Book Review [71] : In an Antique Land

I never read Amitav Ghosh before but heard about his novels like Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke etc. His genre is mainly historic fiction and travelogue.

In an Antique Land is one of his earliest non-fiction works, mainly records his stay in the hinterland of Egypt in the 1980s and his research on Jewish merchants and their Malabar/Mangalore connections. Throughout this book, Egyptians make fun of his culture, religion and customs by asking silly questions like -- "Does he burn his deads, does he worship cows, does he circumcise?" and Amitav Ghosh finds extremely difficult to explain the peculiarities of his faith and sometimes he becomes too apologetic about his faith to easy going but ignorant, parochial and insular Egyptians. In so many ways Egyptians in this book are similar to the rural Indians. Certainly ancient civilizations have some common genetic disorder.

I never thought that Misri (name of crystalline sugar in north India) is called after Misr (Arabic name for Egypt) in northern India. The two ancient civilizations that were so close 500 years ago are  too distant now. Egyptians are completely unaware of any religion apart from Islam, Judaism and Christianity, and any tradition/culture apart from middle east culture, but on other hand they are very welcoming and friendly. Their ancestors were great traders and agile persons and one single family could have members living in Sicily, Aden, Egypt and Mangalore (as this book informs us).

Recommended (7/10)

Book Review [70] : Patriots and Partisans

Four years back i wrote a review of 'India after Gandhi' by Ramachandra Guha, a significant and lucid work on the history of Independent India (but definitely not great).

I bought his latest book 'Patriots and Partisans' couple of days back solely on the reputation built by 'India After Gandhi', but reputations are not evergreen, unfortunately. This book is a sheer waste of time and money, in this book Guha appears to be a glorified Chetan Bhagat if not less. I don't know why Mr. Guha's books are so astronomically priced, this has less than 330 pages but its price is 699 Indian Rupee (although i got 50% discount because of a sale), so effectively more than 2 Indian Rupee per page, way too expensive. I have few observations about this book:

1. Why the name of the book is what it is? The title has no relevance with the content.

2. Guha has no answers to some pertinent questions asked by some writers of 'hate' mails in 'Hindutva Hate mail' chapter, and he did not even try to answer them. He should have used the opportunity to silence the hate mongers.

3. The defense of Mr. Nehru in alleged Nehru-Edwina affair is very very weak.

4. He gives disproportionate credit for establishing democratic institutions/nation building  to Nehru but cleverly shares the blame of China debacle with other political leaders and Indian public.

5. He did not write anything about the mismanagement of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in any public forum i.e. media before the publication of this book. The mismanagement started in 2005 but he stayed silent for more than 7 years. It will be not be fair to ignore his audacious criticism of the first family of Indian politics and the creed of Chamchagiri (Sycophancy) in the oldest political party of India.

6. He assumes that all Indian right wing leaders/intellectuals are bigots, insular and parochial. He declares Atal Bihari Vajpayee govt of 1998-2004 as an insular and parochial government. He also declares that Manmohan Singh is more honest than Mr. Vajpayee (he does this in a clever way). And he does so without any proof or substance. 

Overall not a good book by any standard, this book is not even an afternoon shadow of 'India after Gandhi'

Not Recommended (5/10)

Book Review [69] : Mao a life

To not read Mao or the modern China is like ignoring the life of 20% of the humanity\one of the three poles of the modern world\ one of the three (or four) political ideologies/systems. So i started reading biography of 'Mao A Life' by Philip Short, i bought this biography at Heathrow airport in 2008 and the bookshop owner gave me 70% discount on this may be wanted to get rid of the book ASAP.

Its a serious work on the life of a man who killed more people, either directly or indirectly than killed by Hitler and Stalin combined, and is still considered a "great" man and a large number of political parties were formed after his name, even in India.

Mao Zedong was born on 26th Dec 1893 in Hunan province in a peasant family, he was one of the founding members of Chinese Communist Party in early 1920s, he also joined KMT when CCP-KMT were allying against the warlords of China. He mastered the art of Guerrilla warfare and the art of deception. The Long March of 1934-35 established him as numero-uno in CCP, he became the Chairman of CCP and the dictator of Peoples Republic of China after defeating his arch rival Chiang Kai Shek of KMT on 1st Oct 1949. He made original contribution to the Class theory of Marx by successfully organizing peasants just like Lenin organized the workers in 1917. He unleashed two very brutal and megalomaniac blunders - The Great Leap Forward (1958-61) and The Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution (1966 -76); the first destroyed the agriculture sector and resulting famine killed atleast 30 mn people, while the other destroyed the ancient cultural artifacts of China both tangible and intangible. The entire period of his rule was marked by frequent purges of his dissenters and potential rivals, he betrayed his fellow comrades including the likes of Liu Shaoqi, Zhaou Enlai, Peng, Deng Xiaoping etc. He married 4 times and in later half of his life he became a notoriously promiscuous creature. In the end he died in Sept 1976. Just three later, Deng Xiaoping unleashed the "Capitalist" reforms in China. 

Some one rightly said about Mao - "Had he died in 1950s, his achievements would have been immortalized. Had he died is 1960s, still he would have become great man of China. But he died in 1976, so what we can say about him"

Overall its a good read, great work to know about modern China and Chairman Mao Zedong.

Recommended (7/10)

Book Review [68] : Things Fall Apart

They say Africa was a Dark Continent and there were no culture, religion, science, law etc before the advent of the White Man on a civilizing mission few centuries back. White Man brought new religion, new laws (also Apartheid and racism), new customs etc to this dark continent and wiped out the older version of the African civilization. This is normal history of Africa that we all are told. But fortunately for us Chinua Achebe tells us a different story.

Chinua Achebe was the greatest African writer but even that was not enough to get him the Nobel Prize. He died few months back in March 2013. He wrote seminal pieces on Africa and African society and each story mesmerizes to the core of human heart. 'Things Fall Apart' is a heart touching and hear breaking story of Africa; its not a story of one village, one tribe or one country but whole of Africa that was the victim of White Man's burden. This story aptly symbolizes the story of colonized Asia, America, Australia as well.  'Things Fall Apart' is a story of the decline of the egalitarian life of 9 African villages because of the arrival of White colonists, their religion and their laws. It tells how Christianity dismantles (sic) the communal fabric of the traditional African society, how it parts a son from his father and how it makes Africans to abuse/desecrate their traditional Gods. This story is too good to be ignored and has its parallel in almost all parts of India and else where. Please do read it, its less than 200 pages and each page is gold. Its a shame that i could not read this book in the life time of Chinua Achebe.

Highly recommended (10/10)

Book Review [67] : Where China Meets India

First of all let me make one statement, we Indians are still an insular nationality and in all these past centuries we have learned nothing even from our own mistakes, Al Beruni was spot on when he made that particular accusation on Indians in 11th century AD.

In last decade or so, many business leaders, writers, journalists etc have written a large number of books about the "economic development" of China and India, some writers have exaggerated it while some rare breeds have even crossed the wildest limit of exaggeration, declaring that China and India will dominate the world in next 3-4 decades and hegemony of US and West will end decisively by next 40 years. Truth as always lives very far from the home of exaggeration, both countries are damn poor although China is far ahead of India but there are structural fissures in the economic growth of India and in the political and economic growth of China. It will take atleast half a century for China to reach upto the level of the prosperity of an average American and for India even a century looks too short. The population of these countries gurantees that one day these countries will rule the world (if they remain as two countries) but that day is yet too far. 

 

'Where China Meets India' by M. Thant is a very pragmatic survey of the history, culture, ethnicity and future significance of three major regions of South East Asia - North East India, Yunan and Myanmar. These three regions contain perhaps the greatest diversity of language, ethnicity, religion and wild life, and is the heart of the four great river systems of Asia - Brahmaputra, Mekong, Irrawaddy, and Yangtze, perhaps nature is playing a great game out here and telling India, China and Myanmar in her own way to learn the ways of peaceful co-operation and development.

Myint-U Thant starts his journey from Myanmar, he covers Rangoon, Mandelay and then reaches the trouble spots of Myanmar, the hilly region dominated by the Shan, Kachin tribes. He then moves to Yunan and covers various aspects of its history, culture and development. In the end he travels to NE India and covers the insurgency and military rule prone Manipur. According to him and i wholeheartedly agree, that development of North East India can only happen by co-operation with neighbouring regions of Myanmar, Yunan and also Bangladesh. In 1947 North East India was connected to China, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and its per capita income was higher that of Indian average; After 15th August 1947 this region lost connectivity to Bangladesh and later to Myanmar and China, this region also got engulfed in worse kind of violent insurgencies and this tragic process resulted in its becoming poorer than the rest of India. Yunan was worse than NE India in 1947 now its miles ahead of NE India and Myanmar played a key role in the development of Yunan through its natural resources and trade (and ofcourse the focus of China) . We should take a page from the Chinese book, no harm in learning even from the enemies. Look east is a good start but miles to go before we reach there. 

We need to start reading and learning about this region in a def-con 1 mode.
I have not read a better book on this region.

 

Highly recommended (8/10)

Book Review [66] : Long Walk to Freedom

Many a times in 2008 i tried to buy 'Long Walk to Freedom' but its size (more than 1000 pages) and price deterred me from buying it. Last month the health of Madiba deteriorated so i thought it will be a sort of tribute to read his highly valued autobiography, 'Long Walk to Freedom' in his life time. Some people were born great (like Alexander, Chandragupta, Napoleon etc), others became great because of the challenges they faced despite of born with no great attributes or habits, Mandela belongs to the second set. Born on 18th July in 1918 in a traditional Xhosa African family, related to the royal house of Thembu. He lived a rather ordinary life in highly racist South Africa. He completed B.A. in 1941 and 1943 he joined African National Congress, this association had a seminal effect on him as well as on the future course of South Africa as a country and as a society. With the victory of National Party under the leadership of Dr. Daniel Malan in 1948 elections (only White could vote) South Africa turned into a brutal country based on the principle of Apartheid or racial segregation. This caused a turmoil in ANC and ANC started civil disobedience movement but was crushed by the government. ANC was banned by government in 1960.
ANC had no choice but to go violent, Under the directions of ANC, Nelson Mandela setup a militant organization MK (Spear of the nation) in 1961. He underwent an African tour and he got a huge support from other African countries (Senegal, Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia etc), he and his team got Guerrilla training as well (in 1962). He was arrested in Aug 1962 and was convicted by the court on charges of illegal travel (in 1962), later he was charged for sabotage and conspiracy against the government (as MK was involved in sabotage) in 1963 and was sentenced life imprisonment along with others. His lived for 27 years in prison and out of those 27 years he lived 19 years in Robben island prison. It takes infinite courage even for a great soul to come back from this hell without any weakening of beliefs and convictions, and to forgive those who sent him to the jail and to work towards creating a non-racial South Africa without taking any revenge on the Whites for all those crimes they committed in last 100 years or so on their non-White countrymen. He remains master of his fate, he remains captain of his soul.

To an Indian audience and readers, its a matter of great pride that South African Indians participiated in great numbers in the ANC movement and helped Mandela and others with all the resources they had their disposal. Mac Maharaj, Mrs. Pillay etc are few Indian names that any South African can be proud of. India was the first country (perhaps) to award Jawaharlal Nehru Human Right Award to Mandela (while he was in Robben island) in 1979. India later awarded Bharat Ratna to him (in 1990) just before he got Nobel Peace Prize (in 1993). Generally India awards people after they have got Nobel peace prize (Arafat, Aung Saang Suu Kyi etc).
I have only one issue with this book, Madiba has not written a single word about fellow great South African revolutionary Steve Biko (1946 - 1977) who fought against Apartheid and White domination, and founded Black Consciousness Movement when Mr. Mandela was in Robben Island. This great African was murdered by South African government. Overall this book is a great read, very lucid and flowing style. I finished this in 5 days.
Long Live Madiba! 
Highly recommended (9/10)