[Book review] The Elephant Paradigm * * *

The Elephant paradigm

By Gurcharan Das

Someone once told me that one the greatest lucid and through description of Indian economy right from the eve of independence to the reform years was in the book “India Unbound” by this author. So as soon as I got the opportunity I grabbed this book and once I got started with it, I could not keep it down. Impressed by the writing style of the author, I recently caught hold of this book which apparently takes the story forward and describes the nervous nineties of India post the reforms.

The basic problem is that you miss the flow you enjoyed in author’s other writings essentially because this is more like a collection of his essays rather than a monolithic rambling. Another problem some people might face is that he gets unnecessarily philosophical at places which does not go well with the theme of the book.

Nevertheless, it again has the hints of the lucid writings in his previous book and helps a great deal in understanding how our decade after the reforms went and what lies ahead. Mr. Narayan Murthy is quite right in saying that this book should be made part of the curriculum of every Indian student.

Some great lines from this book…..

“The Americans, who more than others, tend to live in the present , have made an industry of characterizing their decades- ‘ the roaring twenties’; ‘the swinging sixties’. If I had to do the same for the 1990s in India, I would call the decade ‘our liberating nineties’ “.

“And in the end, India is not a tiger, and change will always be slower than in East Asia. India is an elephant which has stirred from its slumber and has finally began to move ahead with a degree of determination. However, unlike a sprinting tiger that runs out of steam, the elephant has stamina”.

“The 19^th century belonged to Europe, the 20^th went to America, and many believe that the 21^st is likely to be Asia’s”.

“When you bribe, your work gets done in east Asia. In India, even after paying a bribe, you are never sure!”

“In my thirty years of active business, I did not meet a single bureaucrat who really understood my business yet he had the power to ruin it”.

“It was strange to read of the rise of Hindu fundamentalism because Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals”.

“Grace mark is a disgraceful feature of our academic life”.

“It is, in the end, some sort of irony that Rajiv Gandhi was willing to ditch his grandfather’s socialist vision and embrace Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of village governance”.