CHANDRABABU  NAIDU

Chandrababu Naidu  India’s Glocal Leader by Tejaswini Pagadala ; Published by Bloomsbury ; Pages 131 ; Price Rs 499/-

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        The author of the book under review , Tejaswini   Pagdalia had a stint in  The New Indian Express and  the Deccan Chronicle. She bagged  the ‘Laadli Media Award’ for gender sensitivity– an analytical piece on the contradictions in the laws related to child marriages.  She has chronicled the life and journey of  Chandrababu Naidu, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and become India's youngest political biographer..

 The book  has arrived at the right moment when India is poised on its General Election and the country will decide if another term can be given to Narendra Modi. In this background Naidu is playing a larger than life role having withdrawn his support to Modi.

Naidu’s story is not an over-night success saga. He  was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His  journey in life runs parallel to that of formation and division of Andhra Pradesh. Having struggled throughout his life,Naidu picked up the right lessons on his way and became a goal-setter with definite objectives—someone who loves to challenge the odds, go against the tide and stay out instead of fitting in a crowd.

 Nara Chandrababu Naidu was the youngest MLA in Andhra Pradesh at 28 years. He has evolved into one of the extraordinary leaders in Indian politics over four decades. He is noted for political acumen, intellect, and hard work. This book attempts to show how Naidu has been a quintessential survivor in Indian politics.

“Naidu lacked the charisma of N T Rama Rao, his father-in-law but found his image in computer, technology and modern management”, according to K.C.Suri .
Naidu has an uncanny  ability to combine politics and governance which  touches every aspect of Indian domestic and foreign policy, from the struggle for social, technological, economic and administrative reforms to creating world-class institutions.  Naidu has become  a symbol and an embodiment of many Indias - modern, progressive, rural and cultural.

Tejaswini  has made a thorough study of the man who put Andhra on the way to  global recognition.She quotes  NTR repeatedly saying, “Samajame na devalayam, Prajale na devullu”  (Society is my temple and people are my God). I am waging a war for the welfare of the common man.’ Today, several decades down the line, Naidu’s step of pulling out his party’s support to the NDA government at the Centre in seeking special status to Andhra seems to echo the sentiments of his iconic father-in-law.

 Naidu displays a special  approach towards Chief Ministership.  He acted as the CEO of the state and likes to be called a CEO. “Politicians look only for today. A CEO looks for today, tomorrow and the future. As a CEO, he  would get re-elected as Chief Minister,”

  Naidu’s ‘Dial Your CM’ was a pre-cursor to Modi’s “Mann Ki Baat” and was a hit already in Andhra. Naidu  inaugurated on the state level political platform  a 30-minute weekly programme titled ‘Dial Your CM’ on Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR).  Naidu had evolved and perfected a direct contact  with the  people.

The author  watched Naidu at work---- his attention to detail — his memory power, his knowledge of what was happening in the state, and how he had every bit information from every nook and corner on his fingertips. He spotted mismatches in meetings quickly, in terms of growth and numbers.

 The book  throws light on a number of points with which we are not familiar. Arun Tiwari, a missile scientist and co-author of former President Dr Abdul Kalam’s biography  “Wings of Fire” declares, “Naidu is the first man who demonstrated the power of India to the world in the 1990s post liberalisation. He is also the first Chief Minister in the country to use development as an agenda in 1995-1996. Modi, came, much later, in 2002.”

 ‘Every crisis is an opportunity’, is one of Naidu’s most favourite phrases. With pulling out the support to the NDA government, Naidu has certainly put Modi and his team under crisis of progressive thinking. Only the coming elections will tell whether they turn into an opportunity or perish under this Andhra icon.

 Naidu’s early years are reflected in his present ideology, as a businessman and a leader.

Naidu is  India’s foremost visionary Chief Minister. A man who had not only changed the very definition of world investment, by making  Hyderabad, the hub of Information and Technology globally, but also reformed the manner in which we undertake the procedures of Direct Foreign Investments in India.

From being an embodiment of progress for India to becoming the first Chief Minister of bifurcated Andhra Pradesh, Naidu, has perhaps seen all the upheavals and tribulations,

“India’s Glocal Leader” captures the life story of a successful and a proven leader of modern India who is perhaps under-represented in our country where North India’s politics dominates the nation. The book proves that  a leader like Chandrababu Naidu can emerge  from a remote village of Andhra Pradesh and Naidu has proved that we need to take risks to prosper as a country He led the way for India to believe in the power of Information Technology when the country wasn’t ready for it. In the process of implementing his vision, he not only balances politics with governance but also ensures he convinces people about his ideas.

 Tejaswini does not gloss over matters. She has explained the incident dethroning NTR , highlighting what drove Naidu to take such a decision, what were the options at hand, what were the compulsions he was facing from the family and the party and why he had to make such a decision, aware of the risks he had to face. One of the reasons why he has become a successful leader in India is also his open-mindedness in accepting various cultures, ethnicities, religions and set of beliefs / traditions.

 But one unique thing about the CM was that he was open to listening to anyone irrespective of their age and experience. He would also ask every one  to express ideas. If it seemed apt to him, he would act upon, otherwise he would just listen,”

 Naidu got the chance to show his political skills in August 1984, when Nadendla Bhaskara Rao staged a coup against NTR. He rallied the TDP MLAs together, and paraded them before the President of India. NTR was reinstated as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh 31 days later. Impressed with his son-in-law's manoeuvres, NTR appointed Naidu as the General Secretary of the party and he began playing an important role in the TDP . 

 As Chief Minister, Naidu advocated short-term sacrifice to turn Andhra Pradesh into an Asian tiger over the next 20 years. He slashed food subsidies  and raised power tariffs.  He introduced the mobile “rythu” bazaars and eliminated the middlemen hassle.

Naidu is a visionary and his contribution is undisputed Naidu has won a number of awards, including IT Indian of the Millennium from India Today, Business Person of the Year by The Economic Times, South Asian of the Year from Time Asia and membership in the World Economic Forum’s 's Dream Cabinet. Naidu chaired the National IT Panel under the NDA government.“Time” magazine named him South Asian of the Year.

The author gives details of many of Naidu’s ventures—Cyberabad,CDA,ISB,Hitech and ‘Andhra Pradesh Vision 2020’ as also the Se\ri Krishna Committe Reprt, the birth of Telengana, finaling the new capital Amaravati. She has also covered the dastardly attack on Naidu and the havoc caused on the State by Nature.

The new State’s Vision has been prepared for 35 years—till 2050 by which it aims to be among the top investment destinations around the globe. Naidu was influenced by the Chairman of the SoftBank  Corporation of Tokyu Masayoshi Son.

A very interesting biography of a leader which is welcome as we have very few biographies of our Netas.

P.P.Ramachandran.

22 /04/ 2018.

SHASHI   THAROOR


An Era of Darkness by Shashi Tharoor; Published by Aleph ; Pages 333; Price Rs.699/-

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Shashi Tharoor  is the author of over 15 books including   “The Great Indian Novel”;  “India: From Midnight to the Millennium”. He acquired fame as an Under Secretary-General of the United Nations. He was a Minister of State for Human Resource Development and Minister of State for External Affairs in the Indian Government .

“Electrifying “ is the word that describes Shashi Tharoor’s speech as part of Oxford Union talk last year. The book under review  is a direct sequel to that speech . “The purpose of this book is to examine the  legacy of the Raj, to critically study the claims made for its alleged benefits, and to present the evidence and the arguments against it.” It is a  thoroughly critical analysis of the economic and cultural damage wreaked upon India  under two centuries of British domination.

 The India that the British East India Company conquered was no primitive or barren land, but the glittering jewel of the medieval world. At the beginning of the Eighteenth century, India’s share of the world economy was 23 percent. By the time the British departed India, it had dropped to just over 3 percent. The reason was simple. India was governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain’s rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations  in India.

Tharoor rejects the view that the British were better than the native kings they were supplanting. He recalls the good governance in kingdoms such as Travancore, Mysore and Oudh. The Moghuls  assimilated themselves into the region and the capital extracted under their empire remained within the nation. On the contrary the British religiously  siphoned off the country’s wealth to Britain. Tharoor writes, “By the early 1800s, India had been reduced from a land of artisans, traders, warriors and merchants, functioning in thriving and complex commercial networks, into an agrarian society of peasants and moneylenders”.

 A number of thinking persons are persuaded that the  British deserve  thanks for introducing the railways, press and parliamentary system into India,  Tharoor  asserts that these were introduced solely to  facilitate  the plundering of  the country’s riches and to maintain control over the land. He also points out how India is still suffering under a system that was framed with Victorian values. Our bureaucracy, corruption and unfortunate laws can all be attributed to the archaic system set up by the British. The odious divide-and-rule policy used by the British to keep Indians quarrelling amongst  themselves, created a gulf between communities and continues till today.

Tharoor is highly impressive when he conveys the  malice and connivance of the empire. Excruciating  is his account of the many famines that happened under the British and how they saw these avoidable tragedies as a Malthusian necessity. He explains the underlying motives in each of the British policies. Tharoor scores  with sharp historical accounts and illuminating contemporary examples. He considers every possible counterpoint to his arguments and addresses them deftly in a manner that cannot be combated.

 In this narrative, the British Raj did wonders for the Indian subcontinent by “taming the savage” . It appears that history really is written by the victors. Tharoor’s book does a wonderful job of refuting this argument and successfully presents the case for India’s rich heritage, which is much more advanced than that of the coloniser.

 The book bridges the gap in knowledge and deserves to be read by both British and Indian audiences; the British can perhaps use it to acknowledge the disgrace of empire while Indians can use it as a reminder of how we shouldn’t be divided and taken advantage of again.  Tharoor declares  “History belongs in the past, but understanding it is the duty of the present”.

 Tharoor marshals literally hundreds of facts to  argue the whole gamut of issues which are normally quoted as "gifts" of two centuries of British rule over India: Good governance, English sense of fairplay, Austinian judicial system, Railways, social reform of Hindu society, Cricket, Tea and even the English language. He makes mincemeat of this flawed contention.

  He points out that the public finance in pre-colonial India was based on taxing trade where as the British themselves being traders made a drastic change and made agriculture and land revenue the focus, thereby causing immense hardship to peasantry. He traces the creation of the landless peasant and the increased dependence of large segment of the population on agriculture for livelihood due to the destruction of artisans and manufacture and also large scale man made famines under colonialism.

 Corruption rose massively  due to the practices of the East India Company and its officers.

Besides going into the financing of Indian Railways and how gold plating was done by many an English investor assured of guaranteed returns and how Railways during construction and later were used to drain the Indian economy and increase the national debt, Tharoor makes an important point that in the operational finances of Railways it was the third class passengers traveling in sub human conditions that subsidised freight and the first class !

We needed a book that tells us in no uncertain terms about our past darkness, the perpetrators responsible for it, and the modus operandi they used.

We live in an era where the villain is being lionised. Tharoor recreates the British Raj with all its horrors and also elucidates the awe-inspiring struggle of India's freedom fighters. He gives us a valuable insight on how dark forces operate and on who are harbingers of hope—it's a valuable lesson at a time when thugs are masquerading as our saviours.

 Shashi takes us to an era where our forefathers were toiling in opium fields, our economy was being ravaged, our local businesses killed, our exports made unaffordable by levying high tariffs, and education was offered only to produce a generation of clerks.

  Tharoor pierces this conceited bubble in eloquent language, telling not only what made the British empire, but how. Tharoor uses facts, arguments, humour, sarcasm and logic to demolish each pillar on which the myth of the empire rests.

 Tharoor does not exonerate Indian princes’ ineptitude, corruption and misrule. Nor does he condone inherent inequities of many Indian customs and traditions. He takes note of them, but his point is that the British empire was not the solution to the problem by any means, and in many instances, it made the problem worse. Tharoor’s thrusts are painful. He attacks each proclaimed virtue from all fronts, leaving the supporter of the empire utterly without defence. He shows—with facts and statistics—how post-independence India has made rapid strides in economic and social development, which were simply impossible during the colonial era, and without stressing on the point too loudly, reminds the reader how much more India could have achieved had it been able to modernize without colonial subjugation.

This is Tharoor’s most impressive  work—not because of its unique presentation , but the manner in which  he says it, contributing a resounding case  for sovereignty without shrillness, a studied attempt to delineate a horrendous administration and logically pleading for even-handed justice not retribution—and all this with abundant dignity, impressive scholarship and a puckish sense of humour.

P.P.Ramachandran.

15/04/2018

JAYA JAITLY

Life Among The Scorpions by Jaya Jaitly-- Memoirs of a Woman in Indian Politics ; Published by  Rupa ; Pages 308 ; Price Rs.505/-

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The title of this autobiography of the former Samata Party President Jaya Jaitly is quite intriguing!

It recalls the story of a Malaysian woman who stayed in a glass cage with 2,000 scorpions for a month . Jaya  felt this experience was similar to what a woman in public life faces when she wants to serve society. This memoir is her own experience of what women face in India’s politics.

Jaya Jaitly was born on 14 June 1942. Her father  K. K. Chettur from Kerala was the first Indian ambassador to Japan.  She  got a scholarship to study in Smith College, US and she met Ashok Jaitly there. They got married in 1965. They have two children, Akshay and Aditi (who later married cricketer Ajay Jadeja).

 On George Fernandes' request, she joined the Socialist Trade Union. After the 1984 Sikh riots, she became active in politics; she calls Fernandes and Madhu Limaye as her "Mentors".

After Tehelka's Operation West End scandal broke out in 2002, she was accused of accepting a bribe and she stepped down as Party President. 

“My childhood was a funny mix of the matrilineal society in Kerala, international influences from an early age living in Japan, Burma, Belgium, England and the U.S, and going through some interesting times. I have  focussed on culture, society, international issues and discovering freedom, literature and independence."

Jaya has to her credit a number of books---  Craft Traditions of India , Crafts of Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh , A Podium on the Pavement , Biju Spins Some Magic , Crafting Nature , Crafts Atlas of India , Woven Textiles of Varanasi , The Artistry Of Handwork  and Vishvakarma’s Children: Stories of India’s Craftspeople .

Jaya  writes  about her transformation  from the world of politics to championing the cause of artisans.

 She devoted herself to work for India’s many crafts and textiles through her Dastkari Haat Samiti founded in 1986. Her recent publication "Crafting Indian Scripts" is based on a major project called "Akshara" combining literacy, craft and calligraphy. Some of her other current efforts include revival of the gamcha and pathedu anchu sarees. She continues to edit and publish “The Other Side”, a monthly journal of democratic socialist thought and action.

Her work brings together rural artisans within India,  with those of Pakistan, Vietnam, Iran, Eygpt and many other countries. These programs have often been supported by the Indian Government as an instrument in diplomacy.

"Life among the Scorpions" recalls the harrowing events that dotted three decades  of Jaya’s political wanderings. During this period ,India had a variety of  governments and it was an era full of trial and tribulation.

Jaya undertook providing  relief for victims of the 1984 Sikh riots and then  joined politics under the mercurial George Fernandes. She became the President of Samata Party—a key ally in the erstwhile NDA Government. But all was not well. Trouble sprang   with George Fernandes dismissing  Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat in 1998. Jaya ,who became  the target  was soon attacked  by Tehelka’s stings—first concerning her son-in-law-to-be Ajay Jadeja and then herself in an alleged bribery case.

 Fernandes was forced  to resign as India’s Defence Minister and Jaya quit as the Samata Party President. However , she spiritedly fought booth capturing in Bihar as well as fellow party men’s egos, intervened and ensured the installation of the Samata government in Manipur. All this, even as she continued her parallel fight for the livelihood of craftsmen on the one hand, and conceptualised and ensured establishment of the first Dilli Haat.

Recalling spiritedly all the highlights of  Indian politics for three decades , including her tryst  with the Commission of Inquiry and courts regarding the Tehelka stings makes  absorbing  read. A no-holds barred  memoir that presents a perspective on the functioning of Indian politics from a woman’s point of view.

Jaya has accused the Congress of having a hand in the Tehelka sting 'Operation West End', which led to Fernandes' resignation and that was when UPA was in power. Congress president Sonia Gandhi had asked then Finance Minister  Chidambaram to ensure that Tehelka's alleged financiers are not treated in an "unfair" or "unjust" manner. While L K Advani and Jaswant Singh advised George not to resign, message was received that the  PM had  agreed to accept George’s resignation following pressure from few other party leaders.

The author writes, “Apart from the message of PM accepting George Fernandes’s resignation, Jaswant Singh conveyed that Vajpayee had also wanted me to resign from the post of the President of the Samata Party since the BJP President, Bangaru Laxman, had resigned. I found it very odd that the request for my resignation should come from the leader of another party, however senior and important he may be.”

Jaya  recounts her experiences during the investigations under the Commission of Inquiry, instituted after the Tehelka sting. When the matter was suddenly and arbitrarily sent to a court, she says she feared that the judge, who convicted former BJP president Bangaru Laxman of bribery and was hearing her case too, would eventually convict her irrespective of her arguments.

In the book, Jaya further recollects her meeting with alleged arms middleman Christian Michel, and how he bragged about helping prime minister PV Narasimha Rao to spy on Sonia Gandhi and then went on to offer her an opportunity to make a "huge pile of money" for her party.

In the context of her revelations on how defence deals are done in India, Jaya mentions a meeting with an unnamed senior Congressman where he informed her that people were willing to pay "twenty lakh rupees to have a cup of tea" with her. When she asked him why he explained that "it cuts the competition".This event  was during the first NDA government and when Fernandes was the defence minister.

She  blames Lalu Prasad for protecting the attackers of Bhagalpur riots of October 1989. "It was clear to me that it was the large Muslim population that had been attacked and many of those who joined in doing so were part of Lalu Prasad Yadav's caste. It was because of his interest in protecting the attackers that even though some eye-wash commissions were set up later to get to the truth of these riots, they never got off the ground,"

Jaya also accuses Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of having given the Rajya Sabha seat, earlier promised to her, to a businessman in 2005."On the morning of the very last day for filing nominations, just after the last flight had left Delhi for Patna, George Sahib received a call from the Chief Minister saying he could not give me the seat as he had decided to give it to 'King Mahendra' (Mahendra Prasad), a businessman who had moved from Congress to RJD to Congress and now JD(U). He said he had helped the Party in the elections."

 Jaya is happy that she and her  team of artists, designers and researchers  created a vast amount of artistic documentation through maps of all the crafts, arts and textiles we could find over a long period of 15 years. The maps and the book that came out of it, "The Crafts Atlas of India ", are still going strong and used in many institutions.

We have lovely pen portraits of  Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and Pupul Jayakar. "Kamaladevi  was a true icon for me. She was one of those personalities I genuinely admired, respected and considered the best person to guide my vision and work among crafts people. She also reassured me that creative work in the world of art and culture could be integrated with electoral politics, writing and other forms of public activism. Pupul Jayakar had fine aesthetic sensibilities and was very kind to me but I felt she came from Indira Gandhi’s darbar and had some unfair advantages because of that.

The book is an eminently  readable autobiography packed with information and delightful anecdotes.

P.P.Ramachandran.

08 / 04 / 2018

SUBHAS CHANDRA

The Z Factor: My Journey As The Wrong Man at the Right Time by Subhash Chandra with Pranjal Sharma; Published by  Harper Collins India;  Pages 300 ; Price: Rs 699/-

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Subhash Chandra’s book is a must for every student of business management. There is an impressive cascade of case-studies that entertain and educate.  Chandra began his career in Hisar, Haryana when he was only 17 and under severe pressure. He had no financial support and was not adequately educated. He took challenges head on and made friends in unusual methods and transformed himself into an astonishingly wealthy person. He violated norms and inaugurated enterprises long before the Governments thought about it. A Man of Vision, sans doubt. Chandra has been a perennial outsider, repeatedly aiming high and breaking into businesses where he was considered an interloper.

  He travelled even as a small boy   to several mandisand  collected money from commission agents, keeping a vigil on the amount spent by the employees of his Grandpa.  Chandra used  a clever method to tackle debts by pocketing the lower echelons of power in FCI and establishing a cartel while bidding for tenders for processing grain. His friends  in FCI were given cash and other help and  they  ensured he had the lowest tenders. He was singularly lucky as he always had people rushing to his rescue.

The supply of  basmati  rice to Russia --on highly lucrative terms-heralded his major achievement.  Contracts under the rupee-rouble trade agreement were hugely  profitable, but this demanded links at the very highest level.

Enter Dhirendra Brahmachari. A  relative  introduced him to the Mighty Man. The yoga guru took him to meet Rajiv Gandhi, then a general secretary of the Congress and the P M in the making. Rajiv recalled that  Chandra   had helped the Gandhis when they were “down and out ”. There was clear  understanding  that a fair share of the profits from the rice exports would be returned to his benefactors. When he started supplying rice, Chandra realised that the profits were even larger than he had anticipated. The earlier supplier had exported cheaperparimal instead of basmati and Chandra did not change . He lost the contract two years later, when Dhirendra  Brahmachari decided to form his own company rather than use Chandra as a go-between. But, in the meantime, Gandhi and his aide  discovered that the trusted family retainer had been siphoning off some of the money and not handing it to them. A terrified Chandra was ordered to testify before the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi the actual amount he had paid the yoga guru. That proved to be Brahmachari’s undoing and soon, he lost his clout with the Gandhi family.

From tendering for grain contracts, making poles for the Posts and Telegraphs and rice deals, Chandra moved on to launching a packaging business and opening a massive amusement park, Essel World, in Mumbai. Despite opposition from some powerful state politicians and protests from environmentalists, his PR agency successfully sold the idea, claiming it was to honour Chacha Nehru’s love for children on his birth anniversary.

The greatest achievement was starting a Satellite TV channel in India at a time when the law prohibited domestic private networks. Chandra arrived in Hong Kong and parlayed for  a partnership with the then owner of STAR, Richard Li. Chandra finally got Li’s attention, offering five times the market rate for a transponder at $ 5 million. Against all odds, he launched an Indian channel from Hong Kong, becoming an NRI in the process. It was Zee’s amazing success as an entertainment pioneer which inspired many others to enter the TV business in India, including STAR. The Indian government had perforce to frame guidelines and laws for the burgeoning new industry.  His Zee TV, India's first private Indian TV channel, changed the rules of the game and tickled the fancy of a public starved of entertainment . Zee TV was only a daily-3-hour daily transmission medium. Today Zee networks has 70 channels!.

 Chandra’s incredible journey continues. He is into building infrastructure and is working on several major road projects under the PPP model. He now wants to help develop smart cities, one of the new mantras of the Modi government.

Chandra launched a Motivational Talk Show on Zee TV called “Dr,Subhas Chandra Show ” where he talks to young  Indians and addresses their concerns about Life’s challenges.

True to type, Chandra sees opportunity at every turn and grabs it. He has perfected the art of seeing bribery as facilitation fees. There are several  instances where his partners tried taking advantage of him--none eventually succeeded. Be it his first partner in Delhi in the grain business, the partner in the plastic sheet business or later in the telecom pole business .

  This is a remarkably  candid account by  a truly desi self-made businessman who came to Delhi at age twenty with seventeen rupees in his pocket. Today, he has a net worth of $6.3 billion and annual group revenues of about $3 billion.

   

 P.P.Ramachandran

April 1,2018.