India Unbound is a riveting book on a nation's rise from poverty. Gurcharan Das chronicles the transformation of India from a centralized, bureaucratic state that stifled industrial growth to a vibrant free-market democracy that has begun to flex its muscles in the global information economy, and the clash of ideas that occurred along the way of this economic and social transformation.
It is a fact that the average American is 20-25 times richer than an average Indian. Why did India's sink into the bog of backwardness? Why did the country not progress? What caused poverty to assume unmanageable proportions? What made an honest people turn to rampant corruption? India Unbound attempts to trace both political and cultural reasons for these issues.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Past Foibles of Inept Leadership
--------------------------------------------------------------------
“Never talk to me about profit. It is a dirty word.” -Jawaharlal Nehru
With due regards to their efforts for the freedom movement it is transparent from India Unbound that the ideologies, as regards industrial development, gentlemen like Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi held on to dearly, belonged to the Jurassic era.
As Gurcharan Das evidences in the book, no Prime Minister had failed India’s industrial and economic development as miserably as Jawaharlal Nehru, probably only to be rivaled by his equally inept daughter. With an eye on the economic plight of his fellow countrymen, Gurcharan Das takes to task the absolutely nincompoop and warped economic policies of Nehru and Mrs. Gandhi, (the two had an almost comic and unexplained contempt for businessmen) which not only stopped at effectively killing the growth of Indian Industry but also spilled over adverse effects on the common man impeding his journey to prosperity.
Abundant details of their embarrassingly juvenile bungling, a dismal lack of business sense, and how ironically the socialist governments this father and daughter duo led, founded in the name of the poor, instead became inefficient, bureaucratic behemoths, sucking the economic lifeblood out of the country, narrated in India Unbound would exasperate anyone with the slightest of interest in India.
Gurcharan Das displays clearly the reasons for India's regression into a “third world country” its inability to clear the hurdles of poverty, illiteracy, and ever-increasing corruption. (Though it is rather tempting to make immediate conclusions about Gurcharan Das’ political leanings through this book, he is equally mindful of the positive aspects of past governments and the unsavory non-secular credentials of the present one.)
---------------------------------------------------------------
Our Cultural Shortcomings
---------------------------------------------------------------
The inherent caste system of India placed traders much below in its hierarchy to be looked down with suspicion. Das evidences how our caste system impeded our progress in the industrial age. Commerce was always considered an occupation fit for the lower castes, and making money was what only the greedy and grasping people did. Creation of wealth was never regarded very highly in our country.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Economic Reforms
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The transformation began that began in 1991 under the aegis of a reticent Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, Dr. Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram forms an almost thriller like part of the book, and from herein begins Gurcharan Das' optimism for the country.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gurcharan Das' Infectious Optimism
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To support his sky-high optimism about India, the book is liberally peppered with fascinating rags-to-riches stories of India's top business houses. Despite the best efforts and best laid out plans of past governments to kill businesses, some did thrive. The stories and the trials and tribulations faced by the likes of GD Birla, JRD Tata, Rahul Bajaj, Dhirubhai Ambani and Narayan Murthy who refused to get enmeshed in the miles of bureaucratic red-tape make a stimulating and motivating read too.
He vividly describes a new breed of customer oriented, entrepreneurs striving for excellence and global presence, and their impact on the Indian economy. People who stuck by their ideas and succeeded due to the sheer dint of their tenacity.
He narrates the new thinking and upwardly mobile aspirations of some rather effervescent and supremely confident youngsters from various sections of the Indian workforce. These are easily the most interesting anecdotes in the book reflecting the enthusiastic, goal oriented and enterprising youth of today’s India.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gurcharan Das also effortlessly weaves in his interesting personal story into the book. He almost holds a casual conversation with you, and a really interesting one at that. India's recent social and economic transformations have never been this eminently readable in this impassioned a narrative.
Gurcharan Das and his book India Unbound reflect an India today that is a positive country infected with a changing attitude. Majority of the educated middle class would rather spend their time and energies bettering their lifestyles, making more money, and securing their future rather than waste it on trivialities like swadeshi, hindutva, temple-mosque issues, state language disputes, multinational bashing, religious rhetoric and other such futile activities.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Critics and cynics have questioned the rosy picture Gurcharan Das paints about India in the coming years. Personally, I am not too keen on books that simply point out whats going wrong in my country, as I see that in the news channels anyway.
Gurcharan Das instead prefers to inform about what is going well in India these days and instills a lot of confidence and reassurance. A must read for anyone with a positive outlook interested in the economic change for the better happening in India.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
