The Service of the State

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Title: The Service of the State – The IAS Reconsidered

Author: Bhaskar Ghose

Publisher: Penguin Viking 2011 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-670-08381-7

Pages: 306

Bhaskar Ghose was a renowned civil servant occupying a myriad positions in various capacities in West Bengal state cadre and in the Union government. He joined IAS in 1960 in West Bengal cadre, ranking fifth in the qualifying exam. The most sensational post adorned by him was that of the Director General of Doordarshan, from which he was unceremoniously removed. The present volume is the author’s memoirs of his service life, excluding that of the Doordarshan period, which he has detailed in a separate book, titled Doordarshan Days. That period is totally blacked out in this book. While doing a critical reconsideration of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Ghose examines various characteristics of the managerial function and explains how the people of the cadre (IAS) are ideally suited for the tasks at hand. The author’s own service history is presented as proof for the argument that what prompted him to achieve the decision-making capabilities which developed in him was the ethos of the cadre and the seemingly worthless but tremendously empowering training he had undergone in the National Academy of Administration at Mussoorie. The book does not concur with the idea gaining acceptance in several circles that specialists in a particular discipline are better positioned to handle issues specific to that subject. Again and again, it tries to establish that a good subject expert would not be a good administrator and it is the decision-making capability that is of prime importance in a number of situations, several of which are given.

IAS was a continuation of ICS, which was a reincarnation of Covenanted Service of the English East India Company. Heated debates were held in the Constituent Assembly regarding the continuance of such a service in free India. Sardar Patel stoutly supported the notion and it was entrenched in the Constitution. Soon after independence, politicians eyed IAS officers with respect bordering on deference, unaware of the immense power which they themselves handled. However, few leaders, like Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhai Patel and Dr. B C Roy of West Bengal reigned over the officials and got what they wanted from them. As years went on, the political class recognised their potential and it was the turn of IAS to play second fiddle to them. Many degenerated to the level of subservient aides or courtiers to the politicians. Ghose says the decision to induct officers from state civil services direct to IAS and offering reservation to backward classes has badly affected the effectiveness of the cadre. Earlier, personality test was the sole criterion for deciding suitability of a candidate but later, it was relegated to the status of one other subject on which the candidate will be tested.

After training at NAA at Mussoorie, Ghose joined as Assistant Magistrate at Burdwan in West Bengal and a little later as Sub Divisional Officer in Barrackpore. An amusing incident which strengthens the case of clear and effective communication at such levels is described. A wall was going to be built in an area whereas the people in surrounding areas vehemently opposed the construction. A higher official was sent in for assessing the situation and make recommendations. He came, had discussions with all concerned parties and expressed opinion supporting the abandonment of construction. However, Ghose was surprised when the report came which he presumed to allow construction. He passed orders to that effect which was opposed by the people and a full blown law and order situation arose. When he showed the report to the police official in support of his decision to use force to disperse the mob, he pointed out that just the opposite was mentioned in the report. Actually the words in the report was, “I told the Chief Minister that if he wanted major trouble, he should allow the wall to be built and he agreed”! This succinctly explains the necessity of ensuring precise, clear language in communications of this sort.

Ghose was transferred to central services in Delhi as Under Secretary in the Information and Broadcasting ministry under Indira Gandhi. When she was appointed Prime Minister, subsequent to the demise of Lal Bahadur Shastri, Ghose moved to Delhi administration, then back to West Bengal as Collector of Cooch Behar. He had a whole lot of problems at hand, as the United Front came to power in Bengal which considered the author as a supporter of Congress which ruled the Centre. Administration was impossible in such a climate when slogan shouting employees in the leftist unions obstructed work in government offices. Officials who dared to enforce discipline was threatened or harassed with a novel way of assault, gherao. These often occurred outdoors, with the victim moved around frequently so as to keep him under the hot sun continuously. Police was ordered not to interfere in such actions as they were declared to be protests by trade unions. After a particularly nasty fall out with a Forward Bloc leader which was a constituent of the Left Front, Ghose was transferred as the Director of Census 1971 in Bengal. Being a Congress supporter, he was made the Secretary of Siddartha Shankar Ray, the last Congress chief minister to rule Bengal in a long time. Congress was swept out of power after emergency and Ghose was packaged to Delhi in the Social Welfare department. After a brief stint in the U.N, he was sent back to the state cadre. Being the Commissioner for Jalpaiguri, he had the opportunity to see the Gorkhaland problem gaining momentum at first hand. From this post, he was elevated as the DG of Doordarshan.

After making exit from Doordarshan, he served Culture and handled Kashmir affairs. He retired after 36 years of distinguished service as Secretary, Information and Broadcasting. Over the long years, the IAS changed from rulers to facilitators of developmental change in the grassroots level. He could see it happening in front of his eyes. Officers who passed out a few years after him did have a mindset which was totally different from the author’s generation. There are many occasions for a serving officer to swerve from the track of honesty and utilise his connections for illicit gains. Ghose maintains that there are countless officers who hold their heads high and remain in peaceful obscurity after retirement.

So, in the end, the book concludes with the assertion that the service is indeed essential for a country as diverse as India. The formal training, often greatly maligned by people, in fact help the probationers to weather out turbulent storms with a sense of belonging to a specialized cadre of their worthy colleagues. The informal relations existing between IAS officers have greatly helped the author many times when such help was urgently needed. The author is also remarkable for the frankness with which he has admitted his errors and follies. Where it was mandatory to illustrate a point, he has not hesitated to put even his own blunders before the readers, who won’t be unduly harsh to the author. The diction is lucid and the language is exceptionally dignified.

Some shortcomings are also to be pointed out. Being a bureaucrat in every sense of the term, he has some preconceived notions on reservation and the unsuitability of state service officers. He articulates them to be older than the general category probationers and are unfit to mingle freely with them. This can only be termed pure speculation. Another aspect of a bureaucrat – conservatism – is painfully evident from the coverage. Ghose praises every odd thing at the Academy, including dress codes, table manners and such numerous devices under the guise that they help inculcate a feeling of fellowship in the probationers.

Ghose’s pompous claim that he didn’t know how to read and write Bengali while serving there can’t evoke sympathy from readers. His father had imposed a fine of 1 paise for every English word spoken at the dinner table so as to encourage his children to speak Bengali at least on those occasions. To circumvent the threat, the siblings resorted to sign language for getting things like salt or dish, as if to speak their mother tongue was a laborious thing to do! Learning and speaking is English is one thing, but eclipsing one’s own tongue and treating it in such a cavalier fashion is disgusting. Author’s mark of forthrightness sometimes goes to the incredible – he was unaware that one his subordinates was blind, until he said so! This makes us wonder who was really blind, afterall!

The author belittles the contribution of all categories of officers other than IAS. Of course, he would immediately qualify such statements with a declaration that there are indeed people who don’t belong to his stereotypical labelling. The lesser personnel are said to possess resentment to the superior cadre of IAS, particularly the IA&AS (accounts and audits) who end up as financial advisers in ministries who scuttle every innovative project put forward by the IAS guys. Ghose is slothful in letting the readers aware of the outcomes of some of his decisions. One such thing was his resolve to give a day off in a week to Taj Mahal so that visitors would not be allowed. After much heckling, the decision was taken, but he was meanwhile transferred to some other department. He then goes on to say that he is ignorant what came out of it eventually (p.259). He should have done some homework and keep the readers conscious of what went through. The Taj Mahal is indeed closed on Fridays to visitors.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Voices of the Dead

Title: The Voices of the Dead – Stalin’s Great Terror in the 1930s

Author: Hiroaki Kuromiya

Publisher: Yale University Press 2007 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-300-12389-0

Pages: 267

Hiroaki Kuromiya is Professor of History, Indiana University. His works are centred on Stalin and Russia of his times. This book is based on the Great Terror, unleashed by Stalin in 1937-38 when the Soviet state was preparing for an inevitable war against Germany and Poland on the western front and against Japan in the east. Unflinching loyalty to the Bolshevik regime was a prerequisite for peaceful stay in Stalin’s empire. Even casual and joking references of the communist leaders were valid grounds for years of incarceration or outright death, particularly if the victim happened to belong to vulnerable sections of society like ethnic foreigners, refugees, erstwhile nobles in Tsarist regime and old enemies who fought the communists during civil war in the aftermath of Bolshevik revolution in 1917. Usually, the accused were taken into custody without warrants, or if at all there was one, it might have been made out after the acutal arrest. Interrogation was brutal, habitually involving third degree methods and mental torture. Confessions were forcefully evicted from the suspects under duress, witnesses were brought it who always toed the police line, judgements were passed by a group of two or three men (dvoika or troika) who were extra-judicial personnel, usually police officials themselves or communist party officials. Capital punishment was awarded to even the slightest provocation to authoritarian rule of the party, the condemned were shot within a week and interred in mass graves. Kuromiya purports to provide voices to the hapless victims, who were otherwise swept off the face of the earth, without any voices being heard in the public sphere.

Stalin (ruled from 1924-1953) was one of the cruellest, blood thirsty tyrant ever reigned over mankind. Propped up on power by an ideology which never tolerated dissent and ordered animal-like subordination to a handful of masters, he made life hell for people who wavered an iota from the path prescribed by communist party cadres.  People were rounded up on mere suspicion, outrageous charges levelled against, confessions obtained and summarily shot. Every communist regime in the world boasts of a larger than lifelike secret police organization, modelled on Stalin’s NKVD. The dictators of the party feel threatened if they could not eavesdrop on the communications of their citizens. Hitler, another mass murderer on the mould of Stalin created Gestapo, which was mild when compared to NKVD! Gestapo had one officer for every 10,000 persons in the population, while NKVD had one official for every 500 people. These officers spied on the people, reporting constantly on the inputs of informers and agent provocateurs. Suspects were rounded up at night, most of whom never saw the light of day thereafter.

Stalin’s pogroms began in 1930 through forced collectivization of farms. As part of de-Kulakisation, rich farmers (kulaks) were evicted out of their homesteads and sent to work in distant collective farms. Even moderately wealthy people were clubbed together as belonging to Kulaks, wiping off any trace of public sympathy. The widespread upset in agriculture and pseudo-scientific methods adopted in plant genetics resulted in a great famine in 1933-34, in which seven million people were deemed to have died. As World War II neared, Stalin grew suspicious of the loyalties of ethnic Poles, Germans, Japanese and Koreans. They were the prime targets of the Great Terror initiative (1937-38). Even Russians couldn’t escape the wrath of the regime. A total of one million people were murdered by the communist regime.

Although people following any means of livelihood was liable for suspicion, those who were associated with foreign diplomats and consulates naturally came under mistrust. Women who fell in love with diplomats were forced to confess or accuse their lovers. Even police informers or agent provocateurs didn’t have a secure life cut out for them. Often, they were accused of collusion by not providing sufficient information to the secret police in time. They were expected to furnish incriminating accusations (evidence was not necessary, the police could see to it that it was fabricated just before conviction) against their friends, neighbours, colleagues and even spouses. Stalin didn’t see family as a cherished institution. People who didn’t report on the misdeeds of their spouses were equally liable for punishment. Moreover, if the spouse was indicted, partners were expected to legally obtain divorce from them! Citizens who criticised the regime were charged with counter-revolutionary activity and marked as enemy of the people. Kuromiya brings out numerous instances when the victims were exonerated (often posthumously) when reviews were conducted after Stalin’s death and after the communist regime was toppled in the 1990s. Though it was no solace for relatives (if at all they were alive) to know that their kin had been rehabilitated by the regime, it helped to wipe them clear of the malignant charges levelled against the entire family by a vindictive autocrat.

Family and religion, which were traditional pillars of social life were anathema to Stalin. He sought to destroy them and substitute the state in their places. The state, particularly the workers, were portrayed as a single family, doing away with the need of having any other kin of the blood. Stalin openly approved of destroying families, if any one of its members moved against the state, as he said, “And we shall destroy anyone who, by his deeds or his thoughts – yes, his thoughts – threatens the unity of the socialist state. To the complete destruction of all enemies, themselves and their kin!” (p.198). The state terror frequently exceeded rational limits. Leon Trotsky was a great revolutionary leader, of the calibre of Lenin himself and deemed as the second in command during October Revolution. He fell out with Stalin in the power struggle after Lenin’s death and was expelled from Russia in 1929. He was assassinated by secret agents in Mexico in 1940. People sharing the surname of Trotsky was suspect thereafter of harbouring counter-revolutionary ideas! The word Trotskyite became practically a swear word in Russian. Kuromiya gives out an example in detail.

The book attempts a noble cause of providing voice to the dead. As the victims were ordinary citizens, their cries of pain, of agony, of despair were never heard. Kuromiya has succeeded in presenting the cases of those poor victims forcefully before the world, leaving us with no other option other than to bestow our deep felt regards to a group of people who lived their lives just like us, who joked just like us, who loved and quarrelled just like us, but were unfortunate enough to live under an autocrat and a dubious ideology which was hastily offloaded to the scrap bins of history whenever the people had had half-a-chance.

On a downbeat note, the book is concentrated on Ukraine and all the instances happened in Kiev, its capital city. The author claims that it was because Ukraine opened up its archives unlike some other former Russian republics. Many of the victims mentioned are women, Kuromiya justifying that women were least likely to be radicals! However, this seems to be an attempt to achieve sentimental overtones for the narrative. Though it may sound cruel, all chapters seem to be made out in the same mould and narrative often becomes monotonous. Any how, the book is a must read for us, who want to see how life was lived in Stalin’s Russia.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

The Age of Capital

Title: The Age of Capital 1848 - 1875

Author: Eric Hobsbawm

Publisher: Abacus 2008 (First published 1975)

ISBN: 978-0-349-10480-5

Pages: 360

Eric Hobsbawm is a Marxist historian, who taught at Birkbeck College, London and has authored many books on economic history. This title is a part of four books consisting of The Age of Revolution 1789-1848, The Age of Empire 1875-1914, and Age of Extremes 1914-1991. He is now 94. This book is an attempt to trace out the track followed by capitalism in the third quarter of 19^th century and comment on the economic and social edifice constructed by it in western Europe and United States. Glaring sternly down the pince-nez of Marxism, Hobsbawm treads majestically along the purported failures of capitalism and elucidate with a flourish how the bourgeois society which built them were bound to fail – according to the ‘sacred’ teachings of Karl Marx. The author has miserably failed to break free from the shackles of unquestioned subservience to ideology.

Beginning with the French revolution, Europe was in turmoil in the first half of 19^th century. Revolutions flared up and spread like wildfire to many countries in 1848, beginning as usual, in France. It spread to Germany, Prussia, Austria, Hungary, Italy and others. By a curious coincidence and not at all a related occurrence, the Communist Manifesto was published in the same year. Several regimes and monarchies were overturned, but after a while, the new rulers brought in by the revolution itself were alarmed at the path it was taking and wished to maintain the social order. New administrations soon collapsed, helped in no small measure by military manouvres by hostile rulers like the Tsar. Thus, the stage was set for explosion of capitalism. It grew, riding on the splurge in production of iron, cotton and construction of railways. Telegraph and public lighting came into being, along with discovery of petroleum. Railway tracks and telegraph cables crisscrossed the opposite ends of the Atlantic. Discovery of gold in California prompted the first economically propelled mass migration in history, even thousands of Chinese crossed the ocean until their number was capped by the racist Chinese Restriction Act of 1882. The world, for the first time became a connected, single entity. The period also witnessed crippling wars, the Crimean being the harshest. In the struggle of industrialized countries at the end of 1870s, the seeds of a general European war was sown, which bore fruit in 1914.

Nation-states and its attendant nationalism arose to become a great force to reckon with during this period. Ethnic and linguistic minorities faced the prospect of assimilation or inferiority. Development of primary schools assured the championing of language and patriotism through teaching the young. Democratic freedoms were extended to more and more people. Labour movements strengthened, owing to increased bargaining power assumed by the workers. Imperialism thrived, colonies spreading in Asia and Africa. India was practically wholly subjugated. English education imparted to natives ensured a corps of subaltern officials. The friction with the existing social order in India spilled over to the First War of Independence, though the author refers to it as the mutiny. Opposition to foreign domination continued in Egypt and China. The Taiping Rebellion (1850-66) assimilated lofty western ideals of equality, but the struggle petered out when the leaders couldn’t live up to its promises.

Some new nations obtained success very soon. U.S. grew into an international power due to industrial expansion of northern states and opening up of the Wild West. After Civil War (1861-65), the South also toed the same line. All was not well however, in the capitalist society – multimillionaire robber barons amassed huge wealth by fraudulent means, exemplifying the dangers of unbridled capitalism. Japan, which had a cloistered existence opened up to the world by the Meiji Restoration of 1868. It began a mad initiative of imitating the west, in all aspects of production, not to leave other factors like education, costumes and warfare. Its meteoric ascendance to prominence was rubbed it on European sensibilities when Russia fell like a pack of cards in the Russo-Japanese war of 1905. The humiliating defeat contributed to rise of revolutionary movements in Russia, which was an unlikely candidate for hosting a Marxist revolution, as it had no capitalism to write home about. Even Marx was confused whether to acknowledge Lenin’s victory as the legitimate establishment of his theories. He said, “may be”.

Slavery was made illegal by mid-century. British Navy began blockading the slave trade in right earnest, shooting up the prices of slaves. Employing slaves became economically unviable because of the cost factor. The void was filled by a stream of free labourers migrating from poor Asian countries, notably India and China as indentured labour, whose living and work standards not substantially different from slaves. Large groups of Indians settled in Malaya, South Africa, Guyana and Trinidad. Europeans, meanwhile, emigrated to U.S, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The Irish moved en masse to U.S. to escape the religious and national persecution at the hands of the British and also, the devastating famines. Urbanisation proceeded with swift pace. Number of cities having a population greater than 1 million burgeoned. Capitalist system flourished with cultural values like the peaceful family spreading easily into society.

Science really took of in this period. Physics was particularly enriched by contributions from several scientists. Chemistry began its first step towards commercial significance. Natural science got a shot in the arm in the form of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859. Opposition to Darwin’s controversial ideas buckled in the face of accumulating evidence in favour of it, from Lyell, Wallace and Mendel. However, in the arts, the course was towards the negative. Literature, especially the novel found increased expression, but other forms, like visual arts, painting, and sculpture declined in quality.

The book is an amazing testimony to the breadth of ideas and observation. The encyclopedic extent is evident when we find the other three titles in the series, which covers everything economic from 1789 to 1991. The diction is tough at times. It is my practice to estimate the worth of a dictionary by checking to see whether it contained the word ultramontane, which I first saw in Toynbee’s A Study of History. Hobsbawm is only the second author to use it. Incidentally, the word refers to the catholic doctrine of papal supremacy over the secular government in a state, even in matters not related to religion.

On the downside, there are plenty of points to show off. The book is out of date in content, irrelevant to the present century and not a faithful reproduction of what went on in the era of study. The book was first published at the height of cold war, in 1975. The ideological colouring renders it useless for unbiased readers wanting to know the true facts behind what happened in that remote period. Author’s blind adherence to Marxist principles puts an immense strain on the general reader to separate the rhetoric from truth. The phraseology is terse and tough. Several chapters, notably that on arts, are torturing the hapless reader. The author’s coloured interpretations present only one side of the argument and unwilling to cede even half praise to capitalism where they deserve it, like the abolition of slavery. Hobsbawm’s dependence on Marx is bordering on the ridiculous, as the name Karl Marx is mentioned no fewer than 81 times in a book having around 350 pages! The thinker edges in to the forefront, even when discussing topics totally unrelated to economic theory, like the spas in Europe or licentious women in urban societies. The term bourgeois is repeated countless times, trying to number them would be a herculean task. The book ends with a note of pessimism, as “Was there not economic growth, technical and scientific advance, improvement and peace? Would not the twentieth century be a more glorious, more successful version of the nineteenth? We now know that it would not be” (p.359). Most impartial readers would differ.

The book is not recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

Superpower?

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Title: Superpower? The Amazing Race Between China’s Hare and India’s Tortoise

Author: Raghav Bahl

Publisher: Allen Lane 2010 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-670-08463-0

Pages: 220

Raghav Bahl is the founder editor of Network 18 and is a prominent presence in visual media. He was one of the first to reap the benefits of India’s liberalization process, reaping hefty rewards by making the television channel to the numero uno position in India. Bahl’s knowledge of business practices actually taking place in India and China are enormous and his cutting edge analysis of ground conditions make a very good effect on the reader. Without resorting to tedious statistics, but not letting out facts, he has presented a heady mix for the reader. The book is a comparison of the post-liberalization processes which spearheaded China and India to prominent positions in the world economy. China had a heady start of 13 years, its forward march kicking off in 1978 when Mao died and Deng Xiao Ping assumed power. India was still reeling under the semi-autocratic rule of Indira Gandhi when at last P V Narasimha Rao put India into the right tracks in 1991. The author associates China to the hare in the fable and India to the tortoise. In the story, it is the tortoise which wins the race in the end, but only because the hare slept if off in the middle. But the Chinese hare is unlikely to repeat the fabled blunder and in spite of the patriotic optimism of Bahl, we are forced to conclude that the outcome of this race is a foregone conclusion.

After it hit the paths of progress, the Chinese hare raced on, paying no heed to popular opinion or public outcry, which were ruthlessly crushed as evidenced in Tiananmen Square in 1989. India continued tied up with bad governance and left-centre politics infiltrating political parties of every hew. After Lehman crisis in 2008, both countries came out unscathed but India rebounded with lesser discomfort as it was not as fully integrated with the U.S. economy as China had. China employs all means in its arsenal, including unethical ones to reign supreme in world trade, the artificially low-valued renminbi being one such issue. China rules by law, in India rule of law prevails. Chinese law is an instrument of state policy, and courts often decide on patriotic or nationalistic fervour. Courts are also subservient to Communist party leadership, the operating procedures laughable by free-world standards. Hardly any case is brought against the state and litigators are often arm twisted to withdraw proceedings if it goes against the interests of the party. Even this iota of opposition is now stifled in the wake of colour revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, where elected governments were overthrown by popular revolts. China tightened the judicial process, even appointing a policeman as the chief justice of the country.

Geo-political ambitions of both countries differ. China plans immense spheres of influence in Asia and Africa often by encircling India with hostile regimes. India’s cozying up to U.S. in civil nuclear treaty unsettled China to no ends, prompting them to throw spanners into the works. In reality, China views India with contempt, as a soft power which can be made to fall in line. According to its view, India is too weak economically to exert an influence it tries to wield in the region. The communist nation eyes African markets with lust, huge as it is, which is roughly equivalent to India, with 150 million elite consumers and 500 million aspiring ones.

A curious dichotomy exists between the two neighbours in demographic profiles. Though the world’s most populous country still, China is rapidly growing old due to severe restrictions in the number of children a family is allowed to have. The harsh one-child policy ruling from mid-1970s is forcibly in place. The program was a resounding success because of the punitive measures meted out to deviants, even denying them food rations. By 2050, dependency ratio (ratio of people below 15 and above 60 years to other people) may exceed 70% clearly bringing out the graying of population. Family planning was slow to take root, and was put back several years by the harsh drive during emergency era (1975-77) when overzealous officials bowing before Sanjay Gandhi forcibly sterilized ordinary people. As a result, population continued to boom for two more decades and India may well turn out to be the job exchange of the world if it can manage to provide health and education for its aspiring youth. Entrepreneurship is more evident in India, which always had a private sector however fettered under the license-quota-permit raj. After liberalization, Indian companies developed worldwide brands, with no public secor company being incorporated after 1991. The situation is drastically different in China, with state owned enterprises (SOEs) trying to gobble up their weak private competitors in collusion with an obliging judiciary. Even though the trends in food habits are similar in both countries, the educational, transportation and scientific infrastructure is widely superior to India’s. India has the world’s largest English-speaking ethnic community, but China possess its largest English-learning community.

Building infrastructure is one activity in which China is not comparable, not only to India, but even to developed countries. It spends more than half of its GDP in infrastructure projects, many of them having overcapacity. The government plans to drive economic progress with the overcapacity. Land acquisition is a headache for India, while it is smooth sailing for China, as all land is government property. It is simply not chained by the proprieties of democracy. Railways, in which India had a head start of 25 years, has swiftly developed into new scales that China Rail is a model even to Japan. Indian railways was unaffected by the reforms process, which also contributes to the sorry state of affairs.

Despite the fact that the book started with a rhetorical question of who will win in the fictitious race between the hare and tortoise, Bahl reformulates the puzzle as who will lose the race. India needs new leadership, bolder governance and modern policies. It is advantage China on velocity and momentum of the forward progress, but India is the institutional favourite. The book leaves no doubt in the minds of readers that China is going to win the race unless it is suddenly afflicted with a soviet-style desire to forcefully control other nations based on ideology or culture.

The book is easy to read, with easily digestible facts and statistics. The language is smooth and free flowing. The scion of visual media has succeeded in putting the point convincingly across. Insightful analysis and criticism of the institutional failures of India should serve as a lesson for politicians, bureaucrats and civil activists, not leaving out the society as a whole. The equivocal attitude displayed by the union government in allowing 100% FDI in retail recently is a clear vindication of Bahl, who has stressed the same ambivalence as the root cause of snail-like progress in India. The author’s immense experience in running a fledgling news channel is obvious in the clever choice of words and ideas.

There are a few negatives also. The early to middle parts of the book unnecessarily eulogizes mediocre success stories of India, particularly when the author sings in praise of ISRO for its Chandrayaan project. An organization which still has not possessed the knowhow to launch a geo-stationary satellite should droop their heads in shame in front of the Chinese organization which has created wonders like sending a man to space in its own vehicle and bringing him back alive, is a long call for India to emulate. We feel that Bahl has fallen prey to the narrow ideals of patriotism in some portions of the work. An irritating aspect is the tendency to equate India to a degenerate America like India following those practices which America employ, but in a less substantial way. Drinking coke and wearing jeans is described as the only saving grace for an India struggling to be on the forefront of world business.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Eureka! The Birth Of Science

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Title: Eureka! The Birth of Science

Author: Andrew Gregory

Publisher: Icon Books 2003 (First published: 2001)

ISBN: 1-84046-374-0

Pages: 171

Andrew Greogry is a reader of history of science in University College, London and has widely written on many facets of the development of science. This book seeks to outline the growth of science from rudimentary spouts in ancient Greece. Though by no means unique, Greek thought and philosophy built upon the origins first seen in Babylon and Egypt and was greatly enriched by the geniuses of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and numerous other great thinkers. The light of original thought was dimmed but not put out by the darkness of medieval ages, kept lit by Arab thinkers and handed over to Europe which was just waking up from a few centuries of slumber by the 13^th century. There are five major periods in ancient science – Babylonian (pre-1000 BCE), Pre-Socratic (600-400 BCE), Athenian (400-300 BCE), Hellenistic (300 BCE – 200 CE) and Roman (200-600 CE). The author takes a deeper look into the middle three, with cursory glances over the fifth.

Technology predated science. Every civilization, whether known or very primitive, had some form of technology, otherwise they would not have lasted even that much. It dealt with when or how a thing would happen. Science is different in the sense that it explains why a thing would happen. Extensive thought and logic goes behind enunciation of scientific principles. To differentiate a scientific theory from numerous alternatives, it must be different from mythology and should not resort to supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena. The Greeks were the first to propound ideas which stand up to this test. Of course, their theories won’t stand up to modern critical review, but they had one thing in common with modern concepts – both attempts a natural explanation of phenomena that had previously been attributed to the whimsical actions of gods. Anaximander’s theory that thunder and lightning is caused by the action of wind is a case in point. The Greeks were naturally advantaged to have no central religion to impede the path of intellect and no hierarchy of priests to rule over men. Unfortunately, their technology and science was not interlinked, due to a social reason. The Greek society employed a large number of slave labourers and labour-saving automation was not in the minds of free thinkers and slave owners!

When theories began to be shaped, thought turned more sophisticated. Empedocles of Acragas introduced the four elements of matter (earth, water, fire and air) which constituted various substances in differing ratios of constitution. Hippocrates of Cos, in his medical canon, established that all diseases have natural causes and nothing is caused by divine intervention. Geometry, which literally means measuring the earth developed well before Greeks, but it flourished as a science through the works of Euclid and Pythagoras. Plato and Aristotle contributed a lot to philosophy. Aristotle’s theories contained holism, organic world view and qualitative, rather than quantitative methodologies. It took nearly eighteen centuries for these ideas to be expunged out of science.

Astronomy took root rapidly in ancient Greece. Earth was regarded as the centre of the Universe. The retrograde motion of inner planets of the solar system greatly confused the astronomers who based their cosmological models on geocentrism. Eudoxus of Cnides proposed a concentric sphere model in which planets were allowed complex motions in the spheres to account for their retrograde motion. The model was refined by his pupil, Callippus of Cyzicus, by introducing more concentric spheres. A change in perspective, putting the sun at the centre would have greatly simplified the solution, but so entrenched was the weight of tradition that any such avenues were soon closed. Even with Callippus’ modifications there were differences with observation. Since planets revolved around the sun in elliptic orbits, rather than circular as thought by Greeks, the concentric sphere model was difficult to agree with observation. Ptolemy of Alexandria put forth another novel concept, called epicycles to account for the vagaries. Even though the model was flawed, it so agreed with observational data that it took 1500 years to unseat by Copernicus and Galileo. Even in the Greek world, isolated voices were protesting against established wisdom. Aristarchus of Samos theorized that the earth circles around the sun, but his arguments convinced none.

Galen was the most prominent medical practitioner of antiquity, bringing forth the humoural system of the body. He believed that four key humours keep the body healthy by a delicate balance among themselves. The humours were, blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, standing for air, water, fire and earth respectively of the Aristotelian elements. Ancient medicine was handicapped by social taboo of dissecting or vivifying human bodies. Galen relied more on Barbary apes for dissection than human beings, and the difference is evidenced by subtle variations in the actions of body muscles described by Galen to actual movements. The descriptional flaws of Galen on muscles of the human hand was clarified by Vesalius in 16^th century, who observed that Galen’s ideas corresponded correctly with simian hands. Errors which would surprise a modern man was also abundant in Galen’s works. He didn’t believe that it was the heart which is causing pulse in arteries.

Archimedes was a glowing tribute to Hellenistic science. He was a mathematician and engineer, though Gregory objects to inventions like water screw pump and solar ray concentrating device which are commonly attributed to him. His uttering forms the title of the book, but the incident, which might be apocryphal, would have been better to be illustrated in more detail. Archimedes deviced a clever way by hydrostatic method for determining adulteration in the golden crown of Hieron II. He was killed by a Roman soldier when he failed to answer the impatient Roman, as he was deep in thought. The darkness which filtered in after the collapse of Roman empire lasted until a millennium after. The spread of Christianity proved to be fatal to free thought and enquiry. All forms of knowledge were made subservient to the Church who allowed nothing but religious revelations. Unlike many Christian leaders, a great scholar and intellectual like St. Augustine said that, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem, the Academy to do with the Church, the heretic to do with the Christian?….We have no need for curiosity after Jesus Christ, and no need of investigation after the gospel. Firstly we believe this, that there is nothing else that we need to believe” (p.154). This essentially sums up the logic of the dark medieval era when religion ruled the world.

The book is very compact, gifted with a glossary and timeline. But that’s about the whole which can be said in its favour. The language is terse, and narration is completely uninteresting. The author has not even a nodding acquaintance with humour, in this book at least. There is no focus on the central theme, which is the origin of science. Apart from listing out a number of philosophers and their contributions which you’d anyway get from a handbook or encyclopedia, the author has not tried to weave a string of connecting logic through the factoids. Gregory’s undue praise for Aristotle is unfounded on actual facts. It was Aristotelian grip that science found so difficult to shake off, after centuries of darkness. Aristotle was vehemently opposed to experimentation which was counter to the scientific method.  He believed the heart to be the central organ and thought that the brain was for cooling the blood supply.

Andrew Gregory uses terms like A.D. and B.C for reckoning time, where CE and BCE would have been proper for a scientific work. After reading the book, the reader is confused whether Aristotle devised a four- or five-element model of the universe, as it is specified in both contexts in various parts of the book. The book is a drag on time and waste of effort.

The book is not recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

At Home

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Title: At Home – A Short History Of Private Life

Author: Bill Bryson

Publisher: Doubleday 2010 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-385-60827-5

Pages: 483

A great book, even though it provides a short history of nothing in particular. The width is so huge, but more than offset by the shallowness of depth. Bryson is a best selling author, his A Short History of Nearly Everything is very popular. In this title, Bryson delves into private homes and reflects on the historical, social, scientific and economic development of the factors which constitutes a house. His own home, a rectory built in 1851 provides the author an ample prototype for extrapolating the intellectual tidbits to every aspect of private life. Readers will be mindboggled by the sheer number of ideas briefly looked into, in the voluminous 483 pages of the good work. Not only the subject matter, but the timeline too extends to the early paleolithic. Each room in the rectory is taken out sequentially and in detail, to provide charming narratives which enthrall the reader.

Development of individual homes began with the invention of farming in the neolithic age, aroung 10,000 years ago. The hunter gatherers started enjoying settled lives. Edible plants were cultivated, but the range is surprisingly low. Out of a total of 30,000 edible plants thought to exist in the world, just 11 – corn, rice, wheat, potato, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye and oats – account for 93% of what humans eat. Settled life initiated an exacting toll on the ancients, in the way of restricted diet and intake of nutrition. It is said that in the Middle East, where farming began, average height of people came down by 6 inches, a case of malnutrition. Infectious diseases spread due to close living quarters of the humans and animals they domesticated. The most surprising domestication of food was in Meso America where maize, the staple local food, is now not even seen in its wild state – so complete was the genetic engineering. Even the case with potato is amazing, the ingenious way in which toxic glycoalkaloids are removed from it.

‘Hall’ is a concept well known to people anywhere in the world, even in non-English speaking regions. The term came into being through the invasions of Anglo-Saxon tribesmen into England. These were central structures in which a hearth is set in the middle. The family, along with their retainers, slaves and attendants practically lived in the single room. The dining table was a board supported on trestles or even the knees of eaters. Eventually, the term ‘boarding’ came to signify the presence of food and it survives to this day. As construction sprawled, halls were downgraded to a mere entrance lobby with a staircase.

A delightful feature of the book is the pleasant detours the author takes from the main thread. In the chapter on kitchens, he peeps into the food and its preservation industry. Till 1840s, food (particularly meat and milk) were consumed near the production sites. There was no available method to preserve it. In 1844, ice from Lake Wenham in U.S. appeared in Britain in insulated ships. Rail cars, refrigerated with this ice revolutionized food transportation around the globe. Food could be grown anywhere and consumed anywhere. The led to severe crisis in Europe in general and in some places in America, where farmers were greatly impoverished in the competition with cheap food sourced from a plentiful place made possible then. Potato, an original inhabitant of Peru, was introduced in Europe after the discovery of the New World, and quickly took root to become the staple food of some countries like Ireland. The infamous potato blight, which scourged the nation in 1845-46 killed 1.5 million people.

19^th century was the age of the rich, with their homes full of servants. One-third of London women were servants and another third were prostitutes. Such were the limited choices available to women in that era. Work exceeded 12 hours on all days. The concept of a weekly offday or a holiday had not spread its root. The work experience was humiliating in the extreme for the hapless servants and handbooks were regularly published on how to discipline erring servants. Sometimes, they even had to change their names as the family found it difficult to call their new coachman by any name other than the one they had become familiarized with their old servant, who might have just died. The rich couldn’t be bothered to remember the names of people who served them. America had few servants, but more than compensated for it in the vast array of slaves.

The 19^th century aristocrats, however rich they might have been, couldn’t enjoy some conveniences even the most poor in today’s society can afford. Lighting was very poor in all homes. Even the light we discern in a present-day refrigerator is more than the total light many large homes employed. Candles made of tallow or beeswax were used but very expensive. Oil lamps used spermacetti from sperm whales, which went on the brink of extinction due to indiscriminate hunting. In 1846, kerosene was first extracted from coal tar and was found to be a good lighting agent. Rock oil (crude oil was called thus when it was discovered) became available in 1859, making extraction of kerosene cheaper and more reliable. Highly volatile liquids which were separated along with kerosene were simply drained off, as they had no useful purpose. After Hermann Sprengel invented the mercury pump, it became easy to create high vacuum in an enclosed glass tube, ushering in the era of incandescent, electric bulbs. After an epic struggle for finding a material suitable for the filament, Edison patented the invention. Incandescent bulbs were called ‘blazing miracles’ by the public.

The book houses a good commentary on the history of architecture and furniture working in England which involved names like Chippendale. A good diversion is availed to explain the intricacies of spice trade while dealing with the origin of salt and pepper condiments in dining tables. A quantum leap occurred after Columbus discovered America. The exchange between the old and new worlds is known as Columbian Exchange, in which potato, tomato, sunflower, peanuts, cashew, pineapple, papaya, guava, vanilla and chocolate sailed east. The Americans were rather poor in livestock, as their bounty was limited to only 5 domesicated breeds, namely, turkey, duck, dog, bee and cochinear insect.

Iron entered the world stage as a material of construction in the 19^th century. Its shortcomings were also apparent right from the beginning. Buildings and bridges made of cast or wrought iron regularly collapsed. In 1857, Henry Bessemer invented the steel making process which still continues with only minor modifications. Gardening also caught on people’s attention as several municipal parks were thrown open to the public which ameliorated the pains of a congested living. The poor conditions at home also led to spread of communicable diseases, smallpox and cholera among them. The story of the mysterious disease called ‘milk sick’ terrifies us even today. People who drank milk which didn’t taste any different grew delirious and swiftly died. It was late in the century that the cause was found to be a plant called white snakeroot upon which the cows grazed. The plant was harmless to cows, but made their milk toxic.

It provides amusing reading about the dressing material and habits of our predecessors. Linen, hemp, wool and silk were the material for dressing, with silk worth its weight in gold due to rarity as the Chinese jealously guarded the secrets of its manufacture, until an Englishman took it out of them. The miracle came in the form of cotton from India, which transformed England in the 18^th century. Spinning of cotton fibre and weaving it into cloth was problematic for the early practitioners. Their attempts to solve the problems resulted in the Industrial Revolution. John Kay invented the Flying Shuttle in 1733, for weaving, James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny in 1764 for spinning and Edmund Cartwright brought forth the power loom in 1785. Britain never looked back.

Readers would find the book a pleasurable experience. It covers so wide a range that there is something which appeals to any class of readers. It explains the origins of several words which are so common in parlance that we don’t stop to reflect upon where or how it came into being. Words like boarding, in the lime light, curfew, bigwig are only a few among the dozens you would find in the book. What separates the work from others and keeps it in a high pedestal is the survey of the life of common people, which histories so painfully lack. Almost in every chapter we find the origin of a household item and how it affected the lives of the poor people. Bryson doesn’t mince words when describing the follies and whims of the rich. His sharp humour is visible in its fullest extreme. The book shows how the world became so interconnected from the 16^th century onwards – some form of globalization, as pointed out in Thomas L Friedman’s works – that events happening in a remote corner of an upstart economy began to affect even the wealthy in established nations of Europe. Hilaire Belloc’s doggerel on the dangers of electricity (p.144), when it slowly found usage in the 19^th century should really be a talisman for safety conscious engineers. It runs like,

Some random touch – a hand’s imprudent slip –

The Terminals – flash – a sound like ‘Zip!’

A smell of burning fills the startled Air –

The Electrician is no longer there!

One and only accusation which may be levelled against the book is that the focus is firmly on Europe (specifically Britain) and America alone. The outside world comes only in glimpses and that too in not so redeeming light. We read about China as the country which guarded its silk weaving techniques, how it was victimized by Britains lust for tea and how native Americans were arm twisted out of existence.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star