Unraveling India

The contradictions of the fabled subcontinent

Ever since Queen Victoria presided over the British raj in India, statesmen, merchants, writers and missionaries have attempted to untangle the baffling contradictions of the fabled subcontinent that, according to British journalist Edward Luce, the author of the compelling “In Spite of the Gods,” may within a decade rival China in population and prosperity.

For Rudyard Kipling, India provided a rich backdrop for his tales and his musings on empire. For Mahatma Gandhi, India was an experiment in nonviolent resistance against British rule. And what Winston Churchill said of Russia in 1939 might well be said of India today: “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

This book may head the long line of attempts to unravel the paradoxes and promise of India.

In the summer of 1949, a year after India became independent, I escorted 35 eager Americans on a round-the-world trip, including brief visits in Calcutta and New Delhi, where we placed a wreath at Gandhi’s memorial and had a free-ranging 90-minute discussion with Prime Minister Nehru in his residence. Wearing a red rose on his white jacket, he introduced us to his daughter Indira, who later as prime minister was assassinated by radical Hindus.

As we were leaving, Nehru gave me an autographed copy of his new 500-page book, “The Discovery of India.” Later, as I read it, I was struck by his frequent references to Western thinkers, e.g., Tocqueville, Goethe, Darwin, Adam Smith, Einstein, Walter Lippmann and Andre Malraux. And to political leaders, such as Churchill, FDR, Hitler and Stalin. Hardly surprising. Nehru, like the young author of this book, was Oxford-educated, and each sought to untangle the enigma.

Successive U.S. ambassadors also struggled to discover India, some in amusing ways. Chester Bowles’ wife, for example, tried to identify with ordinary Indians by riding a bicycle in Delhi’s dusty streets. In the early 1960s, Kenneth Galbraith impressed his Indian hosts by taking notes during obligatory ceremonies; later they learned that he was actually writing his autobiography. Despite Gailbraith’s bad manners, Mr. Luce says that his calling India a “functioning anarchy” came close to the mark.

As bureau chief for the Financial Times in New Delhi for five years, Mr. Luce had a close-up view of the rapidly unfolding economic and political drama following the post Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

He soon discovered “India is anything but the unchanging land of cliches. It is in the grips of dramatic change little short of a revolution in politics, economics, society and culture. In politics, the single-party governance of India’s early decades has given way to an era of multiparty coalitions.”

In his early chapters, Mr. Luce, now Financial Times bureau chief in Washington, provides masterful historic summaries of India’s economy, politics, caste system, Hindu nationalism, conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir, and gingerly acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Despite India’s mass poverty and illiteracy, he sees a rapidly modernizing country that within a generation could become the world’s third-largest economy, with more English-speaking inhabitants than the United States. This convincing portrait of a dynamic India is summarized in his final chapter. Here are some high points.

In the past 30 years, India has moved from “single-party rule to twenty-four-party rule, from anti-nuclear to nuclear, from undeclared border wars with Pakistan to a lengthy peace process” and from “virtual bankruptcy to a lengthy boom.” Throughout, “India has given a higher priority to stability than it has to efficiency.”

Mr. Luce acknowledges that China has a much higher literacy rate, due mainly to its “one official language, and very little religious division” and notes that “Christian missionaries are seeking to incorporate India’s tribal groups into mainstream society.”

On the political front, Mr. Luce says Hindu nationalism is as divisive to India as Islamic fundamentalism is to Muslim societies. Between the 18 official languages, caste system and mosaic of ethnic groups, India has the most complex democracy in the world.

He concludes his argument by addressing four critical problems facing India in “the coming years and decades”:

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