Honest epitaph

A Grain of Sand in the Hourglass of Time by Arjun Singh; Hay House; Price: Rs.599; 379 pp

A welcome and historically valuable development in Indian publishing is the practice of industry leaders teaming up with professional journalists and writers to pen their memoirs, giving a diversity of perspectives on the history of our times. Although inevitably such memoirs, autobiographies and authorised biographies are biased narratives which tend to be justifications written by relatively minor players on the national stage with narrow horizons, they nevertheless provide useful material for professional historians even while enabling lay citizens to acquire fresh insights into contemporary history, which doesn’t offer the luxury of contemplation and reflection.

Fortunately this new tradition is also being followed by politicians, and it would be in the national interest if more of this hated yet necessary tribe will follow the example of the late Arjun Singh (1930-2011). In his long career spanning over half a century in state and national politics during which he was always in the inner circle of power in the Delhi imperium, Singh found himself in the thick of action, and undoubtedly helped to shape the history of post-independence India, though not necessarily for the better. A Grain of Sand written in straightforward, felicitous prose with Ashok Chopra, a vastly experienced books editor, provides an insightful portrait of post-Nehruvian India and how it was (mis)shaped by his heirs and successors.

The plus point of this chronicle is that it recounts stage-by-stage, Singh’s evolution from the second son of a minor raja into an ideology-driven politician who made a smooth transition from state to national politics, and along the way caught the popular imagination. It serves the purpose of a useful primer to aspiring politicians inasmuch as it demonstrates the skill with which Singh developed a patronage network and deftly utilised populist ideology not only to advance but also survive in Indian politics. Thus he was able to survive the Bhopal gas leak tragedy of 1984 which killed thousands, a catastrophe that unfolded under his watch as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. His loyalty to Indira and later to Rajiv Gandhi was legendary. Loyal to the last, Singh implausibly lays the blame for the release of Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson on bail and his subsequent escape to the US, to pressure from the Union home ministry headed by Narasimha Rao.  “… at no point of time did Rajiv talk to me about this matter or intercede on Anderson’s behalf,” asserts Singh.

It was as Union cabinet minister in Delhi and as a faithful acolyte of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, that Arjun Singh maximally impacted the polity. He claims credit for coordinating with Sam Pitroda to “bring about the first telecom revolution in the country” in 1987, and for playing a “fairly important role to bringing in peace and normalcy to the strife-torn north-eastern state of Mizoram”. But after the Congress party was ousted from power in 1989 at the Centre and in Madhya Pradesh, and Rajiv assassinated in 1991, Singh’s star dimmed. The Congress returned to power riding a sympathy wave following the assassination, but with Sonia Gandhi refusing all efforts to enter politics, Narasimha Rao was elected prime minister. Though Arjun Singh served in his cabinet as Union human resource development (HRD) minister, he clashed with Rao on issues of slow progress in investi-gating the Rajiv assassination, and Rao’s alleged inaction during the Babri Masjid demolition (1992).

In 1994, he resigned from the government, an act which saw him emerge as a leader of the opposition within the Congress. Reacting swiftly, Rao expelled him from the party. Nothing loath and refusing to be “cowed down”, together with N.D. Tiwari, Natwar Singh, Sheila Dixit and others, he started a new party — the All India Indira Congress (Tiwari) — which contested the general election of April-May 1996, fielding candidates in 320 constituencies. But the party won only four seats with Singh himself failing to win.

The same election also signaled the ouster of the Narasimha Rao-led Congress party and the rule of several minority-led governments at the Centre, a period of political hibernation for Singh until the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was voted into power in 1999. After the unexpected rout of the BJP in the 2004 general election, Singh was re-inducted into the Congress by Sonia Gandhi, and appointed Union HRD minister with the brief to clean up Indian education which had been “saffronised” by his predecessor in office. To his credit, this objective was attained, but ever the canny politician with an eye on the main chance, he went one better by pushing the cause of additional reservations in Central government-run higher education institutions for other backward castes/classes (OBCs).

Although Singh advances the justification that it was the “patent injustice” and “unexpressed prejudice” against OBCs in society that prompted him to push through a constitutional amendment and carve out an additional 27 percent (i.e in addition to the 22.5 percent quota reserved for scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs) in Central government institutions of higher education (including IIMs, IITs), there was an astute political calculus behind the initiative. This is revealed in a self-congratulatory letter written by him after the constitutional amendment was upheld by the Supreme Court, to Congress party president Sonia Gandhi. Curiously, the academic impact — crowded classrooms and hostels, dilution of teaching-learning and research, teacher-pupil ratios etc — of the politically advantageous proposal didn’t occur to him.

In effect, Arjun Singh’s “careful and methodical” piloting of the 93rd Amendment through Parliament and the Supreme Court, sums up this electorally — rather than development — driven archetypical politician of post-independent India.

In the preface to this plodding memoir, as also in the title, Arjun Singh modestly describes himself as a mere grain of sand and witness to momentous events. “I am not aware of any major achievements that I can boast of,” he writes. It’s an honest and accurate epitaph.

Dilip Thakore  

Tough love bible

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua; Bloomsbury; Price: Rs.350; 242 pp

Curiously, this global bestseller which merited a cover story in Time magazine, hasn’t attracted the attention and national debate it should have within India’s aggressive, upwardly mobile middle class in which Tiger Mothers — indeed Tiger parents — are the rule rather than exception. Tiger parents who demand blood, sweat and tears from their children, especially in the pursuit of academic excellence — so rare in America where children are not burdened by high parental expectations, and their sensitivities are a national preoccupation — are as common in India (and the NRI community in America) as they are in China, Japan, South Korea and most Asian countries. The flourishing private coaching schools industry — typified by the cram schools of Kota (Rajasthan) — which rake in a reported Rs.30,000  crore per year, are testimony that Tiger parents of India are on the same page.

The author Amy Chua is an ethnic Chinese professor at Yale Law School and married to Jed Rubenfeld, a Jewish-American fellow professor. This book is a brutally honest account of how in the Chinese tradition she set about raising her two daughters Sophia and Louisa. Burdened by the fear of family decline and a Chinese adage that “prosperity can never last for three generations”, Chua whose parents emigrated to the US from the Philippines in 1960 and whose father rose to become a professor in U Cal, Berkeley, went to extraordinary lengths to prove the prophecy wrong. The moment her first child Sophia was born, she “was determined not to let it happen to her, not to raise a soft, entitled child — not to let my family fail”.

Born in the Chinese year of the Tiger (she ridicules Western astrology), Chua is on guard at all times against slipping into American-style soft parenting. Thus her daughters were never allowed the freedoms most American children regard as their birthright — sleepovers or play dates, participating in school plays, watching television or playing video games, and choosing extracurri-cular activities. Top grades were expected in every subject except gym and drama, and learning a musical instrument other than the grand piano or violin was out of the question. If these restrictions seem extreme, sample this: from age three, Chua made Sophia practice the piano for upto 90 minutes every day, including weekends. On lesson days, practice was twice as long.

While Chua’s elder daughter unquestionably accepted her Tiger Mom as a Confucian figure of authority and discipline for her own good, Louisa refused to toe her mother’s line despite constant haranguing.

And where was the girls’ father in all this? Did he even have a say? Chua says though Jed (himself a professor of law at Yale and a published author) didn’t approve of her parenting style, he had made a pre-nuptial promise not to interfere. However, Chua admits that Jed provided the much needed balance in the girls’ lives, playing board games with them, and taking them camping and snowboarding. Today, he is proud of them and gives Chua full credit for their high achievement status — Sophia is a concert pianist and at Harvard, and Louisa, though she’s given up the violin, is now into tennis.

Chua has drawn flak from the media, parents and educators after Battle Hymn attained bestseller status. Her views struck no chord with American parents but she is unapologetic about her powerful prescription for children. “Western parents try to respect their children’s individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they are capable of and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can take away,” she writes.

The book ends with an open letter from 18-year-old Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld to her mother published in The New York Post. “… having you as a mother was no tea party. There were some play dates I wish I had gone to and some piano camps I wish I had missed… if I died tomorrow, I would  die feeling I’ve lived my whole life at 110 percent. And for that Tiger Mom, thank you.”

Is ‘tough love’ — highly favoured by Asian parents — which prepares children for the hard knocks of adult life the best gift that parents can confer upon their children? Or is a liberal upbringing which allows children to enjoy their childhood years the better prescription? The runaway success of Asian — especially Chinese and Korean — children in international academic tests and in the Olympiads seems to indicate tough love produces winners. But it’s important to bear in mind that some of the greatest breakthroughs in science, technology and inventions have emanated from the West, where gender equality and child rights are respected, and children are encouraged to enjoy their childhood.

Jayanthi Mahalingam