Book Review

In Spite of the Gods: The Strange 

Rise of Modern India  by Edward Luce

Edward Luce’s book is the perfect book about India for economists who want to go beyond the booming

economy and know more about contemporary India’s society, history, religion, and

politics in the clear-eyed, in a way one can hope to get from a reporter

for the Financial Times.

Mr Luce, who spent five years in India working as a reporter for the Financial Times and married an Indian while he was there - announces at the outset that his book "is not about a love affair with the culture and antiquities of India." Instead he want to know "why India exerted such a powerful spiritual pull on so many foreigners"

the lists of statistics to support the argument that India needs to modernize its cities and get beyond its romantic fixation with villages is most interesting in the book

so much so Luce relies on interviews (with a surprising number of very prominent people), events (historical and current), anecdotes, and other cultural observations

On the other side, th book is journalistic rather than scholarly What we can see in the book is opinion rather than the result of any kind of study

Luce gives very neat chapters dealing with a different theme and each capable of standing on its own feet.

 

We are offered accounts of India's 'schizophrenic' flourishing economy in first chapter. as an expansion of the Introduction, widened to include the failure of Nehru's economic plans, the village activism of Aruna Roy, and the thinking of some of India's new tycoons

second on its state machinery. he state that the Indian government is overpopulated by self-serving individuals who abuse their power for personal gain

third on its caste conflicts and principal divisions in Indian politics: the low- and no-caste parties; the BJP (and its insidious, fascist association with something called the RSS); and the Congress Party.

Followed by the chapters dealing with the rise of Hindu nationalism, and India's Muslims and India's troubled relations with Pakistan. its relationship with the US and China; the country's experience of grappling with modernity and urbanisation.

the lists of statistics to support the argument that India needs to modernize its cities and get beyond its romantic fixation with villages is another most interesting feature in the book. by reading this book one can see its most exciting and latent account of modern India that are often hidden in the history of mainstream historical statements.