ExpertDabbler

I had read Thaneer Vitto Valarthom – 1 and written about it earlier. I bought the remaining parts in the Chennai book fair this January. Having been exposed to Gurumurthy’s thoughts in the past had set the expectations right on what to expect and Gurumurthy does not disappoint one bit.

I think one has to salute Gurumurthy for his willingness to write consistently about dry but very important subjects such as finance and economics in thamizh with depth and clarity. This was the most impressive feature in Part 1 and my admiration has only grown after reading part 2 and 3. Be it the intricacies of rupee convertibility, or VAT and why it is opposed by the small retailers, the FII inflows and its effects on the stock market, the annual union budget and what goes into it and what it means in layman’s terms - I can definitely say I have not read anything better for the layman in thamizh and I am someone most comfortable in my mother tongue.

Gurumurthy also focuses on the plight of the farmers post 1991 based on his first hand experiences in Erode. He brings out the major differences between the Western and Indian economy and how the policies of LSE trained Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Manmohan singh have wrecked havoc on rural India. I was not aware that the most agriculture oriented western country (France) supports a meagre 11% of its population with agriculture (It is about 2% in the US) while it is still the lifeline for about 65-70% of the Indian populace. Another fundamental difference is that in Indian farming only one-third comes to the urban cities for sale, the rest are consumed internally among the villages. Making agriculture unviable in the last 15-20 years has absolutely forced the millions of people to migrate to cities where life has become progressively worse for all. What have we offered as a policy measure to thousands of farmers? Subsidies to the rich and and farm suicides to the poor. All these topics are essentially Commerce 101 from Gurumurthy in Thamizh. No one does it better.

Besides this, there are the usual Gurmurthy regulars – the issue of religious conversion and how it impacts the fabric of this country, the role played by the media and politicians in minority appeasements are all well documented with customary punch.

He is also right in chronicling the way Justice is administered in India - with a lot of colonial hangover. I for one firmly believe there is more of incentive bias at play than any sense of justice in our courts.

There are other chapters where I am not in synch with the writer. His stand that women should be ready to make sacrifices in order to safeguard the family structure which is central to India’s economics and sociology is something I am neutral on. I agree with the fact that more people living and sharing the same roof makes lot of economic sense. I think Indians evolved and adopted the joint family system since we never had any kind of social security sponsored by the government and family/relation was and still is the only available social security. My take is, the emphasis should be on ‘responsibility’ which is gender agnostic, generation agnostic, religion agnostic, class agnostic. Instead he goes about saying that women having more responsibility to hold the family which is the basic unit of this country and so they should make sacrifices which sounds rather retarded to me. This implies more like condoning the irresponsible men and making hedonism all the more alluring. After seeing the kind of debt piled by the developed nations, I am less inclined to criticize him on this issue as before. But I am still not convinced about his solution.

One other gripe I have is that he is almost all praise in all matters relating to the BJP while he is vehement in his criticism of the policies and actions of the Congress and its Italian leader. It is amazing that five years of NDA rule had left Gurumurthy a completely satisfied man, or so it seems. One may argue these are understandable given his political leanings and his proximity to Advani. But what irks me is that people who can be genuine thought leaders in this country are found lacking in objectivity. They take sides which compromises their stature and credibility to some extent. Anyways I guess satisfying a cynical Virgo is always a herculean task and I am no exception to that.

To sum up, we read some books for entertainment, and we read some for information. But I guess we should read some books because they are plain necessary reading for any concerned Indian. We can argue with his ideas, but I am not one to question his intention. If you hold an Indian passport, know thamizh and care for the issues facing India, this entire series (parts 1, 2 and 3) is required reading.

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