The reader is invited to begin anywhere, says the blurb to Ravi Velloor’s India Rising: Fresh Hope New Fears , because the chapters are very nearly self-contained, ‘like the traditional Indian village community that only needed to reach out of its territory for salt and matrimonial alliances’. Nevertheless, it’s worthwhile to first dip into the sagacious if tangential insights on India-Singapore relations in the economical foreword by George Yoo, the island city-state’s former cabinet minister who has succeeded Amartya Sen as chancellor of Nalanda University, followed by the prologue and introduction by the author himself.
The prologue is largely and helpfully devoted to explaining the somewhat perplexing title given to the author’s ‘diary of a decade’, which primarily seeks to decipher India during Manmohan Singh’s prime ministership.
Three to five chapters apiece are arrayed under five headings, some of them with provocative titles such as ‘A Murder in Mumbai: The Rise of Narendra Damodardas Modi’, which charts the seismic changes (the death is that of Pramod Mahajan) within the BJP that led to the remarkable ascent engineered by Modi to the exception of several other ambitious and self-made leaders, or the somewhat misleading ‘Slaying the Mallu Mafia: A Coup in the PMO’, which traces Dr. Singh’s pre-Partition origins and his unfulfilled desire to broker peace with Pakistan, the ouster of a recalcitrant M.K. Narayanan as the National Security Advisor by his suave fellow Malayalee Shivshankar Menon, and the influence of cabals of certain denominations over PMOs.
Velloor possesses remarkable finesse in interweaving a coherent narrative out of apparently disparate threads of personal and national histories in the unfolding of onerous events.
The author’s significant skills as a raconteur are, in fact, the book’s obvious strength. The Singapore-based Velloor is Associate Editor of The Straits Times , and an award-winning journalist who has reported extensively from locations across Asia and the U.S. in a career spanning 35 years. His writing reflects his standing as an influential and seasoned media person, privy to the sort of private drawing room conversations and behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings that deliciously confirm stories that might otherwise lurk in the realm of gossip, and in any case are destined to remain ‘off the record’ in conventional media.
The book covers the tumultuous years from 2004 to 2015, and successfully leverages key events and developments to reflect upon an emerging India, starting with the devastation caused by the Indian Ocean tsunami and going on to the rise of the IT sector, the changing dimensions to subcontinental diplomatic affairs, the domino effects of corruption and scams, the decline of the Congress Party and, finally, the rise of a more nationalistic republic.
Some of the contextual explanations, whether on the varnas of Hinduism or the location of Doon School, may appear superfluous to Indian readers. The writer tends towards colloquialisms and ‘cool’ language (Car Nic for Car Nicobar, or ‘What do you guys plan to do about China?’), and he isn’t shy about a privileged life of posh addresses and important friends, but the references are delivered with a certain rakish charm that belies the astute geopolitical analyses they intersperse.
Velloor’s reading of a nation in transition as a sum of its hopes and complexities is perspicacious and empathetic if occasionally glib and Orientalist. The premise of self-containment is more effective sectionally than chapter-wise and a linear perusal, in which proceedings unravel in their natural chronology, is more logical. Either way, Velloor’s relaxed and refreshing style makes this a journal of interesting stories, often set within other interesting stories. Here’s a book that shouldn’t be judged by its cover.
srilalitha.s@thehindu.co.in
