Books

Engaging post-independence history

India after Gandhi by Ramchandra Guha; Picador; Price: Rs.695; 771 pp

By all accounts Bangalore-based Ramchandra Guha is not your genial neighbourhood type of sociologist/ historian. Indeed it is tempting to dismiss him as an intellectual poseur. Invariably engaged as he is in high thinking even if not simple living, it’s difficult to catch the eye of a gaze perpetually focused on the middle distance. If you dare address him to solicit a penetrative socio-economic insight (as writers of this publication have on several occasions), a curt dismissal is the likely outcome.

But though Guha seems a Bollywood-style stereotype, there’s no denying he is an intellectual heavyweight in a society in which the real McCoy is hard to find. With half a dozen well-researched tomes listed as published work, he is a genuine scholar. And if his previous books were somewhat esoteric and peripheral, with India After Gandhi — the comprehensive first ever history of post-independence India — Guha has moved from the margins of the country’s intellectual mainstream to the centre.

The chief merit of Guha’s latest oeuvre is its sweeping ambition. To a busy society engaged for the past six decades with nation building and consolidation, in which epochal events have followed each other with bewildering speed and newspaper headlines screaming a new calamity or catastrophe every day, India After Gandhi offers an invaluable chronology of the milestone events that have shaped post-independence India, which against all expectation has not only survived in tacta, but has begun to sup at high table with the developed nations of the industrial world.

Following a prologue entitled ‘Unnatural Nation’ which recounts numerous doomsday predictions which prophesied the improbability of the myriad races, communities, castes and tribes of the subcontinent surviving as a nation, this riveting chronicle of our times is intelligently split into six parts, each chronologically spanning approximately a decade. In turn each part or book is divided into thematic chapters detailing the history of each epoch. Thus Part One entitled ‘Picking up the pieces’ details the pains of Partition, the assassination of the Mahatma and the amalgamation of 500 princely states into the Union of India even as the first, untried government of free India successfully absorbed and rehabilitated the over 8 million embittered refugees crossing over from the recklessly drawn borders of the twin sister nation of Pakistan. Coterminously from all this trauma emerged the seminal Constitution of India ("perhaps the greatest political venture since that originated in Philadelphia in 1787"), a novel charter of a secular nation state determined to practice liberty, equality and fraternity.

Book Two is a history of Nehruvian India. Beginning with the first general election of 1952 described as the "biggest gamble in history" because newly independent India became perhaps the first society in world history to move "straight into universal adult suffrage", Part Two covers the evolution of the non-alignment policy, the redrawing of boundaries within the country with the promulgation of linguistic states, the against-all-odds success of the Green Revolution, and the challenge and response to secessionist movements in the north-east — a grey area which is chronicled in commendable detail.

As the tragic histories of the newly liberated nation states of post-colonial Africa in particular highlight, contrary to popular opinion, nation building is a complex task requiring leaders endowed with statesmanship, wisdom, erudition and empathy among other qualities. Guha is an unapologetic Nehruvian and has little hesitation in giving a major share of the credit for the evolution of post-independence India into a mature, stable democracy to India’s first prime minister, whom it is fashionable to trash for his romance with Soviet-inspired socialism. While acknowledging that in his 17 years (1947-64) rule India’s great helmsman perhaps took a wrong turning to socialism, Guha credits Nehru with digging a deep foundation for Indian democracy, establishing perhaps the world’s first religiously secular nation state; empowering Parliament, judiciary and the press, and radically reforming Hindu personal law to provide gender justice to women. Yet for all his admiration of Nehru, Part Three of this history also recounts the decline of the Nehruvian age which began with the rise of the Dravidian parties in southern India and ended in the tragedy of the Indo-China border war which shattered this great visionary and hastened him towards his setting in 1964.

Book Four of this page turner history covers the rise of Indira Gandhi, the lurch to the Left with the nationalisation of India’s major banks, the abolition of the princes’ privy purses, India’s triumph in the Bangladesh war, the epic stand-off between Jaiprakash Narayan and Mrs. Gandhi resulting in JP’s short-lived victory in the historic general election of 1977, the return of Mrs. Gandhi to power in Delhi three years later, and the coronation of Rajiv Gandhi following his mother’s assassination in 1984.

And Part/Book Five titled ‘A History of Events’ discusses the growing awareness of rights within castes, religious minorities, women etc and the outbreak of riots and agitations across the country over issues of caste and religious identities in recent times. The fallout of the Mandal Commission’s Report (1980) and the rise of the Hindutva movement at the turn of the century is chronicled in a chapter cryptically titled ‘Riots’.

Book Five of this post-independence saga ends with a chapter titled ‘Riches’, which describes the break with Nehruvian socialism and the dramatic transformation of post-liberalisation India into one of the fastest growing economies of the contemporary world. Guha curiously gives the full credit for economic liberalisation and deregulation of the Indian economy to incumbent prime minister Manmohan Singh stating that he had "written his Oxford D Phil thesis suggesting that India move towards a more open trade regime". The fact that for over four decades Singh was a top-level bureaucrat in the economic ministries and as such an architect of neta-babu, licence-permit-quota raj which condemned the Indian economy to the so-called Hindu rate of growth for over three decades, driving millions of citizens below the poverty line, is conveniently glossed over. This sycophancy mars an otherwise objective contemporary history.

Particularly surprising for this reviewer is the author’s conspicuous omission of the role played by India’s pioneer business magazines and (subsequently) the pink newspapers in shaping public opinion in favour of greater private sector participation in the national economic development effort. By consistently ridiculing the socialist development model and highlighting private enterprise successes, they played a major role in preparing the ground for the economic liberalisation initiative of July 1991. But these publications don’t merit a single mention in this context, not even in the copious reference notes of each chapter.

But all this doesn’t detract from the reality that India After Gandhi is an eloquent and engaging account, and an excellent example of researched erudition. It deserves to be stocked in every institutional and personal library to enable scholars and laymen to make sense of the tumultuous history of post-independence India which against all odds and predictions, has survived for 60 years as a constitutional — and of late as a modestly prospering — democracy.

Pregnancy and parenting manual

Seven Secrets to Raising a Happy and Healthy Child by Joyce Golden Seyburn; Berkley Publishing Group; Price: Rs.150; 244 pp

For over four decades until the mid 1990s, children, population, net birth rates etc were negative association words. They triggered a Malthusian nightmare within the collective unconscious, compounding the lurking fear in most minds that the population of the country was growing so fast that it would outrun food supply.

But suddenly at the turn of the century this line of thinking became old hat. Almost imperceptibly a young population began to be viewed as a national resource which augured well for the future. Now the national worry is how to nurture and develop India’s demographic dividend (over 450 million Indians are below 18 years of age).

Therefore across the country and particularly within the fast-expanding Indian middle class there’s heightened awareness of the importance of raising healthy and happy children. And according to Joyce Golden Seyburn, a former kindergarten teacher who later worked as a volunteer at Deepak Chopra’s Center for Mind/Body Medicine, the secrets of successful child rearing can be found in the heritage literature of alternate Indian medicine.

Seven Secrets to Raising a Happy & Healthy Child makes the case that ayurvedic philosophy with its holistic approach to healthcare, is the answer. By determining the dosha or characteristics (vata, pitta, kapha) of every child, an informal childcare regimen can be prescribed for every mother. For instance, vata-dominant babies require less sleep, startle easily and are extremely sensitive to wet diapers. Pitta-dominant babies have hearty appetites, are prone to diaper rash and have sensitive skin. Kapha-dominant babies sleep through the night, are reserved and have regular bowel movements.

On the basis of this information a balanced plan for healthy mind and body development can be worked out for every child. This manual offers detailed, step-by-step plans for vata, pita and kapha infants. Seyburn says that Western medicine is now beginning to acknowledge the interconnection of mind and body and has also given a name to this phenomenon — psycho-neuroimmunology (PNI).

The first chapter highlights the need for pregnant mothers to maintain good health, while the second enumerates the dosha traits of children. A detailed questionnaire helps identify the body-mind type of infants.

Following a recommendation of the therapeutic value of trasnscendental meditation, in subsequent chapters Seyburn expatiates on forgotten, time- honoured practices and recommends their revival. The use of rhythm/ music and aromatic oils for instance, to centre babies and if necessary calm them down. The importance and technique of massage (with illustrations) is explained in detail — a great help for mothers who live in nuclear families without the traditional support systems of elders who were steeped in ayurvedic lore and practices. An entire chapter is devoted to conscious breathing or pranayama and yoga.

Although this is a uniquely informative book on the mind/body approach to pregnancy and parenting, it does not attempt to handle or answer specific queries or problems of child rearing. This is perhaps the only drawback of an otherwise instructive book.