An authentic and dispassionate critique of India's freedom struggle and its development experience from the viewpoint of Gandhian and Magsaysay Award winner Lakshmi Chand Jain was launched here on Friday.
‘Civil Disobedience: Two Freedom Struggles, One Life,' by L. C. Jain, a publication of The Book Review Literary Trust, consists of six chapters of memoirs put together in a manner, according to publishers, “devoid of embroidery in language or embellishments which smack of hagiography.”
Launching the book under the auspices of the Trust and the Madras Book Club, M. S. Swaminathan, Chairman, M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, said that in spite of being a family friend of the author over an almost 50-year association, after reading the book it was “difficult to believe that such a person existed in our times.”
A remarkable aspect of the book was the consistency in the expression of the core values that Mr. Jain believed in, whatever the circumstances. One of the high points of the book is the account on how a combination of the author's humanism and organisational skill and the decision-making acumen of former Union Minister C. Subramaniam gave shape to a fair price super bazaar as a counter to food inflation in a span of just 14 days, Prof. Swaminathan said.
On another occasion, Mr. Jain has made explicit his core belief that only agriculture could promote job-led growth and his view that farming was not just a food-producing machine but essentially the backbone of livelihood security in India, Prof. Swaminathan said.
Padmini Swaminathan, economist and former Director of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, said reading the book was academically rewarding as it was an exercise in multi-disciplinarity and the advocacy of the concept of institution-building where implementation was integral to planning.
Former Parliamentarian Era Sezhiyan said reading the book was like experiencing the author's life in black and white letters…“as if he was speaking to us.”
As a precious publication, the historical book would live beyond our times, he said.
N. Gopalaswami, former Chief Election Commissioner, said a high point of the book related to the discussion on the 73{+r}{+d} and 74{+t}{+h} Constitutional amendments for devolution of powers to a panchayati raj system and the critique of the Planning Commission.
Moderating a discussion on the book, N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu , said the book represented a successful weaving together of diverse and disparate sources of material and carried the intellectual rigour of a research paper.
As a work that is about issues and ideas and evokes the atmosphere of the times, it reflected the author's sophisticated understanding through a critical and unsentimental narrative while retaining a spirit of optimism that good things will prevail, Mr. Ram said.
Chandra Chari, Chairperson, The Book Review Literary Trust, said the base text of the book was provided by transcripts of recordings of Mr. Jain's recollections from the 1940s as part of a video/oral history project of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.
