Inspite of the Gods

It is a hard task for a foreigner to write about India. There are already many books which praise India without any limit (Shantaram, Maximum city). On the contrary author should be really brave to write something critical, just because we are too many and we are everywhere :P. That is why "inspite of the gods" is such a wonderful book. It is very critical but does not demean India by any means, because it is honest.

The author, Mr. Edward Luce reported for Financial Times from 2001 to 2005. It is merely a collection of his observations about Indian Society. He talks about multiple things in very different dimensions which affect our country. Given that he is a journalist, there is not much of a flow to the book:P and that is going to be my only crib about this book.

You expect that this will be a book review. But just to make you go through the entire blog post, I am going to claim that it is about problems faced by past, present and "most probably but hopefully not" future India. The book will only provide the motivation, facts and ideas; rest everything is mine. You can safely conclude that book is a great read and well worth spending time on (specially if you are also living outside India and want to feel that you give a damn).

Before reading this book I used to blame education (lack of) and population (by no means lack of) for almost all the problems in India. Rest would have been blamed on issues which arise because of education and population :). Half of you already disagree with me, because you think that population is a strength and not weakness. It is because skilled (most cases educated) population, and not just population, is a strength according to me. Since both education and population are tied in a vicious circle, where one affects the other, breaking this circle might greatly help India.

But after reading this book, the finger can be pointed to another major culprit, caste system. There is a saying in India \ref~{In spite of the gods} "we don't cast our vote, we vote our caste". The side effect is having leaders, who think, making their giant statues everywhere is going to improve the condition of poor people "drastically". People are chosen because they belong to certain caste and not because they are qualified. Given that prime minister is a hereditary title in our country (almost), this leaves very few places where qualification counts.

The discrimination on the basis of caste is still very prominent. Ironically it seems people can't escape from this prejudice after changing their religion also. The book states that most of the clergymen in India are from upper caste, and there are places of worship in most of the religions still not accessible to lower caste converts. Probably this intolerance motivates people from lower caste to adapt practices like dowry and discrimination against "lowerer" classes, so as to show that they belong to higher caste. The removal of caste system will help Indian society and specially unmarried youth who can't find partner in their caste.

Coming back to the book, another appeal is its honest criticism. It talks about how "Khadi" was important for freedom movement, but its continued love affair with government was a deterrent to fabric industry. The other fascination, socialism, motivated by Nehru and Indira Gandhi, inhibited the progress of Indian economy and still does. This is open to discussion, but it is high time that we privatize at least some of the industries (at least Air India).

One of the interesting fact which I was not aware of pertains to Aryan Invasion Theory. The author states that there was definitely a migration from central Asia. The point where historian differ is that whether it was invasion or not. So the contention is about "Invasion" and not the "Migration" part. The idea that Aryans were indigenous is the creation of Hindu nationalist. I tried to confirm this from various sources and author's opinion seems true. But more information about this will be really helpful.

It is shocking when someone questions your beliefs, so deeply rooted in you because of your upbringing in a certain environment. The following self-inspection gives rise to clarifications, more confusion and a new blog post :). So go on, give it a try and you might have something to write about.