Inspite of the Gods

I've just finished reading Edward Luce's Inspite of the Gods: the strange rise of modern India.

Luce was correspondent in New Delhi for the Financial Times of London.He is married to Priya, the daughter of former bureaucrat, P K Basu. Basu incidentally heads (or headed) the committee set up by the UPA government to restructure PSUs. If I am not mistaken, Priya Basu is a financial sector specialist at the World Bank in Washington (where Luce is currently based).

Luce's book is meant to introduce contemporary India to a western audience. The book has little to offer the Indian reader by way of insights or understanding. The themes it covers- the co-existence of modern and primitive sectors in the Indian economy, the nature of the bureacracy, the caste and communal problems, assertive Hindu nationalism, the growing closeness to the US- are only too familiar; the events quite fresh in one's memory. Luce's prescriptions for India to continue to grow and develop are the standard ones: persist with reform, preserve democracy, eschew communalism.

Where Luce scores is in his accounts of the people he has met while trying to understand the rise of India. We meet Mirian Ram, editor of Hindu editor N Ram, who runs a firm to which leading publishers outsource their work; James Paul, an Infosys employee, one of many software engineers whose lives have been transformed by the IT revolution; guru Sri Sri Ravishankar, who, it turns out, has close links with the RSS (after Luce's write-up on him appears, an RSS official calls to convey the guru's displeasure); a Gujarati lady who chose to divorce her husband rather than abort her girl child(Gujarat has among the lowest ratio of females to males in the country, thanks to pressure on women not to have girl children); and a precocious 10-year old Sikh boy Luce encounters on a train who fields just about any question under the sun. It is these human interest stories that bring the narration to life and help us put faces to the transformation that India is witnessing.

What is 'strange' about India's rise? Luce tells us in his introduction. First, India is emerging as a force on the world stage while still being steeped in religion and superstition. Second, it remains wedded to democracy while having a sizable proportion of illiterates in its population. Third, economic growth has accelerated without a broad-based industrial revolution. Fourth, India's divisive politics and pervasive corruption have not come in the way surging growth. Last, India's rise is welcomed and desired by other countries, notably the US.

The book is by no means uncritical but it is written with a degree of affection unusual for a western writer- no doubt Luce's marriage into an Indian family has made a difference. There are authors one respects and admires. Rare is the author who can engender affection in the reader. Luce is one such. You end up liking the man.