At a time when GDP is slipping back from the Sikh to the Hindu rate of growth,and inflation is perilously close to double digits as the finance minister confessed the other day in the Rajya Sabha; and industrial growth is down more than 5 per cent and agriculture continues to virtually stagnate; and unemployment remains un-dented even as the labour-intensive MSME sector shrinks while jobless IT and IT-enabled investment swallow an ever larger share of the GDP pie,it is comforting to learn from so close an observer of the Indian scene as Sir Mark Tully that India is like the Rajdhani racing non-stop to its tryst with destiny,even as with the Rajdhani,additional stops are introduced before the Rajdhani quite comes to a halt. Sir Mark identifies at least six such wobbly fishplates Red India: Naxalism,which,notwithstanding the home ministers exertions,has spread to one-third of the districts of India and is only increasing; caste,which even in the case of Caste Overturned,is still a pervasive force; communalism,as evidenced in Vote Banking,and secular fundamentalism as in Ramayana Revisited; the alarming widening of the rural-urban divide in Farming Futures; and the environment as in Saving the Tiger. Besides,there are deeply disturbing regional issues such as the Northeast in A Forgotten Land,but hope to be found in the continued flowering of the English language (The English Raj) and,of course,Entrepreneurship Unleashed,which the title in itself says it all. The causes of concern and the rays of hope are expressed,in Sir Marks trademark reportorial style,not in polemic or footnoted academic argument but through conversations with those most directly involved,sometimes complementary,sometimes adversarial,but always enlightening. This episodic approach has the advantage of letting the reader make up his own mind as to where we are going and whether that is,indeed,the right track. The disadvantage is that the reader is also left with the uncomfortable feeling that it is all very well to be told what the Dr Ramgopal Agarwalas and Nandan Nilekanis and William Bissells have to say in tiny sound bites; and perhaps even more interesting to be fed telling phrases from the aam admi and aam aurat like Sanya Oraon and Jhalo,Bhagwan Singh and the Kartarpur Baba; and,most fascinating of all,the perceptive insights of numerous unnamed and largely unknown stakeholders,but is there a systemic solution? Or will our Rajdhani trundle along expecting to get to its destination,principally because Sir Mark thinks so,but uncertain as to what is journeys end and when or even whether we will get there? I think Sir Mark would reply in the words he quotes from Ramgopal Agarwala that it is better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong. Indias unique combination of democracy and development is indeed taking the country forward. We are just about the only post-colonial country to have translated Independence for the country into freedom for our people. There has been more real progress in every sphere of national life than at any time in the last 5,000 years. But what Sir Mark does not adequately explore at least in this book is the dilemma of democracy and development that threatens to derail the Indian Rajdhani. The polity of one vote for all and no more than one vote for anyone is being increasingly subverted by some having many notes and many having almost none at all. Aspirations driven by development are being frustrated by the widening disparities that have made India just about the most unequal country in the world,next only to China. The Chinese have a permanent Emergency to contain simmering discontent. We have democracy to give vent to that discontent. And the legitimacy of a democracy that promotes the illusion of political equality while self-evidently promoting blatant economic inequality is coming under question both in Red India and Team Hazares India. Many of the symbols of progress that Sir Mark lauds are also the sources of envy and anger. Development is increasingly perceived as not desirable but disruptive by that vast majority of Indians some 80 per cent who have not been able to clamber on to the high-growth trajectory or have often actually been pushed off it so that a tiny sliver of the best-off can become even more obscenely prosperous. Only Panchayat Raj,that is,inclusive governance can promote inclusive development. I hope that becomes the theme of Sir Marks next book. His chapter on Building Communities in this book could mark a beginning.
