Somnath Chatterjee

Keeping the Faith by Somnath Chatterjee ; Published by  Harper Collins ;Pages 397 ; Price Rs.499/-

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Somnath Chatterjee, who passed away recently was  a parliamentarian with a 11-term record. He was a social democrat, steeped in parliamentary procedures and a diehard upholder of the rights of the legislature. His father was  N.C. Chatterjee  a Hindu Mahasabha leader  who was one of the founders and one-time president of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha.

Somnath was educated in Jesus College, Cambridge  post-graduating in  law. He was called to the bar from the Middle Temple in London and took up legal practice as an advocate at the Calcutta High Court before joining active politics.

He became a Member of the Lok Sabha in 1971 and was elected the first time as an independent candidate supported by the CPI(M). Subsequently  he was re-elected nine times, except once when he lost to Mamata Banerjee in the Jadhavpur Lok Sabha constituency in 1984. From 1989 until 2004 he was the leader of his party in the Lok Sabha. He was elected for the tenth time in 2004 as a member of the 14^th Lok Sabha from  the Bolpur Lok Sabha constituency, which is considered to be a CPI(M) stronghold. Following the 2004 election, he was appointed as the pro tem speaker and subsequently on 4 June 2004 he was unanimously elected as the Speaker of the 14th Lok Sabha. He  was the Speaker   from 2004 to 2009.

Chatterjee got elected to parliament, first as an independent with the party's backing, and went on to become the party's most erudite face in the Indian parliament. That was until the party czars  decided to boot him out for not resigning as Lok Sabha Speaker after the Left broke with the Congress over the India-US nuclear deal.

According to him,  “July 23, 2008, the day he was expelled, was one of the saddest days of my life".

He writes about how he wanted to get away from the suffocating atmosphere of the Emergency days. As his passport had expired, he had applied for the renewal. His passport was not returned. Chatterjee requested Siddhartha Shankar Ray to help. It was of no use. Ray had apparently spoken to Om Mehta, minister of state for home, and a close aide of Indira Gandhi. Chatterjee writes:

“Mehta met me once in Central Hall and requested me not to press for it as ‘Madam was adamant’. Thus, during the entire period of Emergency, my passport was not returned. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the foreign minister in the Janata government, I told him about the fate of my passport and I must recognise his prompt action.

I received my passport the same evening, duly renewed, and delivered at my residence by an official of the foreign ministry. I realised that we had regained our freedom and I thanked Vajpayee for his decision and action, which I could not but appreciate.”

He is unsparing in his criticism of the Congress under Indira Gandhi, both before and during the Emergency. He writes about Sanjay Gandhi’s Maruti factory and the government favours he received:

“At this time, it came to be known that Sanjay was very keen on setting up an automobile factory, though he had no experience or resources. To make his dream come true, he was given over 300 acres of land at a nominal price by Bansi Lal, the Chief Minister of Haryana, a Gandhi loyalist. The heir apparent was allowed to misuse the machinery of government, and most Congress chief ministers and leaders, as well as senior bureaucrats, entered into an unseemly competition to fulfill his wishes. The Maruti factory was a monument to governmental malfeasance and the most talked-about act of nepotism of the era.”

Chatterjee is equally scathing of the BJP. He writes of the surreptitious cabinet approval of “the controversial counter-guarantee to Enron” during the BJP’s 13-day stint in government in May, 1996:

“The government had neither the authority nor any justification to take such a decision, keeping the Parliament totally in the dark, entering into a subterfuge regarding its proposed action of ratifying the counter-guarantee in favour of Enron...”

Chatterjee maintains the juridical position of ‘without fear or favour’ in all the positions he had taken in his parliamentary career but without sacrificing civilities.

 His passing away, at age 89, offers a way to read a whole era in politics.  As Lok Sabha Speaker, he took on the judiciary in the Jharkhand assembly case, asserting that the legislature and its presiding officer was neither subservient nor secondary to any other constitutional wing. His devotion to parliamentary norms, its prestige and its independence, would cost his political life dearly . He cited parliamentary propriety, prestige and the independence of the chair, putting it above party politics.

His speakership was bristling with  events. Office of profit controversy, the cash-for-vote scandal all happened under his watch. Had it not been for him in the chair, it would’ve ended up being a darker day for democracy.

 Chatterjee reveals he was among the minority in the party who wanted Jyoti Basu, his favoured leader in the CPI-M, to become prime minister in 1996 when the Centre-Left United Front coalition offered the post on a platter. But Karat would have none of it. That was a monumental mistake that gave the impression that the CPI-M would always be in the opposition, unwilling to take power even if a chance came by, Chatterjee says, echoing Basu's now famous description of the failure to make him prime minister a "historic blunder".

 The book is Chatterjee's life story, from his birth  to his world of politics - where he amply justified the party's understanding of his abilities. It is a chronology of much of what took place in India, particularly from the time when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister, the rise of the Janata Party, the rise and fall of Rajiv Gandhi, the V.P. Singh era and coalition politics, P.V.Narasimha Rao's tumultuous years, the CPI-M's missed chances, the BJP's rise - and its 2004 crash.

While denouncing Karat for the ills of the CPI-M, Chatterjee comes out as an undisguised admirer of Jyoti Basu, the long-time chief minister of West Bengal and for decades the country's best known Marxist.

Chatterjee was the dynamic force behind a resurgent West Bengal as the Chairman of the State Industrial Development Corporation, tirelessly promoting its new Industrial look, etched in gold.

He   had  successfully created  a place in the annals of the country’s history as a distinguished parliamentarian and Speaker.

He epitomised the expectations and aspirations of the people as well as their fervent hope that parliamentary institutions would deliver on their constitutional mandate.

He was the first ‘People’s Speaker’ who went the proverbial extra mile beyond the strict confines of rules, procedures and conventions, to uphold the image and dignity of the world’s largest democracy.

In 1996 he won the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award.In 2013, he received Living Legend Award at the prestigious Bharat Nirman Awards.

 Chatterjee attempted to streamline the functioning of the house and improve the conduct of its members. He  inaugurated limited live telecasts of the chamber’s proceedings, which increased to 24-hour television coverage .

Somnath Chatterjee comes out more as a parliamentarian than a politician bearing affiliation to the Communist Party of India (Marxist). This book is not only a personal journey of one of India’s respected Parliamentarians but also an account that  throws a flood of light on post-Independence history of India.

P.P.Ramachandran.

26/08/2018.

ELON  MUSK

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance ; Published by  Virgin Books ; Pages 332 ; Price Rs.699 /-

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In the earlier part of this year  Satellite “Space X Falcon” was launched. It is the heaviest satellite ever launched  with ability to lift 1,41,000 Lb—a mass greater than a 737 Jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel. This was the work of a private company owned by Elon Musk—all of 46 years. He is also owner of Tesla Car. Elon Musk placed his own car, a Tesla Roadster, with mannequin inside wearing the official SpaceX space suit as the payload. The man is known as "Starman" and it is projected that the car and Starman will be in the solar system for One Billion years. 

Who is Elon Musk and what makes him tick?.For an answer read the book under review. It is one of the more comprehensive works on this  entrepreneur and cult-figure.  Musk’s  three major goals in life were to make humans space colonisers, to build ecologically sound and beautiful cars, and to power the world with safe, free solar energy.The author Ashley  Vance--a Business Columnist-- explores Musk’s beginnings, ventures his vision for the future of humankind. The book  captures a snapshot in time of a man who already has had a tremendous impact on humanity and the way that we think. By 2012, Musk’s companies were all racking up success after success in each of his goal areas.

 Vance is to be credited for writing a book that gives us far more understanding of not just Elon Musk the visionary, but also Elon Musk the person via interviews with former staffers, current staffers, family members and friends. 

Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1971. His  father made his childhood “a kind of misery”, but he was also free to experiment with building home-made rockets in the company of his cousins. At the age of 12 he published in a magazine the code for a video game he had written. He moved to Canada at 17 and worked odd manual jobs before winding up at the University of Pennsylvania, where he took degrees in both physics and economics. Soon afterwards Musk co‑founded an early internet-mapping company called Zip2, and when Compaq bought it in 1999 he made $22m . He ploughed most of it into his next venture, an internet-banking startup that would become PayPal. When PayPal in turn was eventually bought by eBay in 2002, Musk found himself with more than $100m at his disposal.

 The most intriguing figure among the Valley’s billionaire entrepreneurs right now makes incredibly elaborate machines: electric cars and space rockets. The man who glories in the sci-fi name of Elon Musk wants to change the world by solving transport and global warming, and establishing a colony on Mars .

  Musk pumped a huge chunk of his money into the two ventures for which he is known today: the electric-car company Tesla Motors and the rocket company Space X. These business decisions were thrillingly contrary to the prevailing wisdom of bits over atoms. Tesla was based in Silicon Valley, and SpaceX opened its factory in the middle of Los Angeles.

Tesla was late delivering its first electric supercars  to celebrity customers, while SpaceX’s test rockets kept blowing up. But Musk persevered. Tesla now sells nearly 50,000 cars a year. And SpaceX became the first private company in history to launch a rocket into orbit; in 2013 it successfully delivered its first commercial satellite. It now has a long and profitable roster of launch missions planned for government agencies, for Nasa  and satellite companies.

  Musk’s former eBay comrade Peter Thiel tells the author: “To the extent that the world still doubts Elon, I think it’s a reflection on the insanity of the world and not on the supposed insanity of Elon.”

 Musk like many modern geek entrepreneurs – most notoriously the late Steve Jobs –  has an abrasive management style, sometimes insulting brilliant colleagues and firing people sans  warning.

 Musk is interested in more than just tech: he follows the New York Review of Books on Twitter. He shares custody of his five sons with his former wife, Justine Musk. Though evidently immensely driven, Musk can be self-mocking and surprisingly funny. “No man is an island,” he likes to say, “unless he is large and buoyant.”

Meanwhile he is engagingly rude about some of his peers, particularly the founder and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos.

Musk didn’t invent the rocket, nor the electric car. But he did reinvent them. Most crucially, he made them good enough, cheap enough. The most crucial innovation SpaceX made in rocket design, meanwhile, was the audacious decision to build nearly everything itself. Insourcing became the new outsourcing. By designing and constructing almost all the parts from engines to electronics, SpaceX could shave chunks off the prices demanded by external suppliers, while being able to change things in the designs very quickly when needed.

 This  entrepreneur, inventor and engineer is the animating force behind companies (Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity) that have made startling advances in non-indoor-cat arenas: electric cars, space exploration and solar energy. Musk  is all of 46. His  grand vision is to colonize Mars and  Vance writes:“He’s the possessed genius on the grandest quest anyone has ever concocted. …Musk wants to  save the human race from self-imposed or accidental annihilation.”

  Vance’s fascinating and superbly researched biography delivers a well-ordered portrait of  Musk. We comprehend both his friends and his enemies. He has been married three times — twice to the same woman — His five children don’t merely have nannies but have had a nanny manager. He worries that Google is building a fleet of robots that may accidentally destroy mankind. He rents castles and sumo wrestlers for his parties. The best thing Vance does in this book is to narrate  Musk’s story simply and well. It’s the story of an intelligent  and determined man.  Musk’s work ethic has always been intense. One observer says about him early on, “We all worked 20 hour days, and he worked 23 hours.”

 Musk got started in space exploration by first learning all he could about it, sometimes reading Soviet-era rocket manuals. There were many failures, and several near-bankruptcies, along the way to making SpaceX what it is today, notably one of only two private companies to have docked with the International Space Station.

The author tells the stories of both SpaceX and Tesla with intricacy and insight. He uses Musk's story to explore one of the pressing questions of our age: can the nation of inventors and creators who led the modern world for a century still compete in an age of fierce global competition? He argues that Musk is a contemporary, visionary amalgam of legendary inventors and industrialists including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs. Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as the visionaries of the golden age of science-fiction fantasy.

Here is an outstanding biography of an outstanding man.

PPR

5/8/2018

CONNECTED  AGE 

The Connected Age by Sudhakar Ram ; Published by Collins Business ; Pages  238 ; Price Rs. 350/-

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The author of the book under review bagged the CNBC Asia’s Business Leader of the Year, 2007. He has distinguished himself as the co-founder and CEO of IT services company Mastek . Mastek is one of the oldest software companies in India with a major global presence.

The book consolidates Ram’s discoveries and insights into how the world post the Industrial Age should look like—in an era he christens “Connected Age”.

The book is divided into four sections—“The Twenty First Century Context” ;  “Individual Change” ; “Structural Change” and a “ Call to Action”.

The first Section sets out the context and explains Ram’s motivation behind this work, the challenges the World faces today with its causes and the principles—all of which would lead the world to a “ Connected Age”. The Earth’s ecosphere has witnessed widespread depletion. The clean air, potable water, amenable climate that was taken for granted are  clearly under serious threat.

The second Section deals with empowering and enabling oneself to make a difference. Ram proves that we have a choice to be powerful enough to pursue our true calling, to be totally committed to life-long learning and to become highly responsible. He explains how we can individually take more ownership and responsibility for our own lives and how we can get in harmony with the world while at the same time  recognising our basic interdependence. The Connected Age will be about people rediscovering their individuality, uniqueness and life’s purpose. It will define success as all-round personal fulfillment rather than the hoarding of material wealth. “Realise your potential and be the best you can be”.

“ Structural Change “ is the next Section’s subject and is an analysis of how organisations, markets and governments need to transform themselves and how everyone can help in the evolution. He deals with new approaches to running companies, NGOs, market places and governments. Ram has evolved new basis for organising group activities such as subsidiarity, smallness, interdependence and empathy .The Connected Age will see organisations evolving into much more powerful relevant and effective entities to contribute to the well-being in their unique ways.

The last Section is a guide to application of the principles to our daily life. This is one man’s vision of the twenty-first century. Ram appeals to readers to develop their own vision. What can enable the birth of the new “Connected Age” is a rich diversity of ideas and methods. Ram calls for personal as well as structural changes where the various areas of personal change are directly within our control. We only have influence over the structural changes, not direct control. But if a critical mass of people exercise this influence, we can see the requisite transformation.

This book is a voyage of discovery of human frailty and strength and a rational attempt at charting out steps to victory in our battle for survival and advancement. What are the causes of the miasma that envelops mankind in discontent, degradation and powerlessness?. Ram has not a trace of doubt that mankind has in it to make our lives happy and wholesome. What he argues for is an emphasis on our mutual dependence and close connection between man and man. Ram writes extremely well and leads us into a magical world built on day to day facts and facets. 

 Ram succeeds in convincing us that we have misused the generosity bestowed by Mother Earth—in fact we have been both callous and careless in plundering the wealth of Nature. According to him we have been abusing our privileges.

What then is the solution?. Mahatma Gandhi famously said “ You must be the change you want to be “. This is exactly what Ram advocates. He wants each one of us  to be the ideal person always acting in the correct manner. This is doubtless an ideal situation but not beyond reach. Each one of us has to think and act as a citizen of the world. There is a role for every man, woman and child in this voyage to prosperity.

According to Ram “ You can be  the Best You Can By Reinventing Your World ”. A strong self-respect and social consciousness will induce a lot of changes in you.

 Every point shared across the different chapters is put across convincingly, thanks to the examples from the author’s own life, the stories of CEOs, ideal figures from sports, entertainment and politics. He actually makes the readers believe that they can make it, that it’s not all that tough if every individual has a strong vision and adequate drive to achieve it.

In an eloquent Foreword Peter Senge, eminent  M I T Professor and  author of  “ The Fifth Discipline” sums up Ram’s efforts—“India is well positioned to leapfrog the reductionism and materialism of the West just as it leapfrogs technologies and infrastructures.”

 The Connected Age is required reading for anyone wanting to make this globe a better and happier place to live in than when he entered it. The volume is the  result of serious thought and useful experience and the methods suggested by Ram are surely firm steps towards a  “ Modern Ram Rajya”.

P.P.Ramachandran.

12 /  08  /  2018