Not just Modern India 101

Not too many weeks ago, a diplomat newly arrived in New Delhi asked me if I could recommend some readings that might be a good introduction to India. Such work doesn't readily come to mind. Contemporary current affairs writing tends to be either collations (by Indian journalists) of published material, much of it opinionated or going too far back to have immediate relevance. Or one can find serious work by specialists that tends to a more narrow focus and usually demands some prior knowledge.

If Ed Luce's book had been out at the time, I would have unhesitatingly pointed the diplomat in its direction. In Spite of the Gods is better than a Modern India 101 (which is how a beginner's course is described in American syllabus) but that does convey something of its scope. It is a thoroughly enjoyable read, a breezy romp, if you like, by a talented and keen observer, through the labyrinths of Indian society and its problems, told with understanding and even affection. It will certainly inform a newcomer of the complexities and dynamics of India. It will, I suspect, also challenge the knowledgeable with its occasional insights, its broad ideological approach and its final summation.

As a reporter for the Financial Times of London stationed in India for several years, Ed Luce made the most of his opportunity to enter the lives of people he encountered. He is, after all, a journalist and the book is peppered with vivid descriptions of these meetings and conversations. Indeed, much of the book is structured around colourful vignettes that he uses to illustrate his points and come to his conclusions. The telling of the story is anecdotal rather than analytical, and that makes for a much more absorbing reading experience. (Unfortunately, it must be said, irritating errors of fact, however minor, have been allowed to creep into the text; I noticed five.)

Any attempt to get a grip on the realities of India has to come to terms with complexities that defy ready comprehension. At one level, that of economics and statistics, economy and foreign policy, India is not difficult to understand. But if to this is added the matrix of religion, caste, language, region and history, the complexities increase exponentially and everything becomes manifestly bewildering. Picking up the strands that he does, choosing the people that he does through whom to tell his story, and providing signposts along the way, Ed Luce helps in making it less so.

Not everyone will be in agreement with his approach or conclusions. He is, after all, the correspondent of a western business daily, presumably in sympathy with its outlook on public issues. That would put him at cross-purposes with the socialists, Marxists and others of their persuasion. He confesses to a distrust of bureaucracy and what he describes as Hindu Nationalism. This puts him beyond the pale for the parivar and its sympathisers, and will not endear him to officialdom. He has little time for the sycophancy he sees around the Nehru-Gandhi family or for the inability of the current dispensation to drive change and reform, so Congress loyalists may not applaud.

All this is as it should be, because he takes no sides""except perhaps one. As he journeys through India, one senses more than anything else a deep sympathy for the myriad people he encounters, ranging from those who have to contend with injustice and torment in the "old" India to those who are making a success of life and shaping the "new" India.

The essence of the book lies here, in the uneasy co-existence of the old and the new, the forces that pull India back and those that are propelling it forward. As the title suggests, Mr Luce is hopeful that India will pull ahead in spite of the heavy weight of authority, inheritance and inequity that sits on the Indian multitude. He notes that deep-rooted change is happening, driven by people with a conscience, people with skill and knowledge and even, as in the case of the world arena, an unexpected congruence of interests. Optimistic he is, yes, but also cautious. He's lived here long enough to know that it is not only on the cricket field that we've a penchant for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

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IN SPITE OF THE GODS
THE STRANGE RISE OF MODERN INDIA

Edward Luce
Little, Brown
Price: £20; Pages: 388