HYDERABAD: A report says India stands at the 85th place among the 175 countries featured for the global corruption index. The dreaded C-word is a harsh reality of India and proof lies in the list of scams we have encountered till now. John Elliott’s book Implosion: India’s Tryst With Reality addresses the issue with in-depth analysis, facts and research findings.
The book was released last year just before the election season and has since been updated with a new chapter on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his political background, the writer’s first meeting with him, the challenges and the phases which recall the agenda. John Elliott’s tryst with India began in the ’80s when he worked as a reporter for Financial Times, Fortune and other publications. Now, he lives in Delhi and is an active voice on current affairs on his blog ‘Riding the Elephant’.
“Corruption is everywhere, in every country. You have got degrees of corruption. But in India, corruption eats into everything and it does enormous damage because of the potential of what it could have and should have become,” he points out. The reporter-turned-writer was in Hyderabad for a talk ‘Agenda for Change - the Modi challenge’ organised by Manthan.
Excerpts from an interview:
What factors led to the writing ofImplosion…?
I first came here 30 years ago. I spent five years in the 80s based in Delhi as a Financial Times correspondent. And, then I went away and came back. I have been back for a continuous 20 years. It’s that story really. I always wanted to write a book on India. It was a tumultuous five years (’83 to ’88) - Tamil problems in Sri Lanka, Mrs Gandhi, golden temple and her assassination
You have seen India evolve over the years.
When I was here in the 80s, you would have to fix your air tickets. If you went to Pakistan as I went with my family, Pakistan seemed so much more. My wife looked at the shelves of stuff in the market in Islamabad and couldn’t believe her eyes. She asked, ‘Are we back in London?’ And, it all began to change. Rajiv Gandhi came and really tried to make a difference. When I came back in ’91, undoubtedly things were changing. The most negative thing that struck me was how much corruption has increased and how much people talked about it openly. Here, one is paid to slow things down, one is paid to get wrong decisions and. wrong people getting the contract.
There's a chapter in the book on scam-Andhra.
Here I was fascinated by this new group almost sub-castes of business who came from the coast having thrived on agriculture and irrigation projects and through projects learnt how to fix the government, then moved to Hyderabad during Chandrababu Naidu’s time and then YSR and then blossomed into these names of huge successes.
I came to Hyderabad three years ago to research. Previously I have been here when NTR was thrown out. NTR had just come back from America where he had his open heart surgery. I interviewed him and he was this huge figure in his orange robes. Gradually the foreign press from the Delhi turned out because it was a tutorial in politics and how the country works.
What were the challenging aspects of putting the book together?
The book looks at negative things. You think a little more positivity would have added a different dimension?
I think on the hindsight I wish I had gone to the four states ... Gujarat, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and may be Chattisgarh and written about what they were trying to do to sort things out but that would have added another month. I should have brought in more work of individual entrepreneurs and voluntary organisations. And, I don’t think the absence of those states affects the stories. It might have made readers and reviewers more comfortable but it wouldn’t have changed the basic approach.
Has it been a satisfying journey?
Oh yes. India is vastly enormous from the beginning. By 2000, there were opportunities for young people. There were jobs and opportunities for people who moved up the economic ladder. My point is it is only a part of what it could be. What I am writing about is what it could and should have become. I am in fact telling people what they already know but the way it has come together breeds resentment. ‘What he is telling us, we know… chalta hai!’
