BOOK REVIEW

Where will all this take us?

By

Arun Shourie

First published by Rupa & Co in 2008

Arun Shourie needs no introduction to the generation of Indians who acquired political awakening in the 1980s. More than anyone else, it was Mr. Shourie who, by his unique style of writing contributed to this awakening, especially amongst the English speaking, reading middle classes. His incisive analysis, complete dependence on facts and nothing else to make a point and his monumental skills in collecting and producing material in support of his line of argument have endeared him to the discerning public. Shekhar Gupta in his introduction to this volume rightly summarises the qualities of Arun Shourie as, “diligence and passion, professional and personal courage that is so inspirational, his intellect and quest for new knowledge, hunger for inquiry that is not dimmed by age or cynicism nor by accomplishment or ideology.”

All these admirable qualities are in evidence in this book – a collection of articles published in the Indian Express during the period from 2003 to 2008. Broadly, the issues discussed include, the internal security of India, our external relations with China, Pakistan and to an increasing extent, Bangladesh, the Indo-US Nuclear deal, the sorry state of our Public Undertakings and his attempt at disinvestment of some of these white elephants as a Minister in the Vajpayee Government. Apart from these, Mr. Shourie focuses upon the cynicism and apathy which characterises our political discourse and the incompetence of our politicians and the administrative apparatus and their collective failure to rise to the occasion when danger stalks them right in front.

In the first Section, Mr. Shourie brings to the fore three major problems which endangers our internal security, naxalism, mafia rule in large parts of UP and Bihar and the continuing influx of Bangladeshis into India and their silent enveloping of the borders districts of Assam, Bihar, U.P. and West Bengal. The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh had long ago described naxalism as the biggest security threat facing the country. Contrary to the media diagnosis of the naxalism as the outcome of social deprivation of the poor and economic disparities, Arun Shourie has a different take on both naxalism and terrorism in general. In his view, terrorism thrives because of terrorist economy and terrorist economy has become self-financing. This is so because of the nexus between terrorist groups and the drug trade, with smugglers, extortion racketeers, real estate mafia, liquor mafia and even the government’s “developmental outlays” helping this terrorists economy to flourish. He cites the example of Punjab, where all economic indicators such as unemployment, population below poverty line, per capita income, infant mortality, life expectancy etc have been far better compared to all the other states in the country, yet terrorism using religion as a fuel, played havoc with the lives of the people of the State for close to two decades. More tellingly, Shourie poses an interesting question: Poverty and unemployment are not much less today in Punjab, but why is there no terrorism? Another question which begs an answer is: Districts most affected by naxal violence, Patna, Jehanabad, Nalanda, Aurangabad, Nawadah and Bhojpur have farm prosperity and literacy higher than the rest of the state, So what explains the entrenched naxalite presence in these districts, if poverty is an explanation for the emergence of naxalism?

Perhaps the anger of Shourie at the mainstream media mindlessly peddling poverty as the cause of naxalite violence, Islamic and other brands of terrorism is justified. But, need one tell Mr. Shourie that all kinds of rebellion in history, based both on real (1857 mutiny) and imaginary (Muslim separatism in 1947) grievances have been led by the wealthy and the middle classes and that left-wing militancy in India is no exception. This reason does not in any way belittle the enormity of the naxalite challenge. As Mr. L.K. Advani himself had admitted in the Parliament when he was the Home Minister, there is naxalite presence in roughly 180 districts of the country. In terms of size, the total area of these districts combined is even greater than the area of Pakistan! In other words, India has within its belly another Pakistan and it could come out any time, should things continue in the way they have been for the past 10 years. Shourie himself points out the example of Nepal, where from 4 districts in December, 2001, Maoists spread their influence to the entire country by 2008.

Another issue Shourie highlights is the continuing illegal immigration of people from Bangladesh into the borders districts of India, specially Assam, Bihar and West Bengal. He quotes extensively from the Task Force on Border Management and the Task Force on Internal Security to drive home the dimensions of the problem: Smuggling of arms, drugs through the border, the mushrooming madrassas and the silent invasion and occupation of large tracts of border lands by Bangladeshis. Shourie takes on the liberal intellectuals and locates our inability to move forward and confront all these problems in the disproportionate influence they wield in the corridors of power. His advice to the policy makers is, shun political correctness if you are to get anywhere close to the root of the problem.

Our “often on and often not” attempts at what we do comes out clearly in the economic arena, especially in comparison with China. While China has progressed in almost all fields because of its sustained efforts in reforming its economy, we have only made feeble efforts in this direction. The figures which Shourie quote tell their own story. At the time of independence, our economies were of the same size. Today, China’s per capita income is two and half to three times that of India. Its exports have grown to $ 850 billion, ours $ 155 billion. Our forex reserves are $ 160 billion, China’s $ 1000 billion. In 2008, China spent $ 201 billion on infrastructure development, we spent $ 28 billion and the divide widens when one moves to other fields such as education, health and so on. Shourie rightly predicted that this difference in economic indicators would ultimately reflect in the political and military fields. Two years after his writing, the dragon has wagged its tail and the result has been stapled visas to visitors from Kashmir, border incursions and an incredible “advice” to the Indian government to not include people from Kashmir and North Eastern states in delegations visiting China! This is the sad outcome of our underperformance combined with pusillanimity in dealing with rising china.

Shourie brings his amazing argumentative skills while putting forth his case against the Indo-US Nuclear deal. He quotes provisions from the Senate Bill, the Congress Bill, various statements of the senators, the then Secretary of State Condi Rice and others to nail the lie of the government that India’s hold over its strategic nuclear programme has not loosened because of the deal. After going through his argument, one feels how a determined government could fool the media, parliament and the people at large with its lies.

A delightful section of the book is the one dealing with his attempt at disinvestment of loss making public sector undertakings. The obstacles and road blocks, the parliamentary scrutiny and newspaper leakages and business rivalries which bedevilled his attempt at selling of PSUs are a revelation. Even when the extent of loss making is many times the paid up capital of these units, a whole lot of vested interest would not let these units be sold off because their politics would not let them do so. The country has paid dearly because of this politics of cronyism and these PSUs continue to bleed the exchequer even now.

Where Mr. Shourie goes over-board is in his diagnosis of the communal problem. In his opinion, the indic religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism are peace loving, inward-looking and accommodative of other world views, whereas the Middle Eastern religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism are inherently intolerant and dominating. The reasons adduced by Shourie for the intolerance of the followers of these religions is that they believe reality is simple; it is revealed to one man who has put it in one book; which is true for all times; one needs an intermediary to understand what is stated in the book; one needs to adhere to the prescriptions of the intermediary and more importantly, those who do not accept the message are thwarting the will of the messenger and therefore, should be vanquished by the collective action of the believers. Though his diagnosis is true to some extent, it does not entirely explain the world as it exists today or the historical events of the last century. Neither the Muslims nor the Christians – nor for that matter the Hindus – have been able to organise themselves as a Ummah or a collective. One needs to only look at the modern world to see how Muslims have divided themselves into 30 odd nations, often fighting amongst themselves rather than vanquishing the unbelievers! There are strong secular societies within purportedly Muslim countries, such as Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia. Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country had the world’s biggest communist party outside the communist bloc before the party was decimated by the Indonesian military in the 1970s with a huge dose of assistance from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In Turkey, the presence of military looms large over the political system; it is always ready to intervene to prevent the religious parties assuming power. Even the religious right has toned down its stridency to suit the reality of the dominant presence of the military in the affairs of Turkey. The Palestinians were largely non-religious before Israel reduced them to the status of refugees in their own lands. As far Christian unity, suffice it say that the two world wars were fought by Christian nations amongst themselves.

These exceptions, one may say, do not make the rule. Most of the Muslim countries remain conservative, with religion holding a fierce grip over the lives and conduct of ordinary citizens. But there are voices of dissent seeking reform, not just in the political systems but also freedom in religious beliefs. There are voices seeking reform, reinterpretation of the Islam’s tenets by means of Ijtihad to suit modern times. While the fight against Islamic fundamentalism must be fought resolutely, one must not lose sight of the churning which is already taking place in Islamic societies. One hopes this churning would bring to the surface a liberal version of Islam which would be at peace with itself while carring forward the message of the Prophet, the message of social justice and brotherhood.