It is difficult for a contemporary affairs book to survive 20 years and that too in country as fast and progressing as India. At first, I didn’t wanna read this book. Just picked it out of curiosity and I was hooked. It has more to do with the manner in which Gurcharan Das writes. India unbound also was similar to this one and many of the arguments were repeated here as well but the motivation to put it down wasn’t strong enough, if not the opposite. He writes in a simplistic and yet provocative manner which frustrates you at first and then the gullible nature of his arguments makes you realize the easiness of the issue at hand. What I most liked about his books is that he has focused primarily on the solutions at hand and uncovering the simple and not so simple problems plaguing our country. It is difficult for many authors to be solution oriented; it is far too easy to complain about things.

But the primary question remained, “what will I gain by reading a book that is 20 years old, which is probably predicting how India will look like in the coming 20 years”? To be fair I don’t know. It did provide a yardstick to measure India’s achievements during this period, under achievements too. More importantly I wanted to be reminded of the simple truths regarding Indian affairs. I tend to forget them after some time. So, it was more of a revision time.

India inherited a country desperate in need of a revolution in the sense of upliftment of poor, lacking gender equality, divided on caste, religion, and regional lines and a huge chunk of illiterate population. The stage was set by our founding fathers and we took the steps we took and focused on certain issues on the basis of priority. Understandably these issues don’t vanish overnight. But since the late 60s when the mantle was placed in the hands of Indira Gandhi, something or many things had gone terribly wrong in India. In the political sense our decay had surfaced and Indira becoming the Prime minister had opened a pandora’s box which has plagued our politics till date and will continue to haunt us till some sort of revolution occurs in the Indian National Congress. India had the worst of Socialism and capitalism at the same time during the growth years. Economically we weren’t winning medals as well. Our system had shown that it needed reforms badly and sadly they came too late in the 90s.

Das has been quite enthusiastic about the 1991 reforms throughout his books and even dubbed the event as a revolution in our history. At first, I didn’t quite understand what this obsession was all about but he had good reason to label it as a revolution in our polity. Till today, we aren’t told the significance of the LPG reforms (well, I wasn’t) and take the present situation as a given. Our politicians too didn’t educate us as to the place we were headed to, given their lack of vision.

We reformed, grew, attracted capital, but still we were lacking somewhere, we were discontent. Although we were moving towards a democratic form of capitalism it was difficult to shake off the hold of the old guard. It is curious to learn that India was unable to establish its identity as a welfare or laissez faire state, it wanted to do both while leaning towards the welfare side. This contradiction of India surfaced on multiple levels. Also, the manner in which India played the welfare role left the author irritated.

A couple of days ago I read the news that Tesla had asked our govt to cut the huge import duties it charged; our minister responded by telling them to manufacture in India. Such occurrences take place often in our nation. It is difficult to ascertain whether we need tesla or tesla needs us but it is a given that many people in India would want to buy those cars. It could’ve been a win-win for the parties but sadly it is what it is.

China always had an edge over India in so many ways {Although recently it has been getting a lot of bad PR which can be a plus for us}. Many credited their strong and autocratic state which could undermine individual rights at its whim and fancy to favor the high rate of growth. India can never go that way; we love our fundamental rights way too much and if it comes to respecting those rights or a high rate of growth, we are bound to choose the former time and again. This is the beauty of the Indian state. But it doesn’t have to necessarily go that way. The two can go side by side and this narrative of the two being on opposite ends of the spectrum is a bit disturbing.

It is interesting to note that we have come so far from what we used to be. India’s achievements have gone under the radar because of the way our media and society (in fact, most of the societies) function, by replacing our old problems with the new ones. Which can be a good thing most of the times but we lack the bigger picture.

Most of the people I meet are pessimistic about India [I was/am too], especially about the way its politics is going forward. A lot of this pessimism finds its way towards the media platforms and multiplies the discontent we feel in being Indian and being born at this time of growing intolerance. The exponential rise of BJP has a lot to tell about the way we are thinking as a nation. There’s a lot wrong with the BJP and a lot wrong with the INC but making these discussions the top priority is something that depends on an individual’s choice or the nation’s choice. We find easy escape in political discussions and hardly want to look inwards. As long as politics is the subject covering the front pages of our newspaper our pace of progress will be quite slow.  

Slowly the changes have started to come in the sense that our youth {at least a part of it} is no longer single-mindedly looking to secure a govt job. The move towards the pvt sphere can usher in a new revolution of undervaluing the public jobs and thus taking the reservation’s ill effects out of our midst.

Pessimism looks like the way but in the end, it is optimism which runs our world. Fortunately, we have good reasons to be optimistic and reach our desired objectives. We still need a lot to fix and we will fix those issues. Today’s India is much better placed to play a significant role in the world but firstly it has to play an important role domestically.

 I have just realized that I’ve reduced the commentary to only a particular aspect of the book, where as the book has a lot to offer to every Indian from promoting reading and writing to the talks relating to our religion/faith and culture, it is an extraordinary experience. My first impression of Gurcharan Das wasn’t quite favorable in fact, I disliked his elitist background and his corporate career and him lecturing us on the understanding of rural issues [Like many Indians I too hated to be lectured on something closer to me, just shows the level of superiority we feel]. But he has a lot to offer on the understanding of our country and his clear writing makes it a joyride.

Thanks for sticking by for so long.

Goodbye!