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In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India (精装)
by Edward Luce
| Category:
Global business, Emerging markets, India, Indian economy |
| Market price: ¥ 288.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
Witty and insightful, this book is a must read for anyone trying to understand modern India. |
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AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 8 items |
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Publishers Weekly (MSL quote), USA
<2007-10-22 00:00>
A burgeoning economic and geopolitical giant, India has the 21st century stamped on it more visibly than any other nation after China and the U.S. It's been an expanding force since at least 1991, explains journalist Luce, when India let go of much of the protectionist apparatus devised under Nehru after independence in 1947 from Britain, as part of a philosophy of swadeshi (or self-reliance) that's still relevant in India's multiparty democracy. From his vantage as the (now former) Financial Times's South Asia bureau chief, Luce illuminates the drastically lopsided features of a nuclear power still burdened by mass poverty and illiteracy, which he links in part to government control of the economy, an overwhelmingly rural landscape, and deep-seated institutional corruption. While describing religion's complex role in Indian society, Luce emphasizes an extremely heterogeneous country with a growing consumerist culture, a geographically uneven labor force and an enduring caste system. This lively account includes a sharp assessment of U.S. promotion of India as a countervailing force to China in a three-power "triangular dance," and generally sets a high standard for breadth, clarity and discernment in wrestling with the global implications of New India. |
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The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com (MSL quote), USA
<2007-10-22 00:00>
Edward Luce, a keenly observant British journalist who headed the Financial Times's bureau in New Delhi at the cusp of the new century, ventures an answer in this insightful and engaging book. His sharp-witted prose brings today's India to life with insight and irreverence. ("If Gandhi had not been cremated," Luce writes, "he would be turning in his grave.") Luce's writing is richly evocative of place and mood, and In Spite of the Gods sparkles with the kind of telling detail that illuminates an anecdote and lifts it above mere reportage. Almost the only thing not worth admiring in this book is its awful title, which suggests a nation struggling against the heavens - a thesis that has nothing to do with Luce's sophisticated and sympathetic narrative.
Advised early on that in India it is not enough to meet the "right people," Luce travels throughout the country meeting the "wrong people" as well. He explores economic development from the ground up while never losing sight of the big picture (a "modern and booming service sector in a sea of indifferent farmland"); he punctures the myths surrounding India's IT explosion (which he correctly argues will not solve India's fundamental employment problems because it employs only about 1 million of the country's 1.1 billion people); and he depicts the continuing allure of the secure and corruption-laden "government job." Few foreigners have written with as much understanding of the skills and limitations of India's senior government bureaucrats - of their idealism and inefficiency, of the vested interests that impede growth and progress - and Luce also captures the extraordinary triumphs of India despite these obstacles.
On my frequent visits home, I discover that India is anything but the unchanging land of cliche. The country is in the grips of dramatic transformations that amount to little short of a revolution -- in politics, economics, society and culture. In politics, the single-party governance of India's early decades has given way to an era of multiparty coalitions. In economics, India has leapt from protectionism to liberalization, albeit with the hesitancy of governments looking over their electoral shoulders. In caste and social relations, India has witnessed convulsive changes. And yet all this change and ferment, which would have rent a lesser country asunder, have been managed through an accommodative and pluralist democracy. Luce tells this story remarkably well.
There is, for instance, a gently sympathetic portrait of Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born leader of the ruling Congress Party, for whom "the political is very personal." Luce, who is married to an Indian, clearly admires much of India's culture, such as its remarkable novelists, musicians and film-makers: "If world trade were to be conducted purely in cultural products," he writes, "then India would have a thumping annual surplus." He suggests an answer to the famous question of why so few of India's 140 million Muslims, unlike their neighbors in Pakistan, have joined jihadist groups: because of "the political system under which they live," which guarantees them "freedom of speech, expression, worship, and movement."
But Luce is a far from uncritical admirer. He is unsparing on the corruption that infests Indian politics and society, on the ersatz Westernization that has seen sonograms used to facilitate the abortion of female fetuses by parents wanting sons, on the "unimpressive politicians" who run India's "impressive democracy."
Still, no one speaks seriously anymore of the dangers of disintegration that, for years, India was said to be facing. Luce demonstrates that, for all its flaws, India's democratic experiment has worked. The country has seen linguistic clashes, inter-religious riots and sputtering separatism, but democracy has helped to defuse each of these. Even the explosive potential of caste division has been channeled through the ballot box. Most strikingly, the power of electoral numbers has given high office to the lowest of India's low. Who could have imagined that, after 3,000 years of caste discrimination, an "Untouchable" woman would become chief minister of India's most populous state? Yet that has happened twice and looks likely to happen again this year when the northern state of Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls. In 2004, India witnessed an event unprecedented in human history: A nation of more than 1 billion people, after the planet's largest exercise ever in free elections, saw a Catholic political leader (Sonia Gandhi) make way for a Sikh (Manmohan Singh) to be sworn in as prime minister by a Muslim (President Abdul Kalam) - in a country that is 81 percent Hindu.
Luce is right to list the many problems the country faces: the poor quality of much of its political leadership, the rampant corruption, the criminalization of politics (more than 100 of the 552 members of Parliament's lower house have charges pending against them). The situation in Kashmir festers, provoking periodic crises with Pakistan and leading to fears (mostly exaggerated) of nuclear war on the subcontinent. Luce summarizes these issues crisply and cogently. But I'd like to have read a little more about the strengths of India's vibrant civil society: nongovernmental organizations actively defending human rights, promoting environmentalism, fighting injustice. The country's press is free, lively, irreverent, disdainful of sacred cows. India is the only country in the English-speaking world where the print media are expanding rather than contracting, even as the country supports the world's largest number of all-news TV channels. Disappointingly, Luce tells us nothing of this.
But these are cavils. Luce clearly loves the country he writes about - an essential attribute for a book like this - but he is tough-minded as well, and his judgment is invariably sound. "In India," a colleague once told Luce, "things are never as good or as bad as they seem." If you want to understand how that might be, read his wonderful book.
Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. |
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R. Ayyagari (MSL quote), USA
<2007-10-22 00:00>
Edward Luce is a British journalist and former Financial Times New Delhi Bureau Chief. His main interests in this book are the social, political and economic arenas in India. Luce writes about several "patterns" that he has noticed in collective Indian behaviour: sycophancy, criminalization of politics, Hindu fundamentalism, the State unintentionally oppressing the poor, and so on. He weaves these patterns into small scale themes such as the fallacy (in his opinion) of the Indian nationalist perception that progress lies in developing the villages and decentralizing political power. His grand theme is the condition of the poor in India.
To shore up the argument for each of the patterns, Luce relies on interviews (with a surprising number of very prominent people), events (historical and current), anecdotes, and other cultural observations. He does all of this a trifle haphazardly, but manages to make it all very interesting. His anecdotes and event summaries are piquant and entertaining. Luce seems to have benefited from advice from people like Ramachandra Guha, a very prominent Indian historian. The bigger picture that emerges from this book is reasonably accurate. For people unfamiliar with India, the book would be great: a concise yet fairly comprehensive introduction.
On the negative side, the book is journalistic rather than scholarly. The result is that nearly everything in the book expresses opinion rather than the result of any kind of study. Some topics are the author's pet peeves rather than anything important. Others are important, but rather than report all angles, Luce often picks a side and provides a very zealous argument in its favour. This bias sometimes results in inaccuracies. His portrayal of prominent personalities seems to have more to do with his personal likes and dislikes than with their public service record. The book is an elucidated collection of existing opinions; Luce doesn't provide any new insights of importance. Luce seems partial to sensational reporting designed to shock and awe his readers. The book also seems, mostly, to follow the standard Western viewpoints on India -- so the reader isn't getting the Indian perspective.
A couple of examples:
- On child labour, one of India's biggest social problems, Luce claims that people don't want to fix it (he provides four mostly academic arguments and says people use them to justify child labour). He omits mention of the real issues. Most Indians are interested in ending it, but there are problems. First, it is very low on the list of political priorities, which is dominated by things like caste, religion, reservations and subsidies of various kinds. Second, most of the children are working so that they can eat; simply taking their labour away will starve them. Providing free food or sending them to school is hard because of bureaucratic corruption. Removing bureacratic corruption, again, is low on the list of electoral priorities. Perhaps Luce would have seen this if he had tried to suggest a solution.
- Many politicians (appropriately) get torn apart by Luce. However, he is surprisingly, inexplicably charitable towards Sonia Gandhi, the closest thing India has to a dictator. Luce's portrayal of her is adoring and reads like Congress party progaganda: that of a graceful, tearful, long-suffering widow, humble, patriotic (towards India), pure of motive and gentle of heart, yet blessed with amazing insight into the hearts of the Indian people and electoral politics and motivated by a genuine desire to protect the India her family worked so hard for. She might be some of those things, but there isn't much evidence cited. Luce's admiration doesn't seem to be based on anything she has done. To me, an Indian, it looks like he was just charmed by her Western demeanour.
To be fair, Luce covers so much ground in this book that it would be almost impossible for him to provide a complete and perfectly balanced view of every one of his topics. Overall, this is an informative and readable book that gives a good general picture of Indian life, strife and politics. The reader should just keep in mind that there may be more to individual issues than Luce lets on. |
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Amit Bhati (MSL quote), USA
<2007-10-22 00:00>
This book provides, by far, the best coverage of contemporary socio-economic and political India. Aside from the few dismissive sentences, the analysis is very, very balanced. Topics are not treated at a depth greater than would be comparatively reasonable; at the same time the total coverage provided is also perfectly fitting.
The book is written with the non-Indian reader in mind. The middle part of the book essentially digresses from economic topics. But the approach is most appropriate, since any discussion of the current and future economic possibilities must be expertly cognizant of India's complex past. Luce develops material that a reader of Indian origin may dismiss on account of familiarity. However, such a reader would be wise to persist, since Luce brings together an extremely balanced and even-handed analysis of the cummulative effect of historical social, ethnic and political history on the current state of India's economic policy and its political and state institutions - in the most meaningful manner.
Luce takes the most appropriate view - first tabling and analyzing the vast and complex interrelationship between India's historic economic, social, political and religious/cultural history, and then asking the question, "What would have to happen, should we want the upbeat projections of India's rise in the global economy to come true?" He is correct in establishing the argument that none of the economic growth in the services sector will mean much in the end, unless basic reforms are undertaken in India's government sector (state or federal), its commercial and social legal frameworks, its political institutions and their effect on India's long-term economic policy.
It's a very comprehensive book for those who think they possess a sufficient understanding of India based on their Indian origins; and it is highly recommended for anyone trying to understand contemporary India in multiple perspectives, especially if you intend to do business there.
There is no other book out there that does a better job on this topic. I am a confirmed fan now, and wish I could had read Luce's weekly writings in The Financial Times. |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-10-22 00:00>
If good journalism is relating true stories and letting the reader draw conclusions, Edward Luce shows it by example in this book. In between the first and the last chapters, Luce relates a story or an interview after another. The stories were very entertaining. Although I was a little bewildered, I felt it was a good method to leave the reader alone as to what to make of these stories. After all the subject was India.
Comparisons with China, as regards to India's economic development, are inevitable. This book continues on this popular theme. However, one aspect, and the reason I bought and chose to read this book, is missing. The title suggests that India's growth has been 'in spite of the Gods.' It's been a matter of pride to many Indians and a source of embarrassment to some that India has been and being peddled as a 'spiritual' nation to others.
While any nation's growth cannot be rightly accredited to any Gods, in case of India they might have been only stumbling blocks. (We've been just tripping over the idols.) China doesn't probably have as big an impediment. (Probably India's image is its own enemy.) Where then is an argument for this? Luce's book, because of a misleading title, has been a let down in only that aspect . (In his defense, Luce through his title was probably only making a statement without intending to provide any further evidence. His point was indirectly about India's development.)
Luce's only involved himself with the economic and social factors contributing to India's recent success. He did his homework very well and presents a book which is fun to read. Get it. |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-10-22 00:00>
This a good book on where India has been and where it is heading. From the influence of Mughals and the British that followed them, India was shaped, stalled and influenced by these outsiders. The caste system that haunts the lower classes, the inept politicians who play caste politics to divide and conquer the electorate, the slow decision making that the Indian democracy demands, it's all here and more. The author is well informed, he understands the nuances of Indian politics, and he exposes the smooth talking (much of it is non-sense) politicians for what they are: corrupt, inept and uneducated dolts. But he also illustrates the positives: a rising middle class, the idealists who are making a difference in their own way and the newly educated class who are making a difference through their hard work. India is on the move and author gives you a sense of where it might be headed. |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-10-22 00:00>
The first half of the book, describing the current situation, is excellent. It is fast, crisp, and well balanced. I believe it is an accurate, extensive, and yet succinct description of the political and economic India of today; an incredible feat, considering the complexities.
Possibly as the author is British, the book touches on India's history, explaining the limited achievement of British in India, while glazing over British atrocities in a few sentences. According to the well known historian James Burke, the two sources of British wealth in 18th and 19th century were: one, the barbaric African slavery on an unprecedented, `industrial' scale; and two, the plundering and shipping of wealth from India to Britain estimated at hundreds of millions of pounds (trillions of pounds worth today = India's GDP for a few decades!). While it impoverished India, it funded the industrialization in UK. No wonder Indians enjoying the proverbial `smoke of gold' before British, were severely mal-nourished during India's independence. It is a miracle the country came this far, `inspite of the British'!
The last half of the book is riddled with personal bias, and contradictions. Example the author denigrates Indian secularism, but some salient points like the President is Muslim, the prime minister is Sikh, and the most politically influential person is a Christian, is mentioned only in passing. The fact that the top adored film stars, the Khans, are Muslim is not even mentioned. While in developed, diverse, and secure nations like US, a black, a woman, or a Jew at the helm is still a rarity.
Another example is the unjustified bias either excessively in favor or against certain people. Example, Chandra Babu Naidu. The second half needs to be read with a big pinch of salt.
It is a good read nevertheless. |
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Tim (MSL quote), USA
<2007-10-22 00:00>
In Spite of the Gods is a journalist's account of modern India's society, politics, and economy. Edward Luce, a Financial Times reporter based in New Delhi for six years, depicts India as a series of paradoxes. It is a profoundly spiritual society, but it has a secular, democratic government. Only 65 percent of its people are literate, but it graduates 10 times more engineers than the United States every year. It has achieved a sustained high rate of economic growth but it has not yet undergone widespread urbanization or a widespread industrial revolution.
Luce traces India's unbalanced economic development to inappropriate policies pursued by Nehru and the Congress Party at independence. While India was overwhelmingly rural and agricultural at independence (and still is today), Nehru, a socialist, pushed the country through a series of five year plans to create a modern sector led by investment in heavy industry. Social spending was similarly misdirected, favoring the cities over the rural areas where most people lived, university education over primary education, and urban hospitals over immunization programs. The result today is a technologically advanced sector that coexists with grinding poverty for most Indians. Luce characterizes this result as "Indian-style socialism," in which an omnipresent and supposedly beneficent state substitutes for real social reform.
India's highly intrusive style of governance is accompanied by a high level of corruption, which actually helps explain the size and reach of the state. While under Nehru state intervention in the economy was motivated by socialist ideology, it is now motivated by rent seeking. The consequences of a corrupt, pervasive state presence are highly regressive and distortionary. For example, the state regulates employment to the degree that it is essentially impossible to fire incompetent or absentee workers. As a result, private enterprise is driven underground and formal private sector jobs account for only about 3 percent of total employment. Those in the public sector also enjoy high compensation and job security but the overwhelming majority of Indians who work in the informal sector and agriculture have no legal entitlements whatsoever. As another example, Luce says that the cost of free electricity provided to farmers exceeds public spending on primary health and education combined. Since only relatively wealthy farmers can afford to buy water pumps and other equipment that use electricity, this subsidy represents a massive redistribution of wealth to large-scale farmers.
Luce believes that India needs to free up its economy and remove distortionary subsidies and tariffs. It needs to invest in water and transportation infrastructure. It needs effective HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs. Finally, it needs to take action against pervasive state corruption. Luce expresses some doubt that India's ineffective government institutions are equal to these challenges. But the pluralistic, democratic nature of political competition in India justifies a degree of optimism as well: democracies can correct their mistakes, and India's democracy has proven to be durable. |
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1 Total 1 pages 8 items |
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