A Love Song to India

India’s Unending Journey by Mark Tully is a love story of uncertainties and paradoxes that abound in India.  While the globe is teetering on the edge of energy and food crises, countries –developed or developing—are trying to find a balance between unbridled expansion of trade and keeping the planet safe for generations to come.  “Nothing is constant but change,” said one wise person, and so true it is. 

India has always been a kaleidoscopic fascination for the West, in spite of the servile nature of India during the British Raj, the abject poverty post-Independence and the current trend of migration to other parts of the globe, particularly the United States.  Walt Whitman and Emerson, iconic figures in American culture, drew inspiration and truth from Indian spiritual texts.  It was the German scholars who managed to decipher the ancient Sanskrit texts. 

For hundreds of years, the developed world saw the average Indian as a

half-naked fakir on a bed of nails or a snake-charmer lost in the throes of his flute.  Today the 21^st century has brought about a change in the world’s outlook towards India.  Today it feels exhilarated as well as threatened by the Indian IT worker, the scientist, the researcher, the manager.  With leaps and bounds in economic progress, how does India maintain a balance between new wave consumerism and the irreducible spirituality embedded in the Indian subconscious?

 “This book is about the uncertainty of certainty, about accepting the limits of what we know, and being willing to question our beliefs…”

 Tully lauds the virtues of pluralism without ignoring its manipulations and dangers.  Regarding fundamentalism, Tully reiterates the clash of civilizations that Samuel Huntington wrote about in the beginning of the 21^st century.  I would like to present here a poignant question Karen Armstrong has posed:

 “Shouldn’t the United States and Europe take the time to consider whether their culture might appear to be aggressive to Muslims, just as Islam appears to be aggressive to them?”

 I have recently read US presidential candidate Barack Obama’s Blueprint for Change.  In his ‘Plan to Secure America and Restore Our Standing’, Obama talks about fighting terrorism and “…reaffirm American values.”  I pray that he has a sensible policy towards the Iraq and Iran issue keeping in mind the sensitive ground he is treading on.

 Tully has extended his love song to the Indian ethos be it the corruption or the bombings or the secularism that exists in India.  After all, he says, India knits all communities together and no matter what, they re-unite after a violent hiatus.  Corruption, which walks along the corridors of power and government offices, has been dealt with disinterestedly and pragmatically.  For instance, when speaking about the Union Minister for Railways, Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav, turning the loss-making Indian Railways into a thriving profitable national asset, Tully quotes Lalu;

             “If you don’t milk the cow fully, it falls sick.”

It is surprising though, to see that Tully has called cricket our national game when it is not so.  Perhaps, hockey has really taken such a beating this year that it is on the verge of being erased from public memory.

Another issue that seems to peeve Tully is the hype on products of B-schools.  He states 

            “It is a culture that believes business is a science whose findings are as conclusive as those of the physical sciences and therefore, like them, should not be questioned.”           

Finally he ends with Varanasi, one of the oldest cities in the world.  It is a confluence of Hinduism and Islam and no where can we find a better co-existence.  When the bomb blasts occurred on 7^th March, 2006, the Mahant of the Sankat Mochan temple, Veer Bhadra Mishra, and the Mufti of Varanasi, Abdul Batin Nomani together maintained harmony and prevented any faction from stoking communal fires.

All in all, a great book understanding what India does not represent and acknowledging that India is always in a state of flux.  That is its strength.

Sir Mark Tully, born in Calcutta in 1935, was Chief of Bureau of BBC, New Delhi.  He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2005, and knighted in 2002.  He has written several books on India, including No Full Stops in India, India in Slow Motion (with Gillian Wright) and The Heart of India.