Published in THE BOOK REVIEW, June,2012
THE DARK UNDERBELLY OF THE SHINING INDIA
On the cover
of this elegantly written reportage-cum-travelogue is a shabbily dressed teenage
girl holding a toddler. In the background we see the thatched houses and many tell-tale
signs of extreme poverty. From the cover photograph itself you have a fair idea
what this book is all about. At the top of the cover it reads Beautiful
Country: Stories from Another India. The title is apt because the
stories here are, of course, from another India; an India which is different from
the India portrayed by the worshippers of mindless consumerism and votaries of crony
capitalism. This India doesn’t shine and remains unaffected by the impact of
double digit growth. This is, in fact, the dark underbelly of one of the
world’s fastest growing economies where majority of Indian citizens live. They
are ‘resilient and courageous women and men of India whose ordinary lives and
extraordinary spirit inspired the author duo, Syeda Hameed and Gunjan Veda to
write this book.
Beautiful
Country chronicles the journey undertaken by Syeda Hameed, the social
activist and member of Planning Commission, and Gunjan Veda, journalist, to that
another India, the India of villages and small town. And what they observed
during their visits was quite disconcerting. From a river island of Assam to
the tribal areas of Andaman Nicobar, from the freezing valleys of Ladakh to the
backwaters of Alleppy in Kerala, they criss-crossed the entire country taking
notes of the daily lives of the people living away from the glitz and glamour
of the big cities. During their voyage they encountered the people and visited
the places which rarely appear in the mainstream media.
Somewhere in
this book the authors take us to Daniyalpur, Varanasi, and we are introduced to
Maimun Nisa and her son. And it goes like this: Thin face, sunken eyes,
hollow cheeks, a frayed light pink dupatta covered her head. Her son, Imran,
was tiny and had the face of an old man—shrivelled and shrunk. His feet were so
thin that we wondered if he would ever be able to walk. His head seemed too big
for his small frail body. These lines speak volumes about the so-called
growth that our country has witnessed during the last two decades. Clearly, much
applauded Manmohanomics has failed to
bring noteworthy change in the lives of the people on the margins. Across the
country there are many Daniyalpurs,
there are many Maimun Nisas and many
Imrans. If we move further, we see a
school being run under open sky in Kashmir, thousands of people going untreated
on the river islands in Assam, the men and women working on handlooms from dawn
to dusk for meagre salaries in Malegaon, the women and the children dying in
the tribal areas of Maharashtra and elsewhere in the want of basic medical
facilities. Go further and more stories of misery and deprivation will pour in.
Are we,
as responsible citizens of this country, doing our bits for our less privileged
fellow Indians? Or at least are we giving voice to their concerns? Perhaps,
not. But, there are many individuals whose selfless services are changing the
lives of the millions. In Assam we have Sanjoy Hazarika, a former New York
Times correspondent who is managing trustee of the Centre for North-east
studies and Policy research (C-NES). C-NES is agency behind the idea of boat
clinics which reach out to thousands of people living on the different islands
of Brahmaputra River. Then, there are a group of doctors who have left
their lucrative jobs and comfortable lives in the metros for serving the poor tribals
of Chhattisgarh. Syeda and Gunjan tell us about many such courageous men and
women who, in their own small ways, are making a difference.
What strikes
me most in this book is the tone of the prose which is laced with empathy and
honesty. The authors don’t hesitate to accept that as a nation we have failed
to take care of our people on the margins. This fact is generally not acknowledged
by our politicians and bureaucrats. For example, in the foreword of this book, Dr
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, lauds Syeda and
Gunjan for their remarkable work but at the same time he is reluctant to accept
that the bureaucracy has failed when it comes to taking governance to the
downtrodden and poor people. At the very end of the foreword, he attempts discreetly
to dilute the seriousness of the book. This has been the biggest problem with
our bureaucratic set up that they never accept the reality and try to hide the
truth under the carpet of the statistical data. So, instead of doing the real
work most of them --but not all— are busy stacking data.
About
this book, Khushwant Singh says, ‘The truth about India’s development, as told
by those who know it, makes for a compelling read.’ I can’t agree more but
would like to add that it also makes for a disturbing read. At the end of this
review I would like to quote four lines from Allama Iqbal’s Bal-e-Jibrail
(Gabriel’s Wing) which the authors have quoted at the beginning of the book.
Khol ankh zamin dekh falak
dekh fiza dekh
Mashriq se ubhartey
huey suraj ko zara dekh
Iss
jalwa-e-beparda ko pardon mein chhupa dekh
Ayyam-e-judai
ke sitam dekh jafa dekh
Open your eyes, look at the earth
and the sky
Look at the sun rising gloriously in
the east
Look at its unveiled glory hidden
behind veils
Suffer the pain and torture of days
of deprivation
This
offering, undoubtedly, is going to be an eye opener for those who have not seen
the real India, yet.
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