Bose in Nazi Germany

Title: Bose in Nazi Germany

Author: Romain Hayes

Publisher:  Random House India, 2011 (First)

ISBN: 978-81-8400-184-6

Pages: 197

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose is an enigmatic figure in Indian freedom struggle. His strong personal traits, firm beliefs and inimitable course of action soon alienated him from other Congress leaders who flocked under the wings of Gandhiji. Bose’s charisma rose skyward when he escaped from India, reached Germany during the Second World War and worked steadfastly to assure the nation’s freedom from British imperialist yoke. It was not his fault that the tide of the war turned against his allies. Though his mission ended in abject failure, many Indians still revere him as a superman with semi-mythical accoutrement. They even refuse to believe the fact that he died in a plane crash en route to Tokyo through war ravaged territory. This book, claimed to be the first account of Bose’s activities in Hitler’s Germany describes the two years from April 1941 to April 1943 when Bose stayed in Axis-controlled Europe. It is narrated by Romain Hayes, who is a historian who has specialized on German foreign policy during the Second World War. He is presently working on political and military interactions between Indian nationalists and the Japanese during the war. So we can safely expect a sequel to this good work.

Subhas Chandra Bose has a love-hate relationship with other Congress leaders, including Gandhiji. Though the latter helped him ascend the presidency of the party in 1938, within just one year found him to be a thorn in the flesh. Bose, however fought Gandhi’s candidate and won in the election held in 1939, but was soon to discover that non-cooperation was a Gandhian weapon not reserved for the British alone. Gandhi’s hostile acts forced him to resign the post and go back to Calcutta. While incarcerated at his own home there, he escaped and reached Berlin through Moscow and Kabul on fake Italian diplomatic credentials in April 1941. The early victories scored by Germany made him think that they would turn out to be the eventual winner. His plan was to persuade them to attack India through Afghanistan with the help of 50,000 German troops. Once the attack began, he hoped the Indian army would defect to their side. Also, plans were afoot to turn the lawless Afghan tribals headed by the Fakir of Ipi against the British. All these had a prerequisite in Germany recognising India’s independent status through a declaration, which, to Bose’s surprise, the Germans were unwilling to offer. Hitler was not prepared to alienate the British even at that point and was planning to make peace with them after he had finished with Soviet Union. The fact was that the Germans had planned to make Bose a pawn in their own tactical games, rather than the other way round. He was disgusted at the undue delay in getting a declaration and his failure, even to meet Hitler in person at that stage. Bose was a leftist, with known sympathies to the Soviet Union. When Germany invaded them, on June 22, 1941 as Operation Barbarossa, he was depressed. Initial German victories soon persuaded him to stay with the leaders, but without getting any political mileage.

When the Japanese plunged into the war on Dec 7, 1941, by attacking Pearl Harbour, Bose had to accommodate them also in his war plans. Stunning initial Japanese success in South East Asia and the wresting of British naval bases at Singapore imparted an aura of invincibility to them. They soon overran Burma and bombed the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It seemed only a matter of time before they pounced on India. Bose met Japanese envoys in Berlin and was surprised to hear that they had already formed an Indian National Army (INA) out of captured prisoners-of-war in southeast Asia to fight alongside them. This detail, if it is historically correct, departs diametrically against the conventional wisdom in India where INA was thought and taught to be the brainchild of Bose. Impending Japanese success prompted him to switch sides once again by jumping on to the Asian side.

In April 1943, Bose was taken on a German submarine and secretly transferred to a Japanese one in the middle of Indian ocean. He reached Sumatra and flew to Tokyo to meet the dignitaries. A provisional free Indian government was established in Singapore in Oct 1943, in which he assumed the positions of Head of State, Prime Minister, Minister of War and Minister of Foreign Affairs. For increased legitimacy, Japan transferred the islands of Andaman and Nicobar to it. However, the tide had already turned against Axis powers by then. In March 1944, Japanese and INA troops launched a joint offensive against India from Burma, but was soon decimated. Hitler ridiculed their efforts claiming that they had ‘dispersed like a flock of sheep’. Bose remained defiant, but died in a plane crash during the closing days of the war.

The book assumes significance in bringing out the true nature of relationships between the prominent actors in the game. Present-day admirers of Bose are hardpressed to account for his aligning with a dictatorial and racist regime and even his own fascist and dictatorial leanings. Bose was an admirer of Mussolini who seemed to have reciprocated the feelings. Netaji was also fond of many fascist characteristics like supremacy of the state, planned industrialization, one-party rule and the suppression of opposition, which he desired to replicate in India. “Nothing less than a dictator is needed to put our social customs right”, he wrote privately to a friend (p.14). On the interesting aspect of Hitler’s true feelings towards India, this book is an eye opener. Since he captured office in 1933 till the onset of war, Hitler sought to please Britain as a quid pro quo for accepting German superiority in Europe while he was willing to recognise British dominance in overseas colonies. The Fuhrer’s real concerns about India was amply made clear when former Indian viceroy, Lord Irwin visited him prior to the war. Hitler said to him, “All you have to do is to shoot Gandhi. If necessary, shoot more leaders of Congress. You’ll be surprised how quickly the trouble will die down.” It is said that Lord Irwin stared at him first in bewilderment, then in contempt! Hitler is also known to have remarked that Indian independence movement was a rebellion of the inferior Hindu race against the valorous Anglo-Nordic which only had the right to dominate the world (p.4).

The book also force us to observe the double standards inherent in Bose’s wartime activities. In 1934, when he was touring Europe, he wrote ‘The Indian Struggle’, in which he stressed the need for closer relationships between Fascist-Nazi regimes and Congress. However, when he was to assume presidency of Congress in 1938 with Gandhi’s help, he changed track during a visit to Britain. He then said that “my political ideas have developed further since I wrote my book three years ago”. However, just two years later he again changed sides and stood with the winning side. His pro-left attitude didn’t prevent him from continue to ride along the Nazis when they treacherously turned against Soviet Union. The adage, ‘The end justifies the means’ is as true of him as it is to some politicians today. Even the oath taken by Bose’s recruited Indian soldiers in Konigsberg, Germany was Hitlerian. It ran thus, “I swear by God this holy oath, that I will obey the leader of the German state and people, Adolf Hitler, Commander of the German Armed Forces, in the fight for the freedom of India, in which fight the leader is Subhas Chandra Bose, and that as a brave soldier, I am willing to lay down my life for this oath” (p.136).

The book, though appearing to be impartial exhibits a subtle tilt towards Britian and her allies. Objectivity is however given due prominence that the reader is often compelled to believe that the events had been played out exactly as the author has described. The singularly compact nature of the window of history the book purports to address makes the narrative somewhat a chapter in a long stream of events. Perhaps Bose’s clandestine operations along side the Japanese might also find its due place in future editions. Anyway, the author is busy on it. The book also exhibits some of the characteristics of the product of academia, like a thesis paper for doctoral research. However, this is only conjecture. The work is easy to read and lucent to the extreme. You could even figure out what went inside Bose’s mind!

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Richter's Scale

Title: Richter’s Scale – Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man

Author: Susan Elizabeth Hough

Publisher:  Princeton University Press, 2007 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-691-12807-8

Pages: 312

Charles Francis Richter possesses the enviable distinction of being one of the best known scientists in any branch of science. Whenever an earthquake occurs anywhere in the world, the media faithfully reproduce the magnitude of the quake in the scale eponymous to him. Even lay people won’t rest contentedly until they knew the magnitude of the temblor. Though very few understands the intricacies of the scale, and even fewer know that the scale is not a physical device, there is one fact which is understood by all – the more you go up the scale, the consequent catastrophic damage would also go up exponentially. The author who is herself is a seismologist at the US Geological Survey, California has served as an editor and contributor to many scientific publications and is the author of many books. Since she worked in the same institution as Richter, the technical as well as personal correctness of the narrative may never be doubted.

Though being the lone well known seismologist in the world – a household name, to be precise – Richter rose from humble surroundings. Born in 1900 as the second child of parents who divorced twice among themselves, he had an unhappy childhood and the familial problems forced him to receive psychiatric help at the age of 20. However, he recovered from the problems and continued studies, finally obtaining a PhD in Physics from Caltech, with specialisation in quantum mechanics. Right at the same time, a seismological lab was being set up there in 1927, which needed a research assistant with a physics background. Richter joined the institute as the rest, as they say, is history. The U.S. witnessed a lot of earthquakes in the 19^th century, but it soon became apparent that California, the Golden State, was sitting on a geologically active area. Devastating earthquakes in 1868 and 1906 opened the eyes of administrators who were reluctant to put a halt to the pouring in of investment to the state. The 1906 quake magnified the fissure on the surface called San Andreas Fault, where the North American plate rubs against Pacific plate. But in Richter’s time, plate tectonics had not been developed.

Attempts to measure the intensity of quakes began a long time ago. The Rossi-Forel scale developed around 1880 was one such scheme. It was Richter who proposed a scale for measuring the magnitude of earthquakes through a 1935 paper. Though named after him by the media, the development of the scale was the combined product of Richter and several of his worthy colleagues, like Beno Gutenberg who was regarded as the most accomplished seismologist of the time. The scale is logarithmic, which was said to be as suggested by Gutenberg. However, Richter didn’t tell otherwise when the media made the development his brainchild. The scale has no upper limit, but we are yet to witness a world shattering magnitude 10 quake. The greatest quakes the world had witnessed since 1900 was Chile 1960 (mag 9.5), Alaska 1964 (9.2) and Indian ocean 2004 (9.1). Each quake produces energy which is 30 times more than a quake with 1 less than it on the Richter scale. Also, the number of quakes increase by a factor of 10 for lower magnitudes. So, number of magnitude 4 quakes will be ten times more than magnitude 5 quakes. New measurement parameters unavailable to Richter have helped seismologists to revise the scale to moment-magnitude scale which reflects the quake’s power more faithfully.

The book details more on Richter, the man and his emotions and escapades than on the work for which the world remember him even today. Hough’s lengthy chapters on the personal relationships of the scientist makes for uneasy reading, especially so when she quotes from his personal papers donated to the archives posthumously. Richter says, “My picture of human relationships has never been restricted to those involving only two people; I have seen too many exceptions”. Honest sentiments, but hardly admirable! However, the author ends the chapter with a snippet of timeless wisdom, “It is fair to say that complicated people as a rule have complicated relationships and Richter was about as complicated as they come”. One who took the book for the quake content will be disappointed at the protracted personal narrative.

In the end, when one closes the book for the last time, the feeling he gets is this: Richter obtained fame disproportionate to what he deserved. He freely acquired inputs from several peers, but was careless to acknowledge the debt. However, the author takes great pains to drive home the point that Richter was a good educator, who cosied up to the media when the occasion arose and spoke in a language no ordinary scientist could manage. Were it not for the magnitude scale, his fame among seismological circles would still have been secure, as the author of the great 1958 textbook, ‘Elementary Seismology’ which find usage even today, which in itself is a remarkable achievement in the scientific field where great strides have been made in the intervening period. Also, Richter was such an analyst that he understood answers for the questions that were not even formulated by his contemporaries. After retiring from Caltech in 1970, he continued work as a consultant for several years, until his death in 1985 from natural causes.

The book’s greatest advantage is that it was written by a seismologist who shared the same institution as Richter. She shares Richter’s conviction that scientific facts should be conveyed to the general public in parlance easily digestible to them. However, the author has diluted it very much that the murky result do not do justice to the expectations of readers, who are intrigued by the myteries mother earth hold in her bosom. The book includes a good number of photographs, at least some of them the author could have did without. Moreover, it clearly addresses the myth that animals can sense impending quakes. Hough says, “The idea that animals can sense impending earthquakes remains a persistent myth among the public. After any large earthquake, some people are always convinced that their dog, cat, or rose-crested cockatoo knew the temblor was coming. The problem is that on any given day, a certain percentage of cats act bizarrely for no apparent reason, because that’s what cats do. When an earthquake strikes, anecdotal accounts of prescient animals invariably arise. Animals can also sense an initial P-wave that escapes the attention of human observers, and therefore sometimes react a few seconds before the stronger S-wave arrives” (p.258). The work also includes many poems penned by the great scientist as he was very fond of writing poems which are soul-baring in nature.

The work is marred by numerous printing errors and carelessness in editing. Some of the errors are shocking, as it comes from a prominent university press! Such oversights mars the integrity of the book. Richter’s name itself is erroneously printed as ‘Ritcher’ in the captions of some photographs may be ignored, but the date of Indian ocean tsunami printed on page 130 is Dec 26, 2005, is a grave error. The year is in fact, 2004. Another drawback of the work has to be traced back to the author herself. As mentioned earlier, she has delved too deep into Richter the man instead of Richter the scientist, thus diminishing its stature as a work of science.

It would be worthwhile to conclude this review with a memorable poem written by Richter as he just turned seventy.

In Conclusion (1970)

No, I am not ungrateful.

Some living was quite good, and some was not.

Why quarrel with the general human lot?

Not too much has been hateful.

Fear there has been, dark fear

Amid the whirl-wind winds of fear and hate;

Small wonder that I never grew up straight.

Enough; I have survived, I’m here.

Some envy me, but those

Can never know how meager is my part

Of what they take for granted in the heart-

Far less than they suppose

Quietly I descend

These last long stairs, not hesitating much,

Nor fearing that expected gentle touch

That is to bring the end.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Medical Apartheid

Title: Medical Apartheid – The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

Author: Harriet A Washington

Publisher:  Anchor Books, 2008 (First published 2006)

ISBN: 978-0-7679-1547-2

Pages: 405

Modern medicine has rescued more people from certain death than any other benefactor, be it factual or fictitious. Several maladies which plagued humanity from prehistoric times, like smallpox, leprosy, tuberculosis and others have been eradicated for most practical purposes with the help of wonder drugs brought out by the fruits reaped of the efforts of researchers and pharmaceutical companies. However, for any new drug to hit stores, it need to be tested to ascertain its effectiveness and to evaluate it for the harmful side effects it may generate. Medical testing and experimentation is essential before releasing the drug for public consumption. Those subjects which undergo such testing invariably run the risk of crippling physiological conditions that may arise from unintended consequences of taking the experimental medicine. Naturally, most people would object to submit themselves to studies, and researchers would be forced to find less privileged subjects to undergo their trials. Harriet A Washington, who is a fellow in ethics at Harvard Medical School and is a prominent research scholar in related fields presents the scary story of how black Americans have been subjected to frequent and often damaging experiments without obtaining their consent first.

Slavery was an institution which demoralized the slave as the master, yet continued till 1865 in the U.S. Denied of personal freedom, the black slaves were forced to toil in farms and plantations of rich, white owners in the South. Physicians played a significant part in propagating slavery as they physically inspected before they were bought. Such examinations were often indecent and humiliating as the physicians made no distinction of sex. Racist theories like the blacks had inherent immunity against tropical diseases made them exposed to pathogens commonly found in open spaces. The treatment given to ill slaves were inadequate and only such as to keep him alive so that the master’s money spent in purchasing him was not wasted. Ever since insurance companies started covering the lives of slaves, the medication became more precarious. If it was cheaper for the master to let the slave die as he would then receive the insurance money, physicians colluded with them to ensure a quick demise.

Conducting unproven, hazardous medical experiments on blacks was another occupational hazard for slaves. Not only therapeutic experiments which sought to test the efficacy of specific drugs, even sadistic procedures were also employed. James Marion Sims, the physician considered to be the ‘father of American gynaecology’ and the ‘great benefactor of women’, sharpened his skills by performing surgeries on unfortunate black women who were not anesthetized and subjected to brutal treatment without any vestige of ‘informed consent’ which makes the heart and soul of medical trials today. Even outside medical research, the black human body continued to attract researchers. A pygmy man was brought from Congo and displayed in the New York Zoo in 1905 in a cage which housed a gorilla and orang utan. Visitors came in droves to see him, howling, jeering and yelling at him. He at last attacked some of them, at which point the zoo ejected him. He continued education thereafter and found work, but later committed suicide when it became clear that he couldn’t save enough for the passage back home to Africa.

By mid-19^th century, medical education shifted from isolated centres of healing to attached hospitals. Teaching clinics, as they were called, needed larger and larger numbers of cadavers for the burgeoning student base. However, dissection on human bodies was socially frowned upon. Criminals committing gravest crimes were sentenced for execution and dissection! As the demand grew, medical schools resorted to stealing bodies from graveyards. Here too, blacks were specifically targeted as their neighbourhoods were poor and cemeteries unguarded at night. Diseases were also supposed to be racial in origin. Pellagra, a deficiency disease caused by shortage of the aminoacid niacin in corn frequently afflicted the slaves as they could afford only such food that was available to them. Economic downturn around 1906 forced whites also to eat less nutritious diet and pellagra appeared among them too, convincing racial superiority theorists about the fallacy of their ideas.

The most gruesome case of apartheid is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, conducted from 1932-1972 in which 400 black syphilitics were given vitamin tablets and aspirin to convince them that they were receiving treatment when in fact the study was instituted solely to trace the progress of the deadly disease. The physicians were careful that the patients were not given treatment which available 11 years into the onset of the study, in 1943, when penicillin was invented as an antibiotic to fight the bacterium that caused syphilis. The study was dropped in 1972 after public outrage at the discriminatory and unethical manner in which it was conducted forced the government to do so.

Drug trials are conducted in three phases, Phase 1 for testing whether the drug is safe, Phase 2 for testing its effectiveness and Phase 3 which compares the results of treatment with the new drug against standard available therapy. Phase 1 is naturally the most dangerous and requires extensive followup checks. Prison inmates are thought to be ideal for this and they were widely used for medical trials in many countries. This fact also proved to be against blacks as they are overly represented in American prisons. One such experiment was the heating of blood to remove cancerous cells. Volunteers’ blood was removed via venous and cervical tubes, heated and returned at a temperature of 108.5 F, at a time when even a person taken to a hospital with 105 F is considered an emergency case.

Genome-based clinical trials pose a double edged sword. While it has undoubtedly secured the release of several blacks from prisons based on DNA fingerprinting, genetic factors which contribute to diseases have been poorly understood. Though sickle-cell anemia is known to afflict a portion of whites too, it is still hailed as a black disease, adding stigma to mental duress. Also, therapeutic research going into eradication of the disease is very meagre when compared to cystic fibrosis, which affects whites more. Even medicines tested on blacks are out of their reach when they come out as the final product. Eflornithine, a drug developed by Avantis was found to be very effective against sleeping sickness, commonly found in sub-Saharan Africa but was marketed as Vaniqa, for the removal of facial hair from women. The company found it more profitable as the white women could afford $50 a month for a cosmetic while the blacks could not manage the same amount to save their own lives.

Washington ends the discussion with a pragmatic note to blacks not to let the shadows of the past darken their future. Abuse of African Americans are rare today and those people should come forward now to participate in medical trials which may provide genuine cure to humanity. She also lists several suggestions which should be incorporated in any ethical medical research. They are, 1) repair the system of Institutional Review Boards (IRB), 2) stop the erosion of consent, 3) institute a coordinated system of mandatory subject education and 4) embrace single standard of research ethics across all countries.

Washington’s book, though appealing, is hampered by the fact that she is often biased with a trait that finds fault even where there is none. Her criticism of the medical establishment oversteps the boundary between objective analysis and scaremongering. An example which can be made out is her opposition to birth control initiatives undertaken among black women. Such measures would naturally targeted more on the economically weaker sections in any country, which happened to blacks in America as they had the highest birth rates though the factors leading to it were purely economical and not racial. But the author imagines this to be a purported move to eliminate blacks altogether from the country as advocated by some right-wing groups whose ideas often shared a fine line with lunacy. The book is also somewhat bulky. Washington could definitely have conveyed the same ideas in the same detail without inflicting so much damage on the environment.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Candy Machine

Title: The Candy Machine – How Cocaine Took Over The World

Author: Tom Feiling

Publisher: Penguin 2009 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-141-03446-1

Pages: 283

Tom Feiling is a television producer-turned-social worker who initially struggled to make documentaries. He visited Colombia to start a hotel business but soon returned to London. His social group defends trade union rights of Colombians. This is his first book dedicated to detail how cocaine rose as a potential psychedelic drug extracted from seemingly innocuous leaves of the coca plant. He travelled the trade routes from Colombia to the U.S., Jamaica and Mexico. He traces cocain’s progress from legal drug to a luxury product to mass global commodity and attempts to show how America’s anti-drug crusade is actually increasing its demand.

Cocaine is the concentrated chemical extracted from coca leaves growing natively in South America. The conquistadores found the indigenous population chewing to relieve hunger, exhaustion and boredom and effectively used it to employ them in forced labour in mines, paying them nothing but coca leaves. The leaf contains B-vitamins and more iron and calcium than any other food crop indigenous to high Andes. It relaxes the bronchial air passages in the lungs, which make it easier to breathe at high altitudes where oxygen is scarce. About 0.5 per cent of the chemical content of coca leaves is cocaine. A person chewing 30g of leaves in a day get the equivalent of 150 mg, an average-sized line of cocaine. Chewing continued till around 1950s when it was outlawed.

Cocaine was artificially extracted from leaves in 1859 in its purest form for the first time. Coca was not a menace in the 19^th century, when several foodstuffs were eagerly gulped by the public containing traces of it. Coca Cola contained it until it was removed from their secret 7X formula in 1914 pursuant to the first drug act passed in the U.S. The law became harsher and harsher as time went, but it couldn’t swell the tide in the numbers of drug dealers and users. The convenient fact that Blacks and Hispanics outnumbered other classes in drug trade steeled the resolve of White, Conservative politicians to strike harder at the problem. Even with convictions and incarceration increasing several times, the basic problem remains unresolved.

U.S. is the world’s largest consumer of illegal cocaine, much of it cultivated in Colombia, aided and abetted by that country’s unique combination of lawlessness, crime syndicates, left-wing guerillas and all-round poverty. Feiling produces a fine narrative of what is happening in Colombia and the routes it takes through Mexico and Jamaica to its final destinations in America and Europe. In an apparently lawless state where the strong goes on flouting laws with private armies and rebels fighting against the government. FARC, a prominent left-wing militant group controls the drugs trade in order to use the money to procure arms and manpower. The country’s politicians are hands in glove with traffickers. Street violence has peaked, the gangs even challenging law enforcement agencies. Extradition of traffickers to U.S. to stand trial and meet punishment there has not dented the clout those drug barons manage to wield among the local public.

The harshest laws against distribution and use of drugs in the democratic world can be found in the U.S. Punishment is severe, with federal government increasing its budget to intercept the supply side of cocaine. Efforts to control the demand side, in terms of providing medical attention to compulsive drug users are not picking up momentum. Author advocates decriminalization and legalization of cocaine for personal use. Such a regime offers transparency, control and reduction in street crime among rival dealers and gangs. The 50-times profit margin in the sale of cocaine is what is driving the traffickers to resort to violence to sell the drug. There are two types of users at present – recreational and problematic. The former use the drug occasionally and may use it more frequently if it is legalized. But the habit is under the control of individuals who decides what is best for them. Therapy is required for the latter class, which can be more easily administered in a legal setup where the needed individuals can be more openly identified. Powerful vested interests and the blind appeal of populism prevent politicians taking this path.

The book is convincingly written with first-hand experience asserting itself in descriptions of how drug cartels operate in Latin America. He has widely travelled in the region and conducted interviews with people from both sides of the divide. Feiling’s free approach to the problem wraps it up in a new package on which both law enforcers and drug dealers find equal mention, whose perspectives honoured in a balanced way. He goes to the root of the problem in Colombia which is making the immediate solution difficult. Such sharp insights are equally matched by caustic remarks about the costly, but ineffective-in-the-end solutions attempted by enforcement agencies in U.S. and U.K. He lauds Netherlands, which has at last realized the futility of harsh suppression and is turning towards gradual legalization.

Trivialization of third-world polities like Colombia is a characteristic which should not have been present in a book such as this. Whatever little the Latin Americans do in the economically and politically strained circumstances are outright deemed ineffectual. Alvaro Uribe Velez, the Colombian president who aligned strongly with the Americans in their war against drugs is projected to be without legitimacy as he says, “In 2006, Velez was re-elected to the presidency with 53 per cent of the popular vote (notwithstanding the fact that only 54 per cent of the electorate felt inspired to vote at all)” (p.195-6). Perhaps Feiling would be kind enough to count the percentage of votes polled in British and American elections? The author’s strong leaning to the Left of the political spectrum is troubling and makes the passages biased. Also, his vehement opposition to all forms of drug-enforcement laws are defeatist in style.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

The Elephant, The Tiger and the Cellphone

Title: The Elephant, The Tiger and the Cellphone – Reflections on India in the Twnety-first Century

Author: Shashi Tharoor

Publisher:  Penguin-Viking, 2007 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-67008-145-5

Pages: 387

A scion of international politics who almost made it to the Secretary-Generalship of the U.N, and a charismatic politician who redefined politics the way we practised it since independence, Tharoor is an Indian at heart and rejoices at the unity in widespread contradictions – that is, India. Though he spent most of his career overseas, he opened his heart and mind to the vibrations emanating from the motherland and formed well developed ideas about how the country made its precarious crawl to Indira-style socialism and began to run thereafter, ever since P V Narasimha Rao ushered in the winds of change. As the title amply illustrates, India was a lumbering elephant in the first four decades of her independence. The gait was unwieldy, decisions painfully slow to make and the actions forever delayed in materializing. Liberalization exposed the true potential of Indian industry and trade, changing the metaphor to the tiger. But the transformation was not complete – it still has tiger’s stripes on the elephant’s body which still need a long time to fully transform as a tiger. The cellphone symbolizes India’s success story like no other. From waiting lists which would have taken years for the public to get a basic phone, the cellphone has revolutionized communication to plenitude.

The book is divided into five sections and 76 articles which originally came out in op-eds and columns of the country’s newspapers. Naturally, repetitions are to be expected and the reader finds them frequently. The sections cover a wide area of an author’s experience, like the transformation of India, Ideas of Indianness, India at work and play, Indians who helped make my India and Experiences of India. This is not a survey of Indian politics or history nor reportage. It reflects the world view of the English-speaking, educated professional and entrepreneurial classes who are driving change and prosperity in India, who still manages to live in several centuries at the same time.

Tharoor turns critical only when he encounters the blunder which passed for planned economy in pre-liberalized India. The book is also an indictment on the centrally planned notions prevailed then. Communication was woefully inadequate with 8 million customers and 20 million in the waiting list. C M Stephen, the then communications minister in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet, once replied to a question on unreliability of telephone lines in Parliament that the telephone is a luxury and anyone dissatisfied with the state monopoly service can return the sets! How the country has changed thereafter.

What Tharoor repeats again and again is the eclectic and assimilative nature of Indian culture which proved to be the meeting place of all religions known to mankind. Just like America is referred to as a great ‘melting pot’, India may be called a great thali, where the different ingredients do not actually mix, but provide delicious taste to the offering. Such an inimitable mix of ideas and opinions is possible only in a true democracy which provides every opportunity for the marginalized to express themselves. The author specifically points to the political scenario which emerged soon after the 2004 General Elections. A Hindu-nationalist party was voted out in a country of 80% Hindus, a Sikh (Manmohan Singh) was sworn in prime minister by its Muslim President (A P J Abdul Kalam) upon the recommendation by a Roman Catholic leader (Sonia Gandhi) of the major winning party. Nowhere in the world can such a spectacle take place.

Tharoor always love to portray himself on the politically correct side of a question. One wonders whether his true feelings are expressed in the book. It does not seem to be what he actually thinks, but what he should think. A few hundreds of pages are devoted to display the moral highstand which is repetitive and lacks sincerety. Most articles are ideally suited for quoting in school essays and nothing else. It lack depth and resort to exaggeration of even mild achievements to skyhigh praise. The comparison of Infosys to Microsoft is a case in point.

Tharoor includes a collection of biographies and reminiscences as a section. Prominent personalities in the Indian social life, like the Mahatma, Nehru and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad are included without the slightest concern for relevance or criticism. Except for an objective review of Indira Gandhi’s life, all others pander to the political objectives of the author. The life story of Mariam Thresia, a Keralite nun who was beatified in 2000 includes references to her supernatural miracles like levitation taken at face value.

On the other hand, the book is a delight to read, with Tharoor’s cheerfulness pervading the book cover to cover. Nobody could complete the volume without extracting a bit of the optimistic streak coursing through and between the lines. A fine introduction to India for those foreigners who want to familiarize the country and also a good review of how our society went through its day to day life over the eons. This book should set a fine example to illustrate the point that how secularism found an unshakeable place in the national psyche, without denying religion to any of its citizens.

The book is strongly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star