, by and large, rewarded performers and punished laggards.  So the Congress was booted out in 1977 after the two-year “emergency,” the Janata Party defeated in 1980 following frequent bickering amongst its leaders for the Prime Minister’s chair, and the BJP-led NDA was sent to the opposition in 2004.  The evidence is more compelling in the states and indisputable in a number of individual constituencies.

Therefore, it is clear that while the majority of India’s electorate may not be “educated” they are smart enough to associate roads, hospitals, schools, jobs, water, and many other forms of “development” with political performance.  Further, the illiterates view their franchise as one of the last inalienable forms of expression in the fight against growing economic disparity.  Finally and more recently, they have realized the strength of numbers and are organizing themselves along key issues effectively marginalizing those too lazy to read, analyze, and vote. 

So the next time you don’t know whom to vote for, ask your driver, milkman, peon, chowkidar, dhobi, chaiwallah, or your mother’s kaamwali.