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Former BBC correspondent, South Asia
How did you get the idea of writing a travelogue like Mantras of Change?
I had the good fortune of being the BBC South Asia correspondent during the 90’s – first in Pakistan between 1992 and 1995 – and then in New Delhi 1997 onwards. So when you travel for a big media organisation you’re very lucky because you get to see every corner of the country and the society you’re covering. But, in broadcasting, you don’t get to use all of the material – the encounters, the peoples’ tales you gather along the way. And at the end of the 1990’s, the pressure was too great to really start thinking about some of those stories and how to share them with people. Penguin India approached me after I had written a few columns in Outlook magazine while I was in New Delhi. And thus, Mantras of Change was the end result.
The book is a reporter’s notebook of sorts over 8-9 years of travelling within South Asia. I was mining stories which weren’t used as broadcast tales or even the newspaper work which I did. And I really wanted to tell these stories. But these aren’t incoherent stories and neither are they particularly bound together. Thus the sub-title – reporting India in times of flux.
Mantras of Change was written during the early 2000’s and you’ve written about the Bangalores and Gurgaons of India. How have these hubs changed over the last decade?
For starters, there was no Delhi Metro and there were no malls when I wrote that book. Also, Bangalore was just about beginning to suffer from the impact of its success. In those days, it was possible to get from central Bangalore to Electronic City quite easily on public transport or in a taxi. Now, it’s almost impossible and the traffic problems are immense. So the explosion of industrial capacity there has not been met and still isn’t being met by infrastructural capacity. Despite its new airport and new roads, the state of the city remains the same. In contrast, Delhi has chosen a car route and a metro route and, though a lot is left to be desired, progress is being made. In 10 years’ time I’d like to be able to compare Delhi to New York or London.
Things seem a little gloomy right now but that’s because people’s expectations have been dashed and there’s a global economic crisis to make it worse and an unresolved war on terror. In 10 years, we’ll have new challenges and new things to feel optimistic about.
Although the writing in your book is vivid and descriptive, there aren’t any photographs. Was this a conscious decision so as to make your writing get noticed or you just didn’t have the time to click any photos?
We (the publishers and I) didn’t really talk about it. And that’s my fault because this was my very first book. I wasn’t if could write 80,000 or 90,000 words as I was used to writing short pieces for radio and television and the occasional 1000 word piece for a newspaper. So, I was very stressed about whether or not I could accomplish the task of writing a book that I didn’t think about important things like photographs and cover design, which I left entirely to the publishers. My newest book India Expressed doesn’t have any photographs either although I had contemplated the India. And one of the reasons why people like me often don’t use photographs is because we don’t have the specific visual images of some of the stories we are using. For instance, if I go and sit with the Foreign Secretary of India, and out of that comes a chapter on how India thinks of itself in the world, what would I use for a photograph? Do I use a photo of the External Affairs ministry in South Block? So I don’t know. And if you’re going to use photographs, they have to be extremely good and they have to be relevant to the stories you’re telling.
So unless you do research or legwork, and keep photographs or illustrations in mind, only does it makes sense to use them. Otherwise, you’re just doing a disservice to the book. At least, that’s what I think.But, in future, I am going to keep that in mind and when I travel around doing my next book – on the Indian diaspora – I am going to carry a digital camera and record every visual image I possibly can.
Your second book, India Expressed, tackles the subject of India again. How different is this book from Mantras of Change?
It’s a more coherent argument. And it’s an argument aimed at the wider world. I wrote the book keeping North American and British audiences in mind because these issues – India’s poverty, political instabilities, population challenges, nuclear weapons etc - needed to be raised over there. Nonetheless, this is country which is thinking about ideas which will take it places in the world. My publisher wanted a title which would make the book jump off the shelves. My title was The Awakening Giant which was a little boring and neutral. So I’m glad we went with my publisher’s title.
When I do interviews in America, Britain or Canada, they ask all the details about the book and the challenges that you raise. In India, they say ‘How can you we’re a superpower! We’re not a superpower!’ So it’s here that I experience a more negative imaging about India than I do abroad. And it comes from the very members of middle classes who often take exception to the image of India.
Since you worked in Pakistan in the mid 90’s, can you give us a sense of what Pakistan was like back then and what it is now – in terms of politics, civil society and its perspective towards the world?
To start with, I’m glad that Pakistan has democracy of sorts, back again. The great disease in the political life of that country has always been the army, which has ruled it for more than half of its independent existence. If there are problems in Pakistan right now, I’d put them down to the army. They needed to take the responsibility and the blame for that and, somehow, suffer for it. When I went to Pakistan in 1992, it was ruled by Nawaz Sharif. But, I also got to know the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari who is now President. Benazir Bhutto was campaigning very hard against Nawaz Sharif; doing something called a ‘long march’. Initially, I thought it was something heroic – like what Mao had done in China – but basically, it was roaming around Lahore and courting arrest in the Gandhian tradition. I quickly got immersed in the democratic politics of the place. The army, though powerful, had stepped aside to the let the politicians have their go. There was an election forced by the removal of Nawaz Sharif from power by the establishment. It was a legal move under the Constitution but was overturned by the Supreme Court.
I got a sense of Pakistan when I spent my first full year there in 1993. What a crazy place it was! But in those days crazy meant something different. There were five changes of government in one year. There were four different Prime Ministers, three Presidents and two army chiefs – in one single year. But through all of that it was non-violent. It was rowdy, crazy and rhetorically pointed. There was no television back then but interviews with international media were really pointed. People were throwing accusations around. The violence was the kind you’d see in India during an election; a bit of coercion and clashes between supporters but nothing widespread. I felt perfectly safe to travel all over the country. I interviewed everyone, from Islamists of the most virulent variety – who, incidentally, were running in the election – to communists, human rights activists and everybody in between, including Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
Those were innocent times back then. Even though it was rowdy and there were tensions with India, there was a sense that democracy had arrived. And through democracy, Pakistan’s problems might be worked out. But then, every couple of years, the army would step in and, through the establishment and using the Constitution, would dismiss the Prime Minister. That was part of Pakistan’s Constitution which the army had insisted upon when it allowed Benazir Bhutto to come to power in 1988. As a result, to this day, Pakistanis have never voted a government out of office. Governments have always been removed via Constitutional or extra-Constitutional means. So when Gen. Musharraf launched a coup in 1999, I was alone amongst the very few correspondents in saying that this was not a good thing. Yes, Nawaz Sharif’s government was a disaster – there was corruption, there were economic problems, nuclear confrontation (with India), the Kargil war – but I still thought, if the Pakistani people were disgusted with the Sharif government, they should have had an opportunity to throw him out, as it happens in India. It never happened and that’s why democracy is so unhealthy in Pakistan.
Musharraf’s rule was an unmitigated disaster. I have nothing good to say about it. I have nothing but contempt for the army, Musharraf and the way they handled Pakistan during their years in power. The war on terror gave him a new lease on life thanks to former President Bush, which he shouldn’t have had. Because I think he was deeply unpopular before 9/11; his government had not managed to create the jobs that Pakistanis needed, to address the real problems of economic and agricultural decline. The fact that they didn’t invest in the irrigation system bequeathed to them by the British and relations with India were never repaired. And this is because the Pakistan army exists – solely – because of hostilities with India which it then, artificially, helps maintain. I think everybody, including my Pakistani colleagues, would talk about that. And I don’t absolve India of blame in the relationship either. But, I’d blame the Pakistan Army more than anything else.
Now we have a troubled sort of Pakistan – very unstable with lots of power outside of State hands. Even outside of the hands of the army. These are the beasts that the army has created from the Afghan war onward and, basically, stepped up during the 90’s during the so-called ‘war on terror’ with Al-Qaeda affiliated and other militant groups, about whom – let’s face it - the Indians feel rightfully angry about their existence. They do a lot of damage in India and in Pakistan too. Minorities in Pakistan – Shia Muslims, Hindus, Christians – and people who chose to stay back during Partition and are loyal Pakistanis, are often attacked by Wahaabi organisations. These groups are often very corrupt and make money through their connections within the Pakistan Army and because of heroin smuggling along the Afghan border. So, today’s Pakistan is an utter mess. And it’s the result of the army meddling in civilian politics and civilians not being allowed to be good at their job. India, from time-to-time, takes a mature approach to Pakistan where it realises that it has to put up with a bit. Not just with outrages like Mumbai, but a bit more than that. People like I K Gujral and Manmohan realised that a lot has to be tolerated in Pakistan to encourage the development of democracy.
But it’s hard to be hopeful about today’s Pakistan; the economy is in a mess more than we can ever imagine, people are poorer, there are no prospects for the young men who are being born, the birth rate is extremely high, agriculture is in a steep decline and nobody’s putting foreign investment in there to open factories. There are still call centers and IT businesses there. Frankly, I think Pakistan could be a lot like India if only its people could be free from this horrible spectre of Islamism and the army, corruption, and all of the things that have plagued them till date. There could be Bangalores and Gurgaons in Pakistan, for better or for worse, but it would be a welcome change from what’s going on now.
So would it be fair to say that the messy Pakistan of 1992 was similar to what India was in 1996-97?
Exactly. It was messy in 1992, but it was a mess that came out of democracy. During that period, it was a coming-of-age for democracy in India. And you have to go through this mess to get to somewhere. And let’s face it, democracy is messy and we journalists, broadcasters, bloggers and analysts like it that way. We don’t want to live in Singapore. We want to live in India and Pakistan where people are free to speak their mind. Politicians are free to split up from their parties – it can annoy us – but if the alternative is authoritarianism like China or Pakistan, we don’t want it. So I don’t like the Pakistan of today. Although, I’m hopeful that there is a semblance of democracy trying to take hold there.
As you pointed out, Musharraf got a lease on life thanks to President Bush and the war on terror. But now, President Obama has taken charge and has already told Pakistan to ‘behave’ itself. How do you see the Obama administration’s foreign policy shaping up vis-à-vis India and Pakistan?
It’s a complicated relationship and it’s not just the President who sets the tone. America has had a long-standing military relationship with Pakistan dating back to the 50’s. And this was a time when America was close the Ayub Khan regime and India was seen as being on the other side of the Cold War, even though it wasn’t. The American military still has important links in the Pakistan Army and still hopes that it can transform the army into a proper civilian military. And it’s not a lost hope. So those links are important. But, I think Obama realises that Pakistan’s instability and its inability to control (or lack of desire) the tribal areas. Many Americans, Canadians, Dutch, NATO and Afghan people because of what’s happening in the border areas. Many people are dying around world because of drugs produced in that area; because of lawlessness and all directly sourced back to the fact that Pakistan is unstable and its Army is cynical in its exploitation of that instability. So, I think Obama has crossed that idea. He has an excellent South Asia team which includes Bruce Riedel and Susan (although she’s a Middle East specialist) who have South Asia credentials. There’s talk of Richard Holbrooke being appointed to a South Asia brief in the State Department. India is going to have a problem with that since traditional Indian mantras are ‘Don’t touch Kashmir. It’s a bilateral issue.’ Well, the world doesn’t accept that. But, apart from this, Obama has a lot on his plate which includes Iran, the Middle East, South Asia and Afghanistan. Besides, his own country is in an economic mess. But I think he does have an opportunity to affect real change – in Pakistan and in South Asia.
And Obama’s Defense Secretary is Robert Gates, who continues from the previous administration. How do you think Obama’s defense policy will shape with respect to the war on terror.
Gates came in after Donald Rumsfeld had made an absolute mess of everything. In fact, he was the worst Defense Secretary in living memory – at least in response to the massive crisis of 9/11 and, subsequently, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But, Gates came in as a pragmatist and a member of the old defence establishment that tried to maintain America’s multi-lateral links. So, I think Obama kept him on because, as I said, the Pentagon is an organisation that doesn’t change readily. Militaries don’t change readily – be it in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan or even Germany for that matter! Robert Gates is a loyal American who knows that Obama has a huge mandate in which change plays a major role. And Obama’s made it clear throughout his campaign about his intentions for Iraq, Afghanistan and South Asia. We’ll have to see what he does about the Middle East. But I think Gates will follow suit and will be an implementer of the change Obama talked about.
General elections in India are due in a few months now so what are America and the world’s expectations from India’s next government?
It’s now widely expected that India is a major player in the world. In my last book (India Expressed) I talked about India and super-powerdom and took alot of stick for that. But I still maintain that India is a global player of huge influence. It has to be involved in every multi-lateral issue – be it climate change or disarmament. So I think the Obama administration is looking for an Indian government which is aware of this. The Americans, Europeans and other major partners of India are very aware of what the political parties here stand for. And they are also aware of their limitations, given India’s coalition governments and India’s pressing demands globally for development and stability.
The world has a very sophisticated take on India now. It’s learning a lot more now in the last 10 or 15 years that I’ve covered this part of the world. Earlier, it was just about snake-charmers, famines and instability and now it’s a much more sophisticated take. So, in the next Indian government people will look for continuity of policy at a multi-lateral level and, I think, they’ll get it. Whether it was a Congress or a BJP-led coalition, there’s not much difference in their economic policy from 2003 to 2004, post-election. I don’t think the world has a horse in this race. Everyone knows Manmohan Singh because of his international experience. But governments don’t cheer for political parties in other countries because it s a losing game. I think the world is already making its plan for whoever emerges victor in the next election.
In India, the opposition has been quite critical about the Manmohan Singh’s government’s soft approach towards terrorism. Do you think the criticism is fair? Or is a mountain being made out of a molehill?
What emerged after the Mumbai attacks was that there was a lack of response by the security agencies. And we saw the same thing in the run-up to 9/11. I don’t know if modern democratic governments are really able to respond effectively to the horror that is terror. There was a great line written after the September 11 attacks by Robert Fisk which said ‘We thought it was nuclear weapons were our enemy. It turns out that it’s a box-cutter!’ That’s all it took to bring about that horrible attack. Similarly, in Mumbai, all it took was some people who were willing to take extreme risks and murder everyone inside (the hotels sic). I don’t know what government can be ready for that. You have to persist with doing what all governments are good at doing and i.e. intelligence-sharing, intelligence gathering and working to improve internal communications. And not many governments are good at that. It also means reaching out to communities – in this case, Muslims – and asking them ‘What can we do to help you isolate this phenomenon within your community?’ And I think that’s happening. I am very encouraged by the response of the Indian government to Pakistan and Islamic terror.
So far, there has been no backlash against Indian Muslims and, hopefully, there will be none. Manmohan Singh has spoken sternly and involved the world. He hasn’t sent any bombers on a fruitless mission to camps that would be inactive and result in a disaster that nobody would ever win from.
On a different note, the Indian media has come under scathing criticism for its coverage of the Mumbai attacks and other issues as well. Do you think that the criticism is fair and what is your opinion about the state of the Indian media today?
I’ve been a massive admirer of the Indian press. Many of the Indian newspapers and magazine – Outlook, India Today, The Indian Express, The Week, Frontline – are world class. However, television has taken a while. You don’t develop live television overnight. I am not a big fan of CNN or some of the BBC’s output on live TV either. What I know from the Indian media – and I know this because I have spoken to some colleagues who work for it – is that they too are aware to develop the instant analytical skills that are required for live TV reporting. And the curiosity about the country that anticipates challenges, problems and disasters ahead. So what I don’t see on Indian television today is the thing I see on the BBC and that is the considered report; you spend a week traveling somewhere, searching out information and talking to people who are affected by the situation and putting it together with craft and devotion. It is only after you’ve done this that you should have a live debate with talking heads, rather than just inviting a bunch of opinionated blowhards on air which, frankly, is not exclusive to India.
It happens to television around the world. But here, I don’t see enough of the conversation being setup first for the audience. I see opinions coming thick and fast; but it’s a stage and it’ll pass. Every TV journalist I know in this country wants to get out and get the stories and then hear from politicians or opinionators. That’s what I think will happen. What I would also to say to people who run TV stations is: pay your reporters well, have good travel budgets, keep your newsrooms lively and pay attention to your responsibility towards the country and keep the debate going
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