Author: Kapil Kitchlu
Publisher: Blue Jay Books
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 262
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8187075627
Description
This is a book of extreme interest to those who still remain in India and who have liberal minds.
India is at the crossroads. Decisions made over the next half-a-dozen years will set the course for the kind of country the succeeding generations will live, work and play in. That is, if we make it so far in one piece.
By and large, the drift of things in the nation are hostage to broadly Western influences, both in their economic and cultural underpinnings. The nation is seemingly less cultural literate and more crassly materialistic as additional numbers mechanically follow in the footsteps of those that precede them down this nihilistic path.
Indians have been reduced by the consequences of the past millennium's happenings and the deleterious effects of the caste system, gifts from an even earlier period. They need to shrug off these historical shackles and renew themselves, in order to acquire the self-confidence, maturity and equality amongst humans on which basis alone can a prosperous and secure India can be imagined.
The economic reforms cannot by themselves make this country great. For that to happen, we need a revolution of the mind. This book proposes solutions which would allow India to arrive at the top table, materially prosperous without the obnoxious extremes, while providing inspiration to the world in realms non-material. However to achieve that great height, we seriously and urgently need to confront the demons of the past who daily journey with us.
The essays make it clear that India could as easily descend into chaos and mayhem as avoid it by a conscious and determined collective effort to do so. For some years, public opinion is being shaped to believe that India is on an irreversible roll and the future looks glorious and secure.
The author is much less sanguine about the certainty of that facile expectation and expresses his belief in a forthright and brutally candid fashion, laying bare the hypocrisies and the deceits, the corpulent, corrosive, contented corruption that has overrun our minds and our actions.
COMMENTS:
Mr. Kitchlu's work should be studied and remembered by a hose who would like to record the situation of India in the new millennium and I think it is an extremely valuable book - Dom Moraes
Kapil Kitchlu's essays reflect the deep anxiety of a thoughtful and sensitive Indian about the future of our country. Their essential virtue is their complete freedom from the glib rationalization of failure with which he Indian intelligentsia make their comfortable lives tolerable. These rationalizations exist, and many can be defended, but the country also needs Messiahs who refuse to accept them, and do not hesitate to remind us of how far we still have to go before the future becomes safe for our children. Kitchlu's book is a timely reminder.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
A New Beginning
An Endlessly Drifting Nation
Free Market Blessings?
There is Worse to Come
Last Call Before the Ship Goes Under
Complexities Mount, Solutions Elude
Do We Get Competent, Honest Governments?
Freedom From What?
The Age of Enlightenment
Stop the Refrain on Poverty
The Missing Social Compact
A Window of Opportunity
Taking Control of Our Lives
Runaway Hypocrisy
An Augean Stable
Determined to Stay Backward
Philosophy, Mr Rao and Reforms
Down the Corridor of Time
Is Imitation Really Flattery?
Investing in the Infrastructure
Reforming the Political System
7GATT and Sovereignty
Who Wants the Reforms?
The Business of Giving Bribes
Minor Sacrifices for a Better Future
Managing Men and Matters
Despair Not for India
Exit Policy and Societal Reality
Marketing Liberalisation
Individuals Can Cause Revolution
Half-Baked Efforts
Corporate Tendencies
Gearing Up for Competition
Education is the Only Answer
Can Future Betrayals Be Prevented?
Reconciling the Modern with the Traditional
Business Opportunities in India
Asian (Hindu) Values and What they Mean for Europeans