His-Story of India

The Rise of Goliath is one of the rare books that keeps one engrossed, despite not being flamboyant and having the flourish of narration

This is the first book written by A K Bhattacharya (popularly known as AKB) who is not only the Editorial Director of Business Standard but also the author of a consistent column, New Delhi Dairy. It is surprising that this is AKB’s first book. Given the breadth and depth of his insights and the regularity with which he writes his columns, one would have thought that a book should have been out much before. Nevertheless, this is a welcome book and like most of AKBs’ columns, it is straight, monotonic and non-partisan. 

I say non-partisan after I read the Chapter 22 on demonetisation. The expectation would be that he followed the popular folkloric narrative: It was a whimsical decision; done with the Uttar Pradesh elections in the backdrop; nobody knew it; it was not planned at all. AKB discusses the merits and demerits of demonetisation, but he seems to argue that this was not as whimsical as it is made out. In putting this aspect across, he does not appear to have bought into the Modi narrative. Instead, he picks bits and pieces of data from Budget speeches, manifestos and timelines of past actions. He gives some insights into the role of Raghuram Rajan by picking up indications from his speeches; and more particularly from R Gandhi, who was the deputy governor in charge of currency at that time. The sequence of the events AKB narrates without sensationalism make it a compelling argument. This is the style and profundity that AKB gets to the narrative.

It is this meticulousness that makes his writing prescient. In Chapter 27, the last chapter of the book, AKB talks about India of the future and picks up multiple sub-themes: India going Presidential; simultaneous elections; and, importantly abrogation of Article 370 and associated actions on 35A; and citizenship. This book possibly went to press at least six months ago. AKB reads the manifesto and almost predicts that this is going to happen in the next few years! This insight cannot be because of the rhetoric that the ruling dispensation, but more about AKB’s reading of patterns and making meaning of these patterns. If his prediction on Article 370 has turned out to be true, one shudders to think of the other disruptions he has listed for the future — some of which are deeply worrying and many of which may be welcome. Ram Mandir, one country-one language, are worrying issues; while there is hope about universal basic income. There are also insignificant and token disruptions like the change in the financial year to January-December cycle.

Chapter 27 is about the future and there may be discussions on what would happen and in what sequence. However, the rest of the chapters are the economic and financial history of India narrated with clinical analysis. It looks at the fallout of each of the actions that AKB calls disruptive. The events are: partition; food crisis; nationalisation of financial institutions; oil crisis; the payments crisis; the Emergency; the reservation debate; the telecom revolution; and the recent happenings of non-performing assets, RBI autonomy, demonetisation and GST. While AKB describes these as major disruptions, one wonders whether he is caught up with the term disruption. If we were to look at each one of these events most have had a long build-up before the event and, therefore, what one calls as a disruption was possibly just a culmination (example: NPAs; payments crisis; reservations; and the introduction of GST). Possibly the disruptive and unexpected events were just the oil crisis, the Emergency and demonetisation. In this sense it would have been more convincing if this was the economic history of India narrated through the most significant and impactful events. 

Because he calls it disruptions, AKB tends to use the word disruption and disruptor quite often, as if to justify the title. This is just a distraction in an otherwise seamless book.

The things that stand out in this book are the objectivity that AKB gets to the table. He just does not jump to conclusions, is not judgmental and neither leans towards the right or the left. He is there unpacking each event, explaining what it did and how it impacted us without for a moment saying whether it was right or wrong. He does not even provide a “what if” counter narrative. Since AKB does not interfere between the events, unpacking of the events and the analysis, the reader gets an uncluttered sequence and we are able to build up our own story of how we emerged after independence and where we have reached. This is one of the rare books that keeps one engrossed, in spite of not being flamboyant and having the flourish of narration. 

In this dispassionate event-based narration, there enters suddenly a brief personal story of Ranjit Sarkar and his ushering in of a baby boy into the family and this world. We do not get to know who Ranjit Sarkar is nor why his personal story comes in. This is not the style AKB adopts anywhere else and one is at a loss to understand the significance of the first two paragraphs of page 172. This may be an editorial oversight, which is surprising, because the author himself is an editor. 

Nevertheless, this is a book I cherish having read and it did give me greater insights into where we are and why we are where we are.

mssriram@pm.me. The reviewer is Faculty member, Centre for Public Policy, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore