Book: THE CROOKED TIMBER OF NEW INDIA: ESSAYS ON A REPUBLIC IN CRISIS
Author: Parakala Prabhakar
Published by: Speaking Tiger
Price: ₹499
Parakala Prabhakar doesn’t like Narendra Modi and the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government. All views should be articulated and heard. In the Acknowledgements, we are told these essays were written between 2020 and late 2022 and they also featured in his video blog. The author signed off on the manuscript in April 2023. While signing off, he tells us, “While many publishing houses baulked at publishing something unapologetically critical of New India…” Most publishers, though not all, have some form of quality control and formal, or informal, refereeing. Since critical books are also routinely published, did the publishers baulk because of criticism or quality? Compiling and re-publishing, without revision, an assortment of columns is always fraught with problems. Columns have limited shelf-life, lose topicality, and become outdated. “We are in a vaccine mess. Vaccination is proceeding at a snail’s pace. The daily vaccination rate is in steady decline” (p 242). There may have been a point to this in May 2021, when the essay was originally written. In April 2023, given India’s vaccination record, especially in comparison with other countries, any referee, assuming there was one, would have asked for these sentences to be revised. “And when Pfizer wanted to come to India at the beginning of the year, why didn’t we let it in?” (p 245). Surely, someone as knowledgeable as Parakala Prabhakar knows about the indemnity clause Moderna and Pfizer insisted on. The question is asked,but the clause is not mentioned.
The entire book reminds you of the cliched Sherlock Holmes quote, “Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” In the process, as the Pfizer example illustrates, there are elements of suppressio veri and suggestio falsi. Yet another such instance is that on poverty and poverty numbers. Poverty ratios have historically been computed through NSS consumer expenditure surveys and the author shows awareness that there haven’t been any such surveys after 2011-12. This is what the author tells readers about poverty: “For the first time since the 1990s, the number of people who are below the poverty line in India has increased” (p 20); “Using World Bank’s projections made last year (2020) and the current situation, Pew concluded that India added 75 million people to the category of the poor” (p 178). If one is quoting Pew, surely one should quote all of Pew and not just parts selectively. This too is Pew, from the same study — “From 2011 to 2019, the number of poor in India is estimated to have decreased from 340 million to 78 million.” Undertaken in the midst of the pandemic, Pew’s methodology is suspect. In 2022, UNDP published a global report using the multi-dimensional poverty index. It said, between 2005-06 and 2019-21, 400 million people were raised above the poverty line in India. Does the author not know? If no, he shouldn’t be writing this book. If yes, he is misleading the reader. In the absence of consumption expenditure surveys after 2011-12, there have been attempts by supporters of the government, as well as critics to estimate poverty. If this book is meant to be taken seriously, surely the reader should have been given a taste of what these convey. And since the manuscript, written in the style of a pamphleteer, displayed no such intent, any referee should have found the manuscript sub-par.
This has nothing to do with criticism, but everything to do with what makes for a good book. Every book is not meant to be academic, peppered with bibliography and footnotes. But every book should be factually correct. “The government’s efforts to rescue the economy during the crisis came in for criticism” (p 257). In this essay, written in January 2021, the author favoured the fiscal response in countries like Britain. Many, including the IMF, have lauded India’s policy response and fiscal rectitude and some countries in the West have got into economic woes precisely because of choices the author advocates. “So it isn’t surprising that most of his ministers bring neither professional competence nor lend political weight to the cabinet anyway”(p 201). That’s, of course, a subjective assessment. But we should be grateful we didn’t have Parakala Prabhakaras finance minister.
