Not Just an Accountant

Title: Not Just an Accountant – The Diary of the Nation’s Conscience Keeper

Author: Vinod Rai

Publisher: Rupa, 2014 (First)

ISBN: 9788129134615

Pages: 267

When Indians voted in the 2014 general elections, the result was on expected lines. Anyone with even a cursory grasp of the political situation in the country was confident that the ruling coalition would bite the dust. The antagonism was a consequence to exposure of blatant corruption in the government led by Manmohan Singh, India’s foremost economist. Though himself a man of unimpeachable integrity, his clout in the party and government was extremely weak. He owed his place as prime minister solely due to his docility and subservience to the whims of the Nehru family who saw in him nothing more than a presentable figure good for keeping the seat warm till Rahul Gandhi, the youngest scion of the dynasty, could cut his political teeth. Ministers in the alliance parties treated him as a man to be respected and seen to be obeyed, but never to take seriously in their own decision-making process. Huge deals involving financial swindling came to light in the ten years Singh presided over the administration. Some of it included the 2G spectrum scandal, coal-block allocation scam, the Commonwealth Games deals, allocation of natural gas exploration blocks and purchase of unnecessary aircraft for the national carrier, Air India. The money wasted in these shocking scams ran into tens of thousands of crores of rupees. The investigations into some of the deals are still on. These irregularities saw the light of the day through performance audits conducted by the supreme audit institution in India – the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). Vinod Rai was the CAG at that time, who stood with his courage and conviction against pressure from all quarters. Rai is a former IAS officer of Kerala cadre who served as the CAG of India for five years from 2008 to 2013. He is widely considered as the symbol of the anti-corruption movement and is credited with having turned the office of CAG into a powerful force for accountability and transparency in contemporary India. This book is his reminiscences of the days when he exposed the black deals involving politicians.

Rai gives a brief narration of his career in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in various capacities in the states as well as the centre. These chapters are quite interesting to the readers before the main action begins as the CAG, at which point it loses its appeal. The book is very particular in introducing the relevance of that constitutional position. The government auditor, or CAG, provides a critical link between the executive, parliament and the larger community of citizens. His objective is to draw the attention of the executive to the loopholes, lacunae, the acts of omission and any violation of established policy guidelines (p.35). The author also examines the types and differences of audit such as financial audit, compliance audit and performance audit, the third one only the CAG is allowed to conduct. There is a discontinuity in the narration here. From his days in the IAS, the story is catapulted straight into life as the CAG. Here too, the actions and analyses are sidelined to reply to some of the criticisms faced by the final audit report. The bureaucrat in the author rears his head when he takes askance at the Media running news stories on reports supposedly leaked from the auditor’s office, whereas he advocates transparency and scrutiny for all departments of the executive.

2G scam rocked Indian politics in 2011. Licenses were reportedly issued to telecom operators on first-come-first-serve basis and foul play was suspected in receiving requests from the companies. A full disclosure of the nuances of the audit is given by the author. Each license, worth around 8000-9000 crores, was allotted for a paltry sum of Rs. 1658 Crores. The total loss to the exchequer is estimated at Rs. 1.76 lakh crores. Such an astronomical figure was the butt of intense criticism from sections supportive of the government. However, the author reminds us that while the fact of loss to the nation can hardly be denied, the quantum of loss can be debated. The CBI pegged the loss at Rs. 30000 crores, which itself is a startlingly large figure. Rai specifically remarks that Manmohan Singh was indeed aware of what was going on, but preferred to look the other way and adopt a hands-off approach at this naked loot of the country. A separate chapter is reserved for each scandal.

This book is tiresome to read on account of the uninspiring form of narration. Instead of detailing the clever ways in which foul play was allowed to go on, the author chooses to list out arguments in favour of the findings and calculations arrived at in the report. A large share is reserved to reply to allegations of the CAG’s partisanship. As such, the description descends to the readability of an affidavit a party submits before a court of law. The final chapter lets out some homilies on the way forward for a new India of the GenNext. Excellence in every sphere of activity, accountability in responsible institutions and probity in all walks of life are recommended by Rai as the leading beacons of the society.

This book is graced with a Foreword by Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, former President of India and a luminary of twenty-first century India. He exhorts the readers to instill righteousness in the heart which translates to beauty in character. In a nutshell, it characterizes this book about accountability, transparency and ethics in administration and leadership. Extensive reproductions of dates, figures and bureaucratic reports turn the readers away from the main thread. The last nail in the coffin is the presence of several appendices running into 45 pages that are nothing but photocopies of letters and memos sent by various ministries.

The book is not recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

The Naked Ape

Title: The Naked Ape – A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal

Author: Desmond Morris

Publisher: Vintage, 2017 (First published 1967)

ISBN: 9780099482017

Pages: 247

Stephen Hawking’s ‘A Brief History of Time’ revolutionized the genre of popular science in a big way. Even though many people did not understand what was discussed in it, Time became a best seller as Hawking turned out to be a living icon of human intelligence at its best. An invalid on account of the rare motor neuron disease with which he was afflicted, the eminent scientist communicated through artificial means but carried out advanced research programs through sheer intellect and a good measure of steely will. But popular science goes much back in time, to 1967, as claimed in the foreword to this book. ‘The Naked Ape’ was the harbinger of an era in which lofty scientific principles were ladled out to the general populace who was already wonderstruck at the breathtaking progress and innovation science was parading in front of the world. Desmond Morris is a zoologist and worked as the curator of the London Zoo. He wrote extensively on human sociobiology and is the author of many books. This is his first and most successful work, which was translated into 28 languages and brought out in 12 million copies. Morris does not keep readers in suspense for long on what he means by the term ‘naked ape’. The very first sentence of the book runs as “There are 193 living species of monkeys and apes. 192 of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens”. Perhaps this is the only instance in the entire book in which our own species is clearly spelt out by name. On all other occasions, we have to put up with being called ‘the naked ape’, in a somewhat derogatory style.

The genetic-cultural differences that made man distinct from other species of apes are explained by the author. We were once confined to an arboreal habitat of forests. The shrinkage of forest cover through climate change forced this ape to compete with ground-dwellers and adapt to the grasslands. This forced the ape to assume a more upright posture to become fast and better runners. Its hands were freed from locomotion duties and became efficient weapon holders. Brains became more complex which rendered them brighter and quicker decision makers. These changes blossomed together over evolutionary timescales. A hunting ape or a killer ape was thus formed. All other apes are vegetarians who might occasionally munch on insects or beetles. But the naked ape turned carnivorous with longer spaced out meals. From tool-using to tool-making animals, he perfected hunting techniques and social cooperation. It is curious to learn that social organization developed with improvement in killing techniques.

Then comes the interesting issue of how we happened to be naked, or how the fur coat was eventually discarded. The hunting ape is said to have become an infantile ape by a process called neoteny. This is an interesting phenomenon by which animals retain certain juvenile or infantile characteristics into adult life. Chimpanzees complete brain growth within twelve months of birth. Humans typically have only a quarter of the adult brain size at birth, and its growth is completed only around 23 years of age, long after the individual has attained sexual maturity. Infantile apes are generally having less hair than adults in their species and we fixed upon this trait throughout the entire life. Playfulness marks adult humans separate from other animals. Inquisitiveness and curiosity are the two other qualities neoteny has bestowed on us. This was essential to such creatures that do not possess a fixed, permanent habitat or diet, that helped him to learn, adjust and adapt quickly to novel challenges.

Being a sociobiologist, Morris delves into the development of the traditional role of women as homemakers, without going outside the dwelling place for hunting, or its modern equivalent – working. Because of the extremely long period of dependency of the young and the heavy demands on personal attention made by them, the females found themselves perpetually engaged in childrearing and as a consequence, confined to the home base of the community. This peculiar behaviour also led to monogamy. Males had to leave their mates at home while they went on hunting expeditions. These women were thus vulnerable to advances by other males in the group. This was a recipe for friction among the males, whose complete cooperation was mandated by the laborious hunting process. This situation demanded a major shift in social behaviour. Development of pair-bonding and proto-family was a direct consequence of this and ensured a mate to every member of the group.

This book presents a fascinating hypothesis on the origin of the concept of god in primitive human societies, which I cannot help reproducing here. Before evolving into cooperative hunters, humans lived in social groups as seen in other species of apes and monkeys. Each group was dominated by a single, male leader who was active in protecting the group from outside hazards and settling internal squabbles. His stature was all-powerful and hence functionally similar to an omnipotent god. When that community turned to group hunting, the leader lost his god-like status. The cooperative spirit required for a successful communal hunt limited the authority of dominant individuals only to ensure loyalty from other members. In effect, shedding the exclusivity, he became ‘one of them’, as a more tolerant, cooperative leader. This change in order of things left a gap in the social mind and the vacancy was filled by the invention of god as protector of all the members of the group.

This book was written at the height of the Cold War, in the midst of the devastating Vietnam War. A nuclear holocaust was more than possible – in fact, it was really probable. Concern at the uncertainty of a bright future is visible in the author’s prognostication about what awaits the human race. He claims that there was a strong chance of extermination by the end of the century, by the year 2000. However, he claims that we have a consolation that we had an exciting term of office. Morris’ arguments are extensive and his reasoning extends its roots into the twin treasure-troves of evolutionary biology and sociology. This makes the book a pleasure to read, which triumphantly defends its position as one among the best titles in popular science books even at the lapse of half a century after its first publication.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Ways of Being Desi

Title: Ways of Being Desi

Author: Ziauddin Sardar

Publisher: Viking Penguin, 2018 (First)

ISBN: 9780670091522

Pages: 229

The partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 split a society, culture and history into two that immediately began a wargame to subdue the other. There is no love lost between them as we see in the four military encounters the two brothers managed to stage in the first 50 years of their separated existence. It is the deterrent of a well-stocked nuclear arsenal on both sides that keep them at bay. The international border between the two countries is tightly sealed and heavily guarded. Therefore, the home communities of Indians and Pakistanis do not have a chance to interact with each other. Every time India opened its doors for ‘people-to-people contacts’, terrorists infiltrated and unleashed horrible acts of terror in which innocent people were mowed down like grass with deadly assault rifles. There are no direct flights between the two countries. You have to either fly to Dubai or Colombo to get a connection to Karachi or Lahore. But the Indian expatriate community in Britain lives cheek by jowl with similar Pakistani members. Intellectuals among both communities often reminisce nostalgically about a shared past that would never return. Ziauddin Sardar is a Pakistani writer, journalist and cultural critic who migrated to Britain in childhood. He has authored many books and some of them are reviewed earlier in this blog. In this book, Sardar lets his imagination hover over the cultural aspects of the India-Pakistan divide and what the two cultures have in common. This is a befitting attempt to gauge the strength of the current that united them through the media of cinema, drama and Urdu poetry. Being a serious critic of all three, he lays threadbare before us the incursion of modernity into them and how it transforms whatever it touches into forms totally unrecognizable to aficionados.

Sardar notes the disconnected self of Pakistani society from its own societal roots in the pre-Islamic past which lends it the nature of a vagabond. It deliberately devolved itself from the composite Indian legacy and took the path to an Islamic future. Pakistan was the first country in the world to have born on the basis of religion alone. The author notes that it found Wahhabism as a perfect fit for Pakistan’s truncated self, since it also is an ahistorical ideology that abhors history. Wahhabism suited a state built on falsification and distortion of history (p.35). A cursory glance at the history textbooks reveals its painful worthlessness. The message it imparts to the students is to follow the dictates of the regime in power, support military rule and to glorify wars and hate India – all in the name of religion. Sardar alleges that though the country was born in the name of Islam, it is slowly being destroyed in the name of Islam. At any given time, half the population cannot wait to leave Pakistan and migrate to America. The remaining half relies on American aid without which the country would collapse.

Britain has a sizeable Pakistani diaspora that comes with its own problems. This community has neither been able to integrate itself into the British society nor even to respect its mores. The ‘grooming’ scandals involving clever planning by Pakistani boys to lure unsuspecting British girls into forced sex are disturbing to any civilized society. Terrorism has its vast resources always ready in this overseas community. The Pakistanis are at the forefront of any terrorist attack on European soil, because of their better English language skills and adaptability as compared to people from the Middle East. Most Pakistanis, as the author says, wants to migrate from the home country, but once they reach greener pastures, want to recreate the hell they experienced back home. The vilest religious bigotry and intolerance is replicated in their adopted land, even at the cost of the hapless citizens who gave them their much needed asylum! A clear case to demonstrate this argument is given in this book, played out by the author himself. Ian Botham, the famous English cricketer of the 1980s, once remarked after an exasperating cricketing tour of Pakistan that the country was the best place to send your mother-in-law on an all-expenses-paid trip. This seemingly innocuous piece of verbal humour sent Sardar into a fury. What did he do to avenge Botham? If it had happened today, Botham would probably have found gunmen at his doorsteps. But this was the 1980s and Sardar, already a successful writer, went on a trip to Scunthorpe, Botham’s hometown, to find as many faults as possible with the place. What follows is a shockingly spiteful description of his experience, casting aspersions even on the moral rectitude of its inhabitants. It is high time that Europe should sit up and think seriously about letting in thousands more of such scumbags from Pakistan. What is amazing for the readers is the vital importance such people give to outward forms of religion even though they are well educated.

The book includes a tiring discussion on Indian cinema and a scurrilous comparison to Pakistani plays. The readers are treated to a long and unnecessary review of old Bollywood movies such as Mughal-e-Azam, Kaagaz ke Phool, Pyassa, Devadas and Ganga-Jumna. What we really see in this is the impotent whining of an aged uncle raging about modernity overtaking tradition. Sardar is even angry about the picturisation of two unimportant Muslim characters in a bad light in the movie Sholay – so much for our enlightened moderates! He is vehemently opposed to the impact Amitabh Bachchan had made in Indian cinema and even stoops to the level of character assassination of the Indian superhero by venting his ire on Bachchan’s mannerisms! For Sardar, Dilip Kumar is the one and only actor worthy of comment ever acted in Indian cinema, along with a grudging admiration of Guru Dutt as well. This is not astonishing considering the author’s prejudices when he explains that Dilip Kumar is the screen name of Yusuf Khan whose original native place was Peshawar in Pakistan. A similar review of Pakistani televised plays follows and comes to the conclusion that those are far artistically superior to Indian cinema. However, Sardar does not pause to examine why nobody in Pakistan bothers to watch these horrible ‘pieces of art’ even in their homes, but instead opt for smuggled Bollywood movies.

The book is written in a casual, reminiscent manner and heavy research has not gone into it. An interesting anecdote of an uncle who was a master of mysticism is also given. The narrative mentions Nur Jahan as the mother of Emperor Shah Jahan (p.56) as part of his argument on the harmonious nature of Mughal royalty. This surprising slip is unusual for the author. The error is especially interesting when it is remembered that the tussle for power after Jahangir’s death was directly fought between the camps of Prince Khurram (later known as Shah Jahan) and his stepmother, Queen Nur Jahan in which the former won, thereby keeping his life and eyesight intact while the queen faded into obscurity.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

Rebel Sultans

Title: Rebel Sultans – The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji

Author: Manu S Pillai

Publisher: Juggernaut Books, 2018 (First)

ISBN: 9789386228734

Pages: 308

A run-of-the-mill narrative with rebellion only in its title..!

Well, that about sums up the book and also the disappointment in one neat sentence. Deccan has been a major theatre of political drama right from the dawn of history. A colourful chapter in that eventful run of history was played out between the years 1300 and 1700 CE in which the northern sultans took an active interest in subjugating it. Two attempts were made in the Sultanate and Mughal periods each. Both were doomed to eventually fail which in turn set in motion the rise of a powerful Hindu state in the form of Vijayanagar in the fourteenth and the Marathas under Shivaji in the seventeenth centuries. In the latter instance, Aurangzeb’s disastrous Deccan campaigns sapped the lifeblood of the empire and initiated the liquidation process of his bigoted government in particular and the crumbling of Mughal power in general. This book covers the extraordinary events in the Deccan (which is confined here to the modern Indian states of Maharashtra, Telengana and Northern Karnataka) from the invasion of Ala ud-Din Khilji to the years of Shivaji which extends to four centuries of intrigue, annexation, battles, wars of succession and in general, the flow of history. Manu S. Pillai is a talented young historian who had served in the literary team of Shashi Tharoor. He earned wide acclaim for his maiden title on the royal House of Travancore and remains one of the most promising writers in the budding stage.

While in the north the sultans tended to be more hidebound within religion, the Deccani dynasties were somewhat more cosmopolitan in outlook and accommodative of the Hindu natives. Akbar was the only Mughal sovereign who maintained truly cheerful relationships with Hindu rulers. In the case of Deccan, many such potentates are indicated by Pillai. Hasan Gangu, also known as Ala ud-Din Bahman Shah, who founded the Bahmani kingdom in Gulbarga, abolished jizya (the hated poll tax forced on Hindus) in his territories. This happened a full 225 years before Akbar was to repeat the same thing in the north. He visited Ellora caves with a Brahmin guide to marvel at the sculptural wonders. Another ruler of the same dynasty, Taj ud-Din Firuz Shah appointed Brahmins to high administrative positions as well as absorbing local Hindu chiefs as amirs of the aristocracy. The forefathers of Marathas, including the father and grandfather of Shivaji, were in the service of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar sultans. The most famous of them all is Madanna, the prime minister of the Qutb Shahis of Golconda.

Some sultans went a step further and engaged his subjects at a spiritually higher level. Ahmed Shah Bahmani is still venerated by the Lingayat community as a reincarnation of the mystic Allama Prabhu. His death anniversary (urs) is celebrated with pomp and splendor. Ibrahim Qutb Shah so favoured the Telugu language that he is known as Malikbrahma or Abhirama. However, Pillai notes that occasional destruction of temples continued unabated even in the midst of such tolerance. It is a mistake to conclude that the frequent wars and battles between Muslim sultans and Hindu rajas were of a religious nature. Even though he lists out a long line of Muslims respected and revered by Hindus even now, it is striking that not a single case of the other way round, that is, Muslims venerating Hindu chiefs and nobles is reported! Ibrahim Adil Shah II comes very close to enlightenment as he endowed temples, affirmed the rights of Hindu pilgrims and Portuguese Jesuits were allowed to establish missions in various parts of his kingdom. In his copper coins, he assumes the epithet of ablabali (friend of the weak, in Sanskrit). A number of his firmans began with an invocation of Goddess Saraswati. He took it as an honorific to call himself Saraswati’s son. He was closely identified with the goddess of vidya (knowledge) that at one point, he renamed his capital city Bijapur as Vidyapur. Ibrahim II’s eclecticism is amply evident in the Kitab-i-Nauras which he penned.

Manu S. Pillai repeatedly points our attention to the perpetual discord between kingdoms of Deccan. When the region first experienced an Islamic onslaught by the end of the thirteenth century, the pre-existing Hindu dynasties of Yadavas, Kakatiyas and Hoysalas were at each other’s throats. The same story repeated a century and a half later when the Bahmanis disintegrated into five branches – Adil Shahis of Bijapur, Nizam Shahis of Ahmadnagar, Qutb Shahis of Golconda, Imad Shahis of Berar and Barid Shahis of Bidar – who wasted no opportunity to fight among themselves. The author has included dynasty trees of all the five, even though only the first three had had any real significance and impact on events. When once they combined to defeat Vijayanagar in 1565, their glory was at its zenith. But the spirit of union didn’t last long and in a few decades, the Mughals snapped all of them up. By the time of these sultans, Deccan was a place that attracted job seekers from many parts of the known world. Persian nobles had a natural advantage as the court was Persian in style and language. Even Ethiopian slaves such as Malik Ambar rose steadily in the ranks and attained lofty positions. This led to the formation of two factions in court. The local aristocrats were called Dakhnis and the Iranians and Central Asians were called Afaqis, loosely translated as locals and westerners. This division again caused strife.

As noted earlier, this book is dishearteningly short of any original observations. Primary materials have not been gone into when the author researched for this work. For a description of Vijayanagar, Robert Sewell’s ‘A Forgotten Empire’ is abundantly dipped into, but whose authority is built on shaky grounds. The book includes several old photographs of monuments and tombs taken in the nineteenth century. This offers a delightful review on the very good state of preservation they are now bestowed with. Pillai claims that Hindu kings accepted the title of ‘Suratrana’ which is a transliteration of the Muslim sultan. This is contested in learned circles as the Sanskrit term also means ‘protector of gods’. The author affirms that the term marked their place in a wider world and a changed geography where that term carried tremendous potency. The episode of Shivaji and the rise of Marathas is relegated to the epilogue, but Pillai assures us that the sudden growth of Maratha power is quite another story. Perhaps his next book may be on this topic! The book hosts a sizeable section of Notes and a good bibliography. Most of the very old books in the list of references can be downloaded freely from Archive.org.

In spite of all this, the readers can not quite shrug off the feeling that a golden opportunity was wasted by the author.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star