India after Gandhi - Ramachandra Guha

Cover of the Indian Edition

India after Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy written by Ramachandra Guha. I would just like to thank the author for this great piece of Literature. It has given immense faith to me in Indian Democracy and its eccentric ways. It is a must read for everyone.

I've read books since I was a kid, a journey from Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys to the Classic Fiction of Jules Verne & H.G. Wells, to the fantasy of J.K Rowling and Tolkien, but India after Gandhi was my first venture into the uncharted waters of non-fiction. If it were to normal circumstances I wouldn't have ever come across this book. A lot of credit goes to PurpleLeap, a foe to the student fraternity of BBDGEI, who organized a Blogmaster contest and awarded me with a Gift Voucher of Flipkart to buy an Apple Ipod.

Uninterested in music I browsed through the site and decided to buy books, and bought all the box-sets and collections, and with them I also carelessly bought this book. I wondered if I would ever read whole of this book, which seems an epic of 900 pages.

As I started reading the Prologue of this book, it was literally a moment of awakening. In the opening few pages Guha explains why India is a peculiar nation, why it is an exception to most of the notions of a country. The ideas and facts presented are known to nearly every aware Indian, but when you observe them in the light of comparisons  with Europe, America, Africa and other Asian countries, it really makes you feel proud about India. Every page of this books fills the mind with nostalgia.

Guha brings about the best in everyone from the society in this book, the freedom fighter turned politicians are depicted as the founding fathers of the nation. The ICS servicemen who were the perpetrators in the crime of helping an Imperial power enslave their own motherland are also glorified for their services after freedom, which was necessary to bind the different states, with their own culture, language, and glorious history into a single Union of India. He really turns the post-independence India into some adventurous world, just like the Middle Earth. The first general elections after Independence is termed as the biggest gamble in the history of the world. He celebrates the democracy throughout the book, not only in India, but also in Indian National Congress, the largest political party.

The Paradox of Indian Politics

'There are two ways of making politics one’s vocation: Either one lives “for” politics or one lives “off” it' - the great German sociologist Max Weber once remarked.

In our case, we are today dominated by the later case. Our political leaders would face massive unemployment if they stopped being political leaders. Firstly most of them have businesses which would not be profitable if they do not control the state machinery. The ventures in real estate, infrastructure and liquor licenses do not require skills of entrepreneurship as much as they require favors from public administration. In order to get land allocated at dirt cheap rates or to get licenses and tenders within weeks, you have to be a relative of an MLA or an MP. To bring such prosperity in ones family, people do have to overlook interests of general public.

After independence, the old guard of Congress that ruled India for a decade, was one which lived for politics, they weren't in it for personal interests. Their ideology was defined by the examples of Tilak, Nehru and Gandhi. Austerity was a habit. Pandit Nehru didn't win every general election of his time by rigging elections or by spending more on his election campaign that his rivals. He was successful because of his moral authority. A leader of his stature would still debate with his opposition, accept their better suggestions over his own ideas, listen to his own party's leaders who, though lesser than him, still had their opinions. The famous Kamaraj plan, in which the chief ministers and cabinet ministers of Congress resigned to dispel the lure of power and work for their organization could only have been possible in that era.

The first scam of Independent India.

Today corruption is probably the most debated topic in India. It has its roots so deep, it seems impossible to imagine a nation which would be corruption free, an honest state working for the betterment of its people, a paradise where rulers may seek power, but do not seek wealth. A government that is uninterested in profit.

I always believed in goodness of our folks, it always intrigued me, how a country which was united against the British just 50 years back, overthrowing one of the greatest powers of history by practicing non-violence, degrade to such lowly state, where people who are supposed to be our brothers and sisters, exhort bribes from their own countrymen, steal the money for medicines of poor, sell-out their motherland's security for the love of Gandhi (printed on notes).

In the beginning of the great adventure of building a new country from the numerous identities of diverse princely states, linguistic identities, tribes and religions, the people involved were those who were real nationalists, who has loved this country more that their lives, people who had sacrificed their youth for freedom, people who had been lathicharged, assaulted, abused and massacred everyday, for centuries oppressed and enslaved, this soul of India had finally found utterance. For a decade everyone evolved in governance had been a freedom fighter, though now very good in administration, economics, management or statistics, they were guided by the love for their nation. Pandit Jawarhar Lal Nehru, guided us through the troubled waters of partition, the Kashmir issue, the tribal trouble, the communists, the right wing opportunists and other divisors. But after a decade there finally arrived peace.

But as they rightly say, with greater peace, comes greater prosperity. A country ruled for a decade by a single party which was virtually unopposed, meant that the entire government was running with full accelerator and no-brakes. No opposition brings great evils. And short-sighted communal opposition brings greater evils. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Hindu Mahasabha and similar parties had just one agenda, Hindutva, such communal forces had to be thwarted at all costs, but a progressive modern opposition was the need of the hour, sadly though our country still doesn't have one.

The World of Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien's monogram.

As I watched The Hobbit today, I was intrigued by the level of grandeur and the expansive of the plot. It was quite different from what I had read in the book by Tolkien. I started googling stuff that I thought wasn't sure was a part of the original story, like the sequence about Thorin Oakenshield & Azog is depicted, it was not in the book. I didn't think that these padding could have been invented by Peter Jackson, just to stretch the movie series into a trilogy. On further research I found the there more to the children's tale of the Hobbit than what meets the eye.

Those who have seen the The Lord of the Rings trilogy must have been impressed with imagination of the parallel world created in the movies. The adaptation of the books has been done quite intelligently in contrast to what is usually seen when movies are based on novels, they usually leave the fans begging for more. But with this particular trilogy it is like watching imagination come to life. (I experienced this in reverse though, watched the movies and then read the books.) It is still a mystery to me though, that why didn't the fantasy fiction of Tolkien get the popularity and hype that it deserved. I presume that it is just because he never wrote for the sake of writing novels. Most of his books and literature has been salvaged from his letters to friends, and his notes, by his son Christopher. The father of modern fantasy fiction only published the Hobbit and TLOTR. But in fact he had created a whole new universe. The Middle Earth.