Engagement with India

C.T. Kurien

Essays offering insight into India’s global role in this century and its prevailing paradoxes

THE ELEPHANT, THE TIGER & THE CELLPHONE — Reflections on India in the Twenty-first Century: Shashi Tharoor; Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

New Delhi-110017. Rs. 495.

Because of the regular column he writes in its Sunday Magazine, Shashi Tharoor is no stranger to the readers of The Hindu. And, of course, the public at large in the country came to know of him recently as he was India’s officially sponsored candidate for the highest bureaucratic position in the world, Secretary-General of the United Nations, while he was already holding a top position in the organisation. Some readers may be familiar with his wide ly received, India :From Midnight to the Millennium. So our author has been a diplomat and international civil servant, is a writer and columnist, and, above all, a global Indian, with the accent equally on both the adjective and the noun.

Passionate involvement

What stands out in his writings is his “passionate involvement with India” — an expression he used in his column on another global Indian, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen. This volume, though with a rather awkward title, is no exception as its subtitle, “Reflections on India in the Twenty-First Century” shows. It is, in fact, a companion volume to From Midnight to the Millenniumand is concerned with India’s ongoing transformation. The 70 pieces brought together call for a discerning understanding of India’s past, provide clues to its prevailing paradoxes, and affirm optimism on its global role in the new century. The “elephant” in the title refers to India’s old economy, the “tiger” to the new economy and the “cellphone” signifies the importance of communications in the new context.

Through the perspectives that Tharoor offers, the book enables us to reflect more meaningfully about the land and the people that we think we are familiar with. If from the nearly 400 pages I were to pick up just one sentence that conveys both the substance of the book and the style of the author, it would be : “I grew up in an India and my sense of nationhood lay in a simple insight: the singular thing about India was that you could only speak of it in the plural.” Elsewhere he says: “The idea of India is that of a land emerging from an ancient civilization, united by a shared history, sustained by a pluralist democracy, but containing a world of differences.” I consider the piece on “The Invention of India” from which these quotes are taken as the central piece of the volume and wish that all Indians concerned about the country and the nation will read it. One more picturesque passage from it: “If America is a melting pot, to me India is a thali, a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast.”

‘Indianness’

I like the analogy, but I am a little uncomfortable with it too. What if the rice insists that since it occupies most of the thali it is the real stuff and everything else in small kattoris is just peripheral and significant only to the extent that they become subsidiary to the rice? I am not blaming Tharoor. But if the idea of India can be represented by a thali, the prob