Book: THE CROOKED TIMBER OF NEW India: Essays on a Republic in Crisis
Author: Parakala Prabhakar
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books LLP, 125-A, Ground Floor, Shahpur Jat, New Delhi – 110049, India
Year: May 2023
Price: `499
Arshad Shaikh reviews the newly released book The Crooked Timber of New India: Essays on a Republic in Crisis by well-known economist and columnist Parakala Prabhakar. The book is a damning indictment of the present government, arguing that democracy, social harmony, and economic development in India are facing an existential crisis. The book should also be seen as an act of daring and defiance, as it is not easy to come out with such an unabashed critique of the current establishment without consequences. The book is a must-read for all those interested in the counter-narrative to “ache din” and “Amrit Kaal”.
Parakala Prabhakar is an alumnus of the Jawaharlal National University (JNU) and the London School of Economics (LSE). He is the husband of India’s Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, and was the Communications Advisor to the TDP government of Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh from 2014-18. Prabhakar is a well-known columnist and runs a YouTube channel,“Midweek Matters.” His book, The Crooked Timber of New India: Essays on a Republic in Crisis is a collection of essays written between 2020 and 2022, with a few especially written for this volume.
For Prabhakar, ever since the current government assumed power, “Our democracy is in crisis, our social fabric is torn, our economy is in peril, and we are being dragged back to the dark ages.”
In essay after essay, the author systematically backs his allegations with logic, facts, and arguments that constitute a strong counter-narrative to the assiduously built media spin that India’s golden era has begun and that we are in our best days ever.
The topics covered in the book include the Prime Minister and his radio address, the BJP-RSS, population politics, digital freedom, Amrit Mahotsav, employment, Indian universities, hijab, income inequality, disinvestment, state repression, farm laws and the Covid-19 pandemic.
The book will always hold a distinguished position among the chronicles of our times as Prabhakar dares to speak truth to power despite knowing the growing intolerance to any criticism of those in authority and at the helm of affairs of the nation.
THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK
The author spells out the raison d’etre of his book, saying, “Mine is an unabashedly critical voice, it is, unrepentantly, a dissenting note…My task is simple, limited, and focused. It is to point out when our government, our public institutions, and our leaders depart from the ideals of our Republic and deviate from their stated objectives and promises to the people. It is a simple effort to speak truth to power. At all times.”
One must admit that Prabhakar remains steadfast to his declared task and offers a stinging critique of not only the government, its policies, its ideological leanings, and outcomes but also calls out the Opposition for being “knock-kneed” and guilty of “striking a Faustian bargain” with the ruling dispensation.
The book starts with a quote by German philosopher – Immanuel Kant, “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” It is a realistic submission that nothing useful can come out from crooked pieces of wood unless it is replaced with something straight or pruned of their circuitous shape.
According to Prabhakar, one of the biggest challenges to our Republic is “to excise from the minds of a significantly large, vocal, influential section of our people the toxic and ill-founded belief that India belongs to people of only one religion and the rest should content themselves with being second-class citizens.”
ASTUTE INSIGHT
Prabhakar’s insights are razor-sharp and penetrative. He dives deep into the way our polity has been carved by a “diabolical strategy of reducing democracy merely to the rule of the majority and delinking it from justice, equality and the principle of shared living”.
The LSE-trained economist dissects the Independence Day speeches that the Prime Minister has made since 2014. He is one of the few writers who saw a darker side to the decision to commemorate 14 August as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day.
Prabhakar finds a distinct change in the tone and tenor of the Prime Minister. Specifically, how the narrative moved from acknowledging all those who headed the country to “‘nothing good happened in the last 70 years.”
The author interprets the PM’s calls to shed ‘our slavish mentality’, and to respect and cherish ‘our own heritage’ as dog whistles. Using the rabbit-duck illusion to great effect, the author analyses the complete transformation in our political scenario.
The book is full of incisive analysis including the strategy that should be adopted by the Opposition and all those who wish to “reclaim the lost space for the idea of India as a liberal democracy that celebrates its diversity”. Prabhakar is particularly expert at tracing the rise of the BJP, the mechanism of support that it receives from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and in reviewing the speeches made by the Sarsanghchalak (Chief) of the RSS on Vijaya Dasami.
The author evaluates the BJP’s population politics, the Pew report and three extremely important issues, namely, “One, the government’s attempts to throttle our freedom of expression on the digital platforms; two, the tech companies’ unbridled collection of our personal data without our consent; and third, the safety of our data in the hands of both government and tech companies.”
Talking about India’s unemployed, unemployable and unskilled, the author says, “With less than 5% of our labour force trained, a grand intent like Atmanirbharta– self-reliance is a pipe dream. Without a sincere attempt to skill our younger population, slogans like Make in India, Standup India, Startup India, and Digital India sound farcical. They were useful for headline management for a while.”
CALLING A SPADE A SPADE
The range of subjects that the author covers in his essays reveals his expertise in those domains as well as his meticulous study and research. His courage to call a spade a spade is laudable. Prabhakar’s The Crooked Timber of New India is probably the only book that chronicles the events and trajectories of Indian politics and political economy (post-2014) uninfluenced by the spin of “media cells” and “WhatsApp universities.”
By doing so, he has now set a benchmark in recording current affairs in a factual and detailed manner. Historians will remain grateful to him as the biographer of our times who gave precedence to the truth and refused to compromise with the dominant political force in the country. His predictions regarding the future of our Republic and the way out of the quagmire that we find ourselves in are words of wisdom and enlightenment that must be heeded and incorporated into the political strategies that may be developed in the near future.
His submission regarding “what next” to counter the majoritarian tsunami is precise and clinical. Prabhakar says, “Parties opposed to the BJP’s Hindutva project are yet to recognize that the challenge today is much bigger than an electoral fight with the BJP. They need to put in hard, long-term political work to systematically excise the ugly growth of communalism from the country’s body politic. Without that kind of serious ideological work, electoral victory against the BJP looks improbable.
“Even in the unlikely event of an electoral victory, it is bound to be fleeting and uncertain as long as the communal and majoritarian narrative does not lose its force and resonance in our society. This failure of the non-BJP political class is the main reason why our country today is a crooked edifice.”