India Unbound - Gurcharan Das

Guracharan Das traces India's rise from poverty to prosperity after 1947 and then 1991. He blames Nehru fro all the problems India had with his narrow, socialist thinking and wonders if we would ahve had a different outcome if the Japanese had run India (what about India running India). There's some references to Clive and the British and how they actually did not contribute to India's fall from prosperity as much as Nehru and successive Congress governments. 

He says that Nehru failed to end poverty, ignorance a

nd disease and inequality of opportunity. Nehru's errors also included the fact that there was no opportunity to rapid export expansion. He says the system suppressed growth and that Nehru's mixed economy theory was greatly flawed. We would have benefited from a capitalistic approach. He mentions two idealistic people he knew, Satpal and his wife, and how their socialist dreams were pipe dreams. If Patel had been PM, things would have been different. Thankfully Shastri came and started the Green revolution.

In the issue of  caste Das, who went to Harvard and then joined an MNC selling Vicks in India (was instrumental in making us aware that we catch cold when we get wet in the rain) and then grew to be a corporate honcho later on, says that for a long time he was not aware of caste. Later on he found that below the top four varnas the Hindu society was casteless (how they can be casteless and still be Hindus I wonder). Anyway he says that all opportunities are now open to all and that even chamars were now going beyond doing chamar work - they are actually weaving. They have caste associations and use caste to enlarge their reach. The President is a Dalit and there are ministers who are dalits too. Then for some reason he quoted Naipaul who says 'when the oppressed have the power to assert themselves, they will behave badly.' Das says that the old stereotype of village occupational rigidity was never entirely accurate. The lower castes have always shown the capability by moving up or changing occupation. And of course, modern organisations hire people on merit.

Then he quickly talks about reforms and Ambani and the rise of the middle class and how knowledge is wealth (and of course how everyone has access to it now).

Somewhere I got bored to death. And skipped the rest of the book.