India’s modern mutinies

Asian powerhouse or failing state? Four reports provide an assessment from the margins of an economic boom

It has often been said of the Indian government that in trying to do too much, it has done too little. Socialist planning in the decades that followed the country’s independence in 1947 created state-owned steel mills, hotels and airlines. It also brought economic isolation and stultifying regulation. Meanwhile, New Delhi had neglected more basic needs such as primary education, public hygiene and women’s health.

Fast-forward and everything would seem to have changed. The growth rate has risen sharply over the past two decades to about 8 per cent and a vast Indian middle class has enticed billions of dollars in foreign investment from western multinationals seeking new consumers. Yet the unfinished economic reforms begun in 1991 have a poor report card in areas where the government must take the lead. The majority of the population still lacks access to a toilet, the average time children spend in school is about four years, and about half of those under the age of five are severely malnourished – a record worse than that of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

India is the land of paradox. And one of its central contradictions is that this most dynamic of economies also has many characteristics of a failing state.

The shadow of inept and iniquitous government looms large in each of the four books under review. A recurrent theme of Mark Tully’s India: The Road Ahead, Siddhartha Deb’s The Beautiful and the Damned, Arundhati Roy’s Broken Republic and Sonia Faleiro’s Beautiful Thing is that for all the progress of recent decades, the country’s growth has been far more corrupt, unequal and disruptive than it needed to be.

Full report here Financial Times

Celebrating literature in Nepal

Two literature festivals in Kathmandu over the next month will help to spread the love of literature in Nepal.

Over the next 30 days, Kathmandu will see not one but two literary festivals. This Thursday, 18 August, is the date of the launch of the Nepal Literature Festival, being held at Jhamsikhel, Lalitpur. It will feature 61 writers, including Ira Trivedi from India and Mark Tully from the UK. Within a month of its end on 21 August, another literary festival is set to begin in nearby historical Patan Durbar Square, from 16-18 September. With 30 national, including those who write in Newari, and 10 international writers so far, the Kathmandu Literary Jatra (of which Himal is a partner), like the Nepal Literature Festival, hopes to provide a global platform to the otherwise largely isolated Nepali literary circles.

Additionally, festival directors, Ajit Baral of the Nepal Literature Festival and Suvani Singh of the Kathmandu Literary Jatra, hope that the festivals will help create a dialogue among and between the writers and readers in Nepal. Although the Nepali literary scene is vibrant and thriving, writers are often unaware of the demands of their readers. ‘With the literacy rate at around 60 percent and growing,’ says Baral, ‘intellectual hunger and demands for quality in literary works have only increased in Nepal. The writers, as well as publishers, like me, need to focus on quality delivery.’

Full report here Himal

Controversial book based on foreign scribes

John MacLithon, the pseudonymous author whose book Hinduvta, Sex & Adventure created a controversy sometime ago after it was alleged that its protagonist Andrew Luyt was modelled on veteran journalist Mark Tully, on Thursday said the character is based on several foreign correspondents based in Delhi in the 1980s and 1990s, including Tully.

Responding to a legal notice served on publishers Roli Books on behalf of Tully and Ebury Press, publishers of the former BBC correspondent’s book “India’s Unending Journey”, the author who wrote under the pseudonym John MacLithon said Luyt’s character had been modelled on a number of foreign correspondents then based in Delhi, including Tiziano Terzani, François Gautier, Tully, Bernard Imhasly and John Elliott.

“It is however true that Mark Tully has uttered in his time quite a few strong statements on the need for India to retain its Hindu identity though he may regret them today in Sonia Gandhi’s India,” MacLithon said, in his communication released to the media.

Full report here Deccan Herald

Of Tully’s tales

I have seen this doctor who lives in our neighbourhood with his family leave for the hospital at odd hours, rushing to attend to lives desperately holding on to the hope of his arrival.

It was easy to believe that he had little time for any literary indulgences or any other diversions for that matter. But occasional chats with Dr Easwer revealed an avid book buff who squeezed reading into the already crammed scheme of things, often by compromising on the hard-earned hours of respite.

Bookie felt it should probably be inspiring for reading aficionados to learn about a much sought-after neurosurgeon who, though “forced to forsake it (reading) due to pressure on my time and energy from all the acts of daily living,” believes that books are as important to him as food and water.

Happily obliging to Bookie’s request to share one of his favourite reads, the doctor had stated at the outset that he had a preference for “books on India and by Indian authors. There is an explosion of young Indian authors writing in English and this has great appeal in terms of relating to things they write about.” And  it was Mark Tully’s The Heart of India, which had kept him engrossed on a flight to Mumbai about three years ago, that he picked for Bookie.

Full report here New Indian Express

Mark Tully attacked in novel

But his reputation has come under extraordinary attack in a thinly-disguised novel which portrays him as a heartless philanderer and supporter of fanatics.

Hindutva Sex and Adventure, written by an unidentified author and released by one of India's leading publishers, centres on a veteran foreign correspondent clearly identifiable as Tully, who was knighted for his journalism in 2002.

The plot includes an incident in which Luyt seduces a young Indian journalist, has 'tantric' sex with her but then but then suggests she has an abortion after becoming pregnant.

He also becomes a supporter of Hindutva, the Hindu fundamentalist philosophy which provoked communal riots throughout India in the early 1990s in which several thousand people were killed.

Full report here Telegraph

‘My Hindutva is much more radical than Tully’s'

I have been implicitly accused by Neha Tara Mehta of Mail Today, to have written the book Hindutva, Sex & Adventures (Roli Books, 2010), about which she says: “Rarely has a novel got as many tongues wagging in Delhi, especially after a few glasses of wine”.

The book narrates the story of a South Asia foreign correspondent, John Luyt, who has dodged bullets in Kashmir, reported on Ayodhya, covered Pakistan and interviewed six Indian prime ministers. However, John veers from a British secular outlook, to a ‘soft’ Hindutva stance, which makes him declare: “I do profoundly believe that India needs to be able to say with pride, yes, our civilisation has a Hindu base to it”.

There are also some very explicit ‘tantric’ sex scenes with his partner Imla, an Indian journalist (who is decidedly ‘secular’), which made the Times of India say: “The erotica is deliciously steamy and can vie for the Good Sex award, if there’s one. Highly recommended reading”!

Full report here New Indian Express

"I have no plans to leave India"

I recently had the pleasure of meeting and then interviewing Sir Mark Tully, a British writer and journalist, considered to be an expert on India, who lives in Delhi. In the interview the veteran former BBC correspondent, who was once very outspoken of the corporation’s restructuring, talks about why he remains in India, what he wants to see changed and why he does not consider himself an expat. Since you are my loyal blog readers, I have posted the entire interview below.

Your last book, India’s Unending Journey, was published in 2007.  Yet you seem very busy. What are you working on right now?
For the past 13 years I have been making a programme for BBC Radio Four called Something Understood. I make 30 of these a year and we make them in batches of six and I am doing six right now.  I make three in India and the rest in the UK. It’s a discussion about matters, which you cannot understand fully, such as philosophy, poetry, religion, all sorts of things, but less in the rational field and more in the intuition field. I am also writing another book on how India has changed since economic liberalisation. It’s like my book No Full Stops In India (NFSII). Next year will be 20 years since liberalisation and also approximately 20 years since NFSII was published.

So, what will that book say? How has India changed?
Well, it has changed rapidly in some respects. There has been a huge release of entrepreneurial activity, as a result of the licence permit of the Raj being lifted.
Industrial production and consumer goods increased, such as the motor car. Twenty years ago, India was still in the age of the Maruti and the Ambassador and even they were only limited to a few people then. The permits were lifted in 1991. Until then there had been a socialist system whereby all industrial expansion had to be subjected to licence processes. These are some of the positives. However, the negatives are the systems of governance and the institutions that affect them have not been tackled. The book is based on reportage, it is not academic. NFSII was about how Indian culture needs to be protected, but the issue of governance was touched on in it. I have written another book called India in Slow Motion, which is about governance in India.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Green letter days

More than 150 writers, many of them leading names, from the eight SAARC nations have converged in Delhi for the 33 rd SAARC Festival of Literature. Over the next three days, there will be outpourings of writings from the likes of fiction writers Selina Hossain of Bangladesh, Tahira Iqbal of Pakistan, AK Rashid from Afghanistan, Abhi Subedi from Nepal, Kunzang Choden from Bhutan and poet Lakshanta Athukorala from Sri Lanka.

India is represented by a large contingent comprising Malayalam writer MT Vasudevan Nair, Hindi poet Ashok Vajpeyi and poet-lyricist Gulzar among others. “For the writers, the event dissolves borders as they discuss issues that concern all of us. For readers, it’s a time to meet the people with whose words they have become familiar,” says poet K Satchidanandan, who recited from his works That is all on Friday, the first day of the festival.

Every year, the festival focuses on a pressing issue, and the present edition is highlighting environment degradation. Hence, the list of awardees included not only Pakistani media person Hamid Mir (who won the SAARC Lifetime Achievement Award), Indian writer and journalist MarkTully and Subedi (who won the SAARC Literary Awards), but also environmentalists Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal and Baba Sewa Singh from Punjab and archaeologist KK Muhammad. Each day is divided into two parts — academic discussions followed by reading sessions.

Full report here Indian Express

Literary and cultural magazine on Kashmir launched

A magazine highlighting the cultural identity of Kashmir has been launched.

Addressing a seminar at the launch of the magazine 'Praznath' last night, noted journalist and author Mark Tully said Hindus and Muslims need to cohabit in Kashmir again.

"You (Pandits) and the Muslims are the people that India needs to see live together again," he said. His comments elicited strong reaction from Kashmiri Pandits present at the function who disagreed with him.

Full report here PTI 

Arunachal part of India, says Mark Tully

Noted journalist and author Mark Tully today said Arunachal Pradesh is part of India. "I see no reason why this part of India will be part of China," Tully, the India correspondent of BBC from 1965 to 1994, told newsmen in Itanagar on Feb 28.

Tully said he is working on a book - India since economic liberalisation  which will contain a chapter on North-East, including Arunachal Pradesh. The heydays of ULFA in Assam, its tea industry besides Meghalaya and Manipur will certainly find mention, he said.

Responding to a volley of questions, he said people never opt for insurgency but become part of a compelling situation.  

Full report here PTI