In the delightful India Unbound, I admired Gurcharan Das for his grasp of economics, and found his writing style quite engaging. But he had to capitulate to stay in business. I wish it didn’t have to be this disgusting.
Gujarat,however, is also the Indian state which hosted a genocide under broad daylight in 2002. Those who presided over the killings were elected to power. Their complicity has now been confirmed by the recent Tehelka expose. The political class, however, has greeted the expose with silence. Ashish Khetan, author of the report, must feel a bit like Draupadi in the assembly of the nobles at Hastinapur, when no one, not even Bhishma, stopped her from being disrobed.
There’s no point trying to dissect his nauseous refrains. But Das should’ve done a little research before parading his ignorance like this:
Martha Nussbaum’s The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence & India’s Future(Permanent Black) argues that the post 9/11 world is not some mythic‘‘clash of civilisations’’ (as Samuel Huntington has argued) between a violent Islam and peaceful democracies in America, Europe, and India.
Not that he’ll bother with trifles like this classic dissection of the same stuff he quotes with relish. And now, the disgusting bit I mentioned earlier:
One wants Gujarat to flourish but also to be decent. Nazi Germany was very efficient. The choice in the end is easy - vote out Modi!
I would have respected Das more if he had openly campaigned the upcoming Gujarat polls with a Vote for Congress banner.
Tags: Commentary, History, Indian Politics, Media Watch, Society & Culture, Weblogs
On 11.19.07 shadows says:
The customary mention of Nazis is also there..
Will any p-sec-liberal journo rightly equate Nandigram with Tianenmen square, Stalin’s gulags and PolPot’s regime ??
Well, of course, Buddhadeb is a sonofabitch, but he is “our sonofabitch”, the Leftists would say…
On 11.20.07 Ghost Writer says:
I had a similar post here - only your analysis is much better and less caustic
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2007/11/calling-in-nussbaum-progressives-final.html
I am disappointed in Das too - this shows that liberals in India do live in an intellectual bubble of their making. They will simply not consider and alternate point of view - even when tey can find one. The link analyzing Nussbaum is instructive - the book “Invading The Sacred” has some good material on the same subject.
On 11.20.07 Atanu Dey says:
Sandeep:
Gurcharan Das’s book “India Unbound” was a journalistic piece much like Friedman’s “The World is Flat” — makes for easy reading but is shallow as a birdbath. I once heard him speak at UC Berkeley and had to walk out of the lecture hall because I could not bear to listen to the pure drivel that he was spouting about the Indian economy. He doesn’t understand economics and doesn’t know that he doesn’t understand.
Pity the guy.
On 11.20.07 Sandeep says:
Atanu,
Why did I intuitively know that you would comment on this post?
You’re right about the journalistic bit. India Unbound makes for easy reading, almost like a novel because it is journalese full of feel-good stuff but shallow in scholarship.
On 11.20.07 Sandeep says:
Ghost writer,
Thanks. :)And I’ve heard about the book. Mean to read it soon.
On 11.20.07 Anon says:
Alot of clever rightist bloggers are there defending modi’s role during the riots, essentially saying he did the best he could. a couple of things are clear though…1>an effective administrator like him could have easily controlled the riots before they escalated in such a big way 2>most likely reason why he didn’t control the riots more effectively is that because he’s got a anti-islamist attitude(just like sarkozy/bush/churchill/guiliani). but still as a hindu living in india, i would like to always have modi one/two steps away from being the prime minister; because the center/left(congress/cpm) actively panders to islamists/jehadis. a guy like lallu travels with a osama look-alike without anybody on the secular-left blinking a eye-lid; the only state where there is a mass exodus which has taken place is in kashmir; and our pm is saying that first claim to our resources belongs not to dalits who have been subjugated for centuries but to moghul-descendants who have brutalized us for centuries. the secular politicians scare the hell out of me and make me worry about my/my children’s future by their bizarre suicidal pandering to a religious group who are still stuck in the war-mongering 7th century.
now by some miracle if islam has it’s reformation and muslims mellow out like the buddhists/jains; or the secular brigade grows some balls and stands up to the jehadis, then i would vote to keep guys like modi out of politics.
But till then my “sonofabitch” stays in power.
On 11.21.07 Chandra says:
Atanu, I didn’t know Das was that bad. He was an executive in an MNC (HLL?). Looks like he took the easy route to fame rather than scholarship. Unfortunate.
On 11.22.07 socal says:
P&G not HLL. HLL had Banga of IIMA.