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India: The Road Ahead
The sequel to No Full Stops in India , Mark Tully's most popular book so far.
Since the Indian economy was liberated from bureaucratic, socialist controls in 1991, it has developed rapidly. A country once renowned for the backwardness of its industries, its commerce and its financial market is now viewed as potentially one of the major world economies of the twenty-first century.
But there are many questions which need to be asked about the sustainability of this rapid economic growth and its effect on the stability of the country. Have the changes had any impact on the poor and marginalised? Can India's democracy contain the mounting resentment of those left out of the new economic order? Can a high growth rate be sustained with India's notoriously corrupt and inefficient governance? Can the development of its creaking infrastructure be speeded up? How is India going to feed itself unless agriculture is reformed?
This timely book will answer these questions through interviews with industrialists and cricketers, God men and farmers, plutocrats and former untouchables. Full of fascinating stories of real people at a time of great change, it will be of interest to economists, business people, diplomats, politicians, as well as to those who love to travel and who take an interest in the rapid growth of one of the world's largest countries, and what this means to us in the West.
Since the Indian economy was liberated from bureaucratic, socialist controls in 1991, it has developed rapidly. A country once renowned for the backwardness of its industries, its commerce and its financial market is now viewed as potentially one of the major world economies of the twenty-first century.
But there are many questions which need to be asked about the sustainability of this rapid economic growth and its effect on the stability of the country. Have the changes had any impact on the poor and marginalised? Can India's democracy contain the mounting resentment of those left out of the new economic order? Can a high growth rate be sustained with India's notoriously corrupt and inefficient governance? Can the development of its creaking infrastructure be speeded up? How is India going to feed itself unless agriculture is reformed?
This timely book will answer these questions through interviews with industrialists and cricketers, God men and farmers, plutocrats and former untouchables. Full of fascinating stories of real people at a time of great change, it will be of interest to economists, business people, diplomats, politicians, as well as to those who love to travel and who take an interest in the rapid growth of one of the world's largest countries, and what this means to us in the West.
- GenresIndiaNonfiction
320 pages, Hardcover
First published August 4, 2011
About the author
Mark Tully
55 books135 followersSir William Mark Tully was the Chief of Bureau for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in New Delhi for 22 years. Schooled in England, he stayed mostly in India covering all major incidents in South Asia during his tenure. He was made an Officer of The Order of the British Empire in 1985 and was awarded the Padma Shree in 1992, a rare distinction for a non-Indian. He was knighted in the 2002 New Year Honours. In 2005 he received the Padma Bhushan.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 2, 2020
Mark Tully captures the systemic challenges and opportunities in contemporary India with a simple narrative in an objective and balanced manner. The issues he has highlighted have paralyzed the growth and prosperity of India for decades. Recommended to anyone looking to know more about India through a different lens.
October 5, 2018
Mark Tully at its best when it comes to story telling
January 9, 2022
Here is a book that holds up to its promises.
July 25, 2024
Not worth it
November 22, 2012
India; The Road Ahead, Mark Tully, Random House, 2011
Reviewed by Graham Mulligan
The author was born in India and worked as the BBC Bureau Chief for twenty-two years. This book examines a number of themes ranging form politics, caste, religion, culture, business, history and tigers. Each chapter begins with a short essay introduction to a theme, setting a context for the personal stories that follow, as Tully retells the encounters he and his wife have as they explore some understanding of the question or phenomenon introduced at the start of that chapter.
The book begins with the author’s story of the Naxalite movement in India. The movement originated in 1967 in Naxalbari, a village in the Northeast, near Nepal, as a peasant revolt against corrupt landlords. It was an active threat to the established order in many village areas when I visited India in 1969, and continues to this day. Today, the Naxalites operate in the heavily forested areas of central and eastern India, populated mainly by ‘tribal’ groups. Tully visited some remote villages to speak with some Naxalite supporters and locals as well as some police and government officials, about the movement. He found a kind of stalemate where neither police nor Naxalites were gaining ground.
In a later chapter, entitled Building Communities, he tables the question of poor governance and the perception that India is a ‘flailing’ state. Government programs targeting social improvement have frequently failed due to corruption and collusion between bureaucratic officials and contractors. ‘Ghost works’ and ‘ghost labourers’ siphon of most of the funds. So how to change things? Tully explores the story of NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2004) whereby the central Government seeks to pay local villagers directly to do needed improvements bypassing several levels of State and Ministry structures that could siphon off funds. Quoting Robert Putnam’s study of Italian society (Making Democracy Work), Tully sees Indian social structure as hierarchical all the way from the patriarchal family and the feudal system of the Mughals to the paternalistic British administration and then centralized independent state after 1948. He travels into the countryside to see first-hand what is going on. Seva Mandir (www.sevamandir.org), the leading NGO, working in the towns and villages, trains local members to form responsible local communities to oversee projects. They teach that a responsible horizontal structure of community can keep an eye on unscrupulous landlords, graft-taking contractors and corrupt officials.
Similarly, the focus of Development Alternatives (www.devalt.org), another NGO, is empowering communities through employment generation and skill development and a clean environment (green jobs), and clean technology. The question is, who can deliver development, the government, the private sector or NGO’s?
Development will depend on India’s continuing growth. In an interesting aside Tully asks, what is the role of the English language in India? He quotes Mark Abley: “English is the Wal-Mart of languages… devouring all rivals in its eagerness to expand”.
The complexity of Indian society is formidable yet change is occurring. Chapters on the changing caste system and the similarly changing block voting of religious groups (called ‘vote banking’) show how there is movement within Indian society. The challenge, however, to Gandhi’s ideal of a secular governing model by communalism is present in State and National elections (the ‘Hindu revival’ and the Muslim political parties are examples of this).
Tully, in his conclusion, warns against being too pessimistic or too optimistic about India’s future. Hopeless pessimism leads to fatalism, while shortsighted optimism leads to blindness to faults. Tully says he agrees with Gopalkrishnan, the Tata Director, that the problem is one of governance at all levels, political, civic and corporate and that it is an inevitable part of a maturing democracy and a maturing democratic capitalism.
Reviewed by Graham Mulligan
The author was born in India and worked as the BBC Bureau Chief for twenty-two years. This book examines a number of themes ranging form politics, caste, religion, culture, business, history and tigers. Each chapter begins with a short essay introduction to a theme, setting a context for the personal stories that follow, as Tully retells the encounters he and his wife have as they explore some understanding of the question or phenomenon introduced at the start of that chapter.
The book begins with the author’s story of the Naxalite movement in India. The movement originated in 1967 in Naxalbari, a village in the Northeast, near Nepal, as a peasant revolt against corrupt landlords. It was an active threat to the established order in many village areas when I visited India in 1969, and continues to this day. Today, the Naxalites operate in the heavily forested areas of central and eastern India, populated mainly by ‘tribal’ groups. Tully visited some remote villages to speak with some Naxalite supporters and locals as well as some police and government officials, about the movement. He found a kind of stalemate where neither police nor Naxalites were gaining ground.
In a later chapter, entitled Building Communities, he tables the question of poor governance and the perception that India is a ‘flailing’ state. Government programs targeting social improvement have frequently failed due to corruption and collusion between bureaucratic officials and contractors. ‘Ghost works’ and ‘ghost labourers’ siphon of most of the funds. So how to change things? Tully explores the story of NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2004) whereby the central Government seeks to pay local villagers directly to do needed improvements bypassing several levels of State and Ministry structures that could siphon off funds. Quoting Robert Putnam’s study of Italian society (Making Democracy Work), Tully sees Indian social structure as hierarchical all the way from the patriarchal family and the feudal system of the Mughals to the paternalistic British administration and then centralized independent state after 1948. He travels into the countryside to see first-hand what is going on. Seva Mandir (www.sevamandir.org), the leading NGO, working in the towns and villages, trains local members to form responsible local communities to oversee projects. They teach that a responsible horizontal structure of community can keep an eye on unscrupulous landlords, graft-taking contractors and corrupt officials.
Similarly, the focus of Development Alternatives (www.devalt.org), another NGO, is empowering communities through employment generation and skill development and a clean environment (green jobs), and clean technology. The question is, who can deliver development, the government, the private sector or NGO’s?
Development will depend on India’s continuing growth. In an interesting aside Tully asks, what is the role of the English language in India? He quotes Mark Abley: “English is the Wal-Mart of languages… devouring all rivals in its eagerness to expand”.
The complexity of Indian society is formidable yet change is occurring. Chapters on the changing caste system and the similarly changing block voting of religious groups (called ‘vote banking’) show how there is movement within Indian society. The challenge, however, to Gandhi’s ideal of a secular governing model by communalism is present in State and National elections (the ‘Hindu revival’ and the Muslim political parties are examples of this).
Tully, in his conclusion, warns against being too pessimistic or too optimistic about India’s future. Hopeless pessimism leads to fatalism, while shortsighted optimism leads to blindness to faults. Tully says he agrees with Gopalkrishnan, the Tata Director, that the problem is one of governance at all levels, political, civic and corporate and that it is an inevitable part of a maturing democracy and a maturing democratic capitalism.
January 28, 2013
It is a good book for those who want a better understanding of some of the social, cultural, political and historical fundamentals of India as we know today.
However it could be a cursory read for Indians who probably read and are aware about these current affairs on a daily basis...
I enjoyed the writing and the anecdotes and the many examples.
However it could be a cursory read for Indians who probably read and are aware about these current affairs on a daily basis...
I enjoyed the writing and the anecdotes and the many examples.
April 14, 2015
Not the kind of book I generally read, but a really interesting book. Well written and insightful, with flashes of humour.
November 28, 2015
Insightful and unbiased observations of making India.
December 30, 2020
Sophisticated language. But the conclusions are not creative, kind of mediocre.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews