Introducing the 'real' India
Q&A: Guy Sorman, French author
French author, essayist and public intellectual Guy Sorman has written over a dozen books in the last quarter-century on topics concerning the state of the world, from environment to economics and human rights. Since 2000, he has written research-, interview- and travel-based accounts of countries like China, India and the USA. A handful, including The Genius of India (2000), is now out in English, says Rrishi Raote
How do you decide where to go?
My choices are guided by reason. I do research on India or China because it would be impossible to understand our time without going there. It will be impossible to understand these countries without spending time there, travelling and listening to the people. I am neither a scholar in his ivory tower, nor a time-constricted journalist; my method is in between both. When in a country, my choices are guided by chance meetings. There are also networks, like the Swaminathan Foundation in India, or the invisible network of human rights activists in China.
You read Alexis de Tocqueville and Romain Rolland before you set off for India — what lack in their books (and others) tempted you to test their ideas?
Tocqueville and Romain Rolland are symbolic of the attraction of the French towards India, but a largely mystical India; they did not go to India but guessed some deep truth about India, like the importance of democracy and of religious diversity. I have added flesh to these bones and wanted to introduce the Europeans to real Indians today, not to the mystical India of the past. I like the actual Indians, the way they are, more than the abstract India of the past.
There are more works in French on China than India. Does that reflect the comparative levels of interest in France?
On China, thousands of books have been written in French and other European languages. On India, except archaeology and religion, nearly none. India belongs to Indianologists. Things are changing rapidly: economists [are] writing on India still at a slow pace. I regret that Western media still focus on stereotypes, like floods, train accidents, Bollywood stars.
What was the response to your India book when it came out in French?
The Genius of India has been a bestseller in France and is constantly reprinted. Travellers to India tend to take my book along. In France, the book has been considered as prophetic while it was published before India emerged as an economic powerhouse. I have no merit; I first went there and opened my eyes.
The Year of the Rooster (2006) was highly critical of China’s government. You must have had a strong response.
I have not criticised China but the Chinese Communist Party. I consider their economic strategy to be wrong as it does reinforce the power of the State and improve the life of urban Chinese; but the model is based on the harsh exploitation of rural China. And I am shocked by the passivity of the West regarding human rights violation in China. The Party officially reacted to my book, while it is available in Chinese on the Web: many Chinese have read it. The answer was that yes, the facts discussed in the book are right, but that I am stupid not to understand that the Communist Party is solving these problems. Since the publication, I can go to China but I am not allowed to meet human rights activists; many of those quoted in the book are now in jail, since the repression has worsened since the Olympic Games.
Have recent changes confirmed your ideas about the growing force of Gandhian thinking?
The current crisis will bring back some balance in development strategies, with more attention paid to the poor, the women, the resources. Gandhi will be with us.
What are you working on next?
Since The Genius of India, I have published, among other books, Economics Doesn’t Lie: A Defence of the Free Market in a Time of Crisis. This is to be released in the US in June. More recently, I have started writing on the next book on the US leadership, Another American Century?
THE GENIUS OF INDIA
Author: Guy Sorman
Translater: Asha Puri Full Circle Global
PP: 272
Price: Rs 495