The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain

Two young Conservative politicians in the UK , Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan have come up with a plan (the “Plan”) for what they call – “renewing Britain ”. Daniel Douglas Carswell has been the Conservative MP for Harwich and Clacton since 2005. Hannan, a writer and journalist, is the Conservative Minister for European Parliament (MEP) for South East England since 1999. The plan put forth by Carswell and Hannan is set out in a 195 page document titled “The Plan: Twelve months to renew Britain” that can be either bought (for £10) or downloaded (for £5) online.

Bad Shape – In the eye of the beholder

The Plan is based on the assumption that the UK is in a bad shape. Like beauty, bad shape is also something that lies in the eye of the beholder. I remember when I started my first job in the UK , I was told (apologetically) by so many colleagues that the building which housed our offices was in a terrible shape. ‘Ghastly’ and ‘horrible’ were the adjectives most often used. Before coming to London a year before to do a one-year masters course at the London School of Economics, I had a four year stint in Mumbai during which time I had seen a lot of wobbly buildings with even more wobbly staircases and antique lifts. To my eye, I could find nothing wrong with my new office building. On the contrary, it looked unbelievably solid and sturdy. No, the problem I soon learnt, was not in the stability of the building, but in its aesthetics. Grey in colour, with no glass or other frills one sees in most modern buildings these days, it was clearly not intended to have people exclaim in admiration as they walked past. The same is the case with the UK , a very prosperous country by any standard, with nothing much seriously wrong with it.

What exactly is wrong in the UK?

Carswell and Hannan manage to find a lot wrong with the current state of affairs in the UK . But they are not just cribbers, they have a magic bullet solution for UK ’s ailments.

“The British state is failing. It can’t deliver even the most basic services competently. We have the highest prisoner population in Europe , and one of the highest crime rates. Our schoolchildren compare dismally with similarly aged pupils in other countries and in previous generations. Our healthcare system is more likely to kill its charges than any other in the developed world. Our roads are choked, our railways crumbling, our airports unbearable. Our borders are, to all intents and purposes, wide open.”

Each of the statements made above by Carswell and Hannan is debatable. For example, the International Centre for Prison Studies says that Russia has the highest rate of prison population (635 per 100,000) in Europe. Scotland and England and Wales have the 17th and 18th highest rates in Europe. I guess that when Carswell and Hannan say “Europe”, they mean “ Western Europe”. Even then, Spain has a higher rate than Scotland or England and Wales . Northern Ireland is 39th in Europe, lower than France or Germany with a prison population of 87 per 100,000. The United States of America , a source of inspiration to Carswell and Hannan in many respects, has the highest prisoner population in the world. If you look at the percentage of female prisoners within the prison population, England and Wales is at the 19th place, way below Norway , Austria , Switzerland and Germany . The British health care is admittedly not as good as say, healthcare in various other European states, but then, as Carswell and Hannan admit in the Plan, such other states spend a lot more on healthcare than the UK. British road and rail infrastructure is indeed not as good as what you find in say, Germany , but then Germany has always had better roads even during the days of Winston Churchill.

The Plan

The Plan revolves around a series of legislative measures (which will not take more than 12 months) to reform Britain . Carswell and Hannan feel that MPs are too powerless and have too many perks. They want to clean up Westminster by pruning the amount of perks MPs get. The House of Commons will be reduced in size. The House of Lords is not really compatible with democracy, Carswell and Hannan opine, but do not want to tackle it as part of the Plan since it will require a lot more time than one year. Policing and prosecution decisions must be made by elected officials. Judges should not be allowed to make law as they have been doing of late. Parliament must reign supreme, in its pruned form. The UK must withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights. English counties and cities should have all the powers that have been devolved to Scotland . Parents who send their children to private schools must be able to claim the per capita average being spent on them. Similarly, patients must be able to opt out of the NHS. There should be greater devolution of powers. Local governments must be given all the powers which have now been devolved to Scotland and the right to collect sufficient revenue to do many things on their own.

Small government

“To the size of a state there is a limit, as there is to plants, animals and implements, for they can none of them retain their facility when they are too large.” This quote from Aristotle finds place at the beginning of the Plan document. The main grouse espoused by Carswell and Hannan, which runs throughout the Plan, is that the UK was traditionally a small state with the bulk of its laws derived from customs and practices, but is no longer so. In the last few decades, especially as a result of the accession to the EU, the UK has come to become a state run by bureaucrats and quangos (Quasi Autonomous Government Organizations) not elected by the people. Britain has moved towards continental European values which prefer a neutral and supposedly impartial administrator to an elected politician who may have biases and prejudices. Carswell and Hannan don’t like bureaucrats or quangos who only help themselves and create more paper work for themselves. On top of it all, even bureaucrats or quangos will have their own prejudices, we are told. Carswell and Hannan don’t use the words ‘welfare state’, though it becomes clear that they do want the British welfare state to be rolled back.

After the recent turmoil in the financial markets, not many people will find the idea of a small government appealing. The question being asked now is why the independent regulators weren’t more vigilant. There isn’t much of a demand to do away with regulators despite their many lapses. However, Daniel Hannan has not changed his mind if this blog post of his is any indication.

To be fair to Carswell and Hannan, their idea of a small government is a lot more than financial deregulation. As explained in detail below, the Plan envisages a small government everywhere, especially at the local level.

Elected Sheriffs

Carswell and Hannan want the UK to emulate the US in various respects, one of which is the subservience of police chiefs and prosecution services to elected Sheriffs. Sir Ian Blair, the London Metropolitan Police Chief, is used as an example of how undemocratic and unaccountable a police chief can be. At the time of the Plan’s publication, Sir Ian Blair was clinging to power despite facing an enormous amount of criticism. His role during the 7 July bombing and the death of Jean Charles de Menezes left a lot to be desired. The London Assembly passed a resolution of no-confidence in Sir Ian Blair. The new Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said that he would like Sir Blair to leave. Despite all this, Sir Blair stayed in power since he could only be fired by the Home Secretary (which happened recently after the Plan was published). Elected Sheriffs should also have the power to set local sentencing guidelines. This might mean that different towns or counties might have different approaches to the same offence. Shoplifting might attract a higher penalty in London than in Manchester . But that would be quite democratic. If the residents of London want to follow a particular approach to an offence, they should be free to do so, irrespective of what Manchester thinks.

I have some sympathy for this approach. You might argue that a nation as small as the UK should not try to emulate the US and end up with different laws in different parts of the country. If Carswell and Hannan have their way, illegal immigrants might, if caught in Barking, be flogged and deportated, whilst Argyllshire in Scotland might merely deport them. In the US , Texas enthusiastically enforces the death penalty whilst 13 states have abolished it. However, it cannot be denied that a much higher percentage of Texans support the death penalty than citizens of states where the death penalty has been abolished. If you believe that democracy should be subservient to the goal of moving the entire nation to a higher plane of values, you might not like this approach. However, what constitutes a ‘higher plane of values’ will always be debatable.

Human Rights Act

The UK is a signatory to the European Convention on Human rights and all UK laws are subject to the Human Rights Act 1998 framed under this convention. Laws made by the British Parliament can be overruled if they are found to violate the Human Rights Act. It is not unheard of in the UK to challenge laws and regulations on the ground that they breach human rights. Carswell and Hannan do not like the idea of judges using the Human Rights Act to override the will of the Parliament. They want the Human Rights Act to be scrapped. If the Plan were to be implemented, the UK will withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Illegal immigrants, minorities and to a lesser extent prisoners, rely on this law more than others since they have very few other rights. Carswell and Hannan cite the example of an illegal immigrant who in 1997 was able to overturn his deportation order on the grounds that he would not receive the same medical treatment in his home country as was available in the UK . The illegal immigrant relied on Article 3 of this convention which says that no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’ I find this example a bit outdated since the UK now deports illegal immigrants who are ill and need urgent medical care. In the beginning of this year, media reported the case of a cancer-ridden Ghanaian woman who was deported from the UK and died soon after.

All the examples cited by Carswell and Hannan as examples of how courts have used the Human Rights Act to overturn the will of the Parliament involve illegal immigrants or prisoners or citizenship applications. I do have sympathy for the view that Judges should only interpret and should never make the law. However, if the Human Rights Act were to be scrapped, the most vulnerable section within British society will suffer the most.

Parliament must be supreme

Carswell and Hannan want a Reserve Powers Act to be enacted in order to guarantee the supremacy of the legislature against judicial activism. Carswell and Hannan find it intolerable that a national legislature might be subservient to an international body. For this reason, they oppose the International Criminal Court which can prosecute national leaders, a process which they rightly say may be misused. At least in theory, any political leader anywhere in the world, including from the UK , may be tried by the ICC. Carswell and Hannan go to the extent of saying that “the Yugoslav and Rwanda tribunals have now become a law unto themselves, prosecuting some men for no better reason than that it was thought politically expedient to have indictees from all sides in a war.” The job of prosecuting national leaders must be left to national courts, they say.

Thankfully not many people in the world share this point of view. If they did, war criminals like Slobodan Milosevic would never have been brought to book.

Carswell and Hannan want the UK ’s defence and foreign policy to be determined entirely by the Parliament with a lot more parliamentary oversight over diplomats. According to Carswell and Hannan, “British foreign policy is cocooned from the democratic process. It is conducted by highly qualified officials who, although often technically brilliant, have drifted away from the values of the rest of the country. Left to their own devices, diplomatists have evolved an approach to international relations that is elitist, managerialist, supra-nationalist, technocratic and contemptuous of ‘populism’.” Reading this, I was reminded of Republicans accusing Obama of elitism!

And look at what these elitist diplomats have got the UK into? They got the UK into the EU! What could be worse than that? Carswell and Hannan seem to hate the European Union more than anything else in the world.

Each and every real and perceived foreign policy mistake is blamed on elistist diplomats who follow their own ideology rather than the people’s dictates. Unlike the diplomats of yore, modern diplomats do not project British interests. Though experts, diplomats have as many prejudices and biases as anybody else. Currently, diplomatic appointments, the contracting of treaties and national defence, are all controlled by Downing Street under Crown Prerogative powers. This has allowed the Foreign Secretary to sign up to treaties such as the Maastricht Treaty without Parliamentary approval. Carswell and Hannan want all these powers to be transferred to the Parliament. Each time the Parliament is reconstituted, all treaties and diplomatic appointments must be reviewed and approved, else they will lapse. Even if this sounds like a good idea in theory, I doubt if this can be implemented in practice unless the MPs work all year around in the Parliament, something which doesn’t fit in with the Plan for a reduced House of Commons.

Gentlemen (or Lady) Members of Parliament

Carswell and Hannan want to prune the pay and perks which MPs get. MPs will meet only for a limited number of days in a year and will be ‘amateur’ politicians. In the sense
that they will need to carry on a trade or profession of their own which will pay their bills. The only compensation they get will be for the days they need to spend in Parliament.

On paper this sounds good. But in practice this would generally prevent people without a great deal of inherited wealth from entering politics. In my opinion, it is not possible to be a part-time politician. Even if an MP does not have to spend all his/her time in Parliament, I doubt if it will be possible for the MP to hold a regular job. There will be exceptions for sure, but this proposal would take politicians to a situation similar to that of sportsmen in the days when sport was played (mainly by the wealthy) for glory rather than money.

Right to Opt-Out from State Schools and the NHS

Carswell and Hannan feel that schools in the UK are ‘failing due to too much government.’ They want the Danish system to be followed in the UK which would give parents who send their children to private schools the right to claim the per capita average being spent within the state system. In other words, the cost of sending children to private schools will come down. The net impact of such a move, in my opinion, would be to widen the rich-poor divide in the education system. The poorest children would continue to languish in state schools, whose quality would deteriorate even further.

Something similar is to be done with the NHS. Carswell and Hannan rightly say that the NHS is bloated and inefficient. Patients should have the freedom to seek services from a private health care provider and opt out of the NHS. Carswell and Hannan specifically recommend the health care system in Singapore where patients deposit money in a health care savings account (till the money reaches a critical limit) and pay their private health care providers from that account. Catastrophic insurance (of around £400 per annum) is also bought by everyone. The Plan rightly claims that the Singaporean system is even better than the system (of privately insured healthcare) in the United States .

Personally speaking, I would benefit if these suggestion were to be implemented. So would most middle-class residents in the UK . But these bits of the Plan have the potential to make British society a lot less egalitarian.

Devolution of power

Carswell and Hannan want local governments to be autonomous with all the powers which have now been devolved to Scotland . At present ninety per cent of all revenue collected in Britain goes to the Chancellor in Whitehall . This money is distributed by the Chancellor to various authorities and bodies. The net result is that local councils are quite powerless and good candidates are not interested in standing for elections at the council level.

The Plan proposes the scrapping of VAT and replacing it with a local sales tax (“LST”). Different regions will have different rates of LST. This will lead to tax competition between various regions. Local councils should also have the freedom to scrap council tax.

I can see a lot of merit in these suggestions. However, the consequences may involve a drastic fall in the amount of money being available with local councils in deprived areas. The Plan does mention a top-up for such areas, but I feel it is unlikely to be equal to the actual loss in revenue.

Social security is to be distributed at the local level. Carswell and Hannan rightly point out that local authorities are in a much better position to detect welfare fraud and determine parameters for entitlement. This is something I fully endorse as long as deprived areas as given a proportionately higher allotment to meet their welfare costs.

Cut down on red-tape

Carswell and Hannan want to repeal various Acts that provide the legal base for burdensome and costly regulation. The Plan lists 26 Acts which are to be repealed. These include laws framed under the EU Directives on Part-Time Work giving part-time workers equal access to pay, pensions, annual leave and training as full-time staff, Anti-Money Laundering Rules and the Hunting Act 2004 which outlaws hunting with dogs. As would be evident to anyone who reads the entire Plan, most of the laws which Carswell and Hannan want to repeal are social welfare legislation which conservatives have always hated. You might agree or disagree with Carswell and Hannan depending on which shade of the political spectrum you belong to.

The Plan proposes that all new pieces of legislation are to have a sunset clause that will ensure that enactments do not survive in perpetuity. I don’t agree. Some laws contain sunset clauses and these are usually the draconian anti-terrorism laws which curtail civil liberties. Otherwise laws are meant to make things better and ought to survive for perpetuity.

Alternatives to the EU

As mentioned earlier, Carswell and Hannan don’t like the European Union and they propose that the UK ought to withdraw from the EU and instead be a part of the European Free Trade Area (“EFTA”) just like Switzerland . Being in the EFTA would give the UK trade access to the European Market without having to tag along with the EU in matters such as labour policy or welfare measure or immigration. Carswell and Hannan point to countries such as Iceland and Switzerland which are not part of the EU and manage to remain prosperous. I guess Iceland was a prosperous country when the Plan was published. It is no longer so very prosperous at the moment.

I do agree that if ideologically most people in the UK differ from continental Europe , it makes little sense to be a part of the EU.

People’s Bills and Blocking Referendums

Carswell and Hannan recommend that citizens ought to be able to table bills in the Parliament if they collect sufficient signatures. The top 6 popular bills should be voted on by MPs. Similarly, if 20,000 people sign a petition to block a bill which has received its third reading, but before it receives Royal Assent, the bill should be blocked. If within a prescribed period a specified percentage of the electorate sign up to the petition, the bill should not become law.

These are good proposals and I would support them. Please read the Plan in full if you want to understand these proposals since the explanation I have given above is sketchy and may not give you an accurate picture of the proposals as contained in the Plan.

What’s the Position on Immigration?

One very important issue which has not been addressed in the Plan is that of migration. Thought not always discussed openly, migration has been one of the hottest issues in the Western world in this decade. Surprisingly, Carswell and Hannan don’t have much to say on this. There are a few mentions of reversing the flow of illegal migration, cracking down on illegal immigrants and the failures of the Migration Service. When discussing the drawbacks of being in the EU, it is said that the EU has prevented the UK from having an annual quota on immigrants. But a specific policy to tackle the perceived problem of immigration is missing. This is a glaring omission indeed.

Since the Plan is silent on this vital issue, I am tempted to infer what Carswell and Hannan might have in mind based on what they have said on other matters.

Switzerland has the most successful policy on migration in the whole of Europe . When I say “successful”, I mean success in controlling migration since controlling and reducing migrant inflows is the cornerstone of most migration policies, including that of the UK . How does Switzerland do this? To apply for Swiss citizenship, the applicant must have legally lived in Switzerland for at least 12 years. The final decision on a citizenship application is made by the local community where the applicant lives. The local community will interview the applicant and put his application to vote before citizenship is granted.

Do Carswell and Hannan wish to implement the Swiss approach I wonder? It would fit in with the Plan which wants to devolve power to local communities. Currently, a person who has worked in the UK for five years will almost automatically obtain permanent residency. Permanent residents obtain citizenship (almost automatically) a year after becoming permanent residents. If the Swiss system were to be implemented in the UK , I would assume that the number of people who obtain British citizenship will be reduced to a trickle. Would members of one community or race find it more difficult to get citizenship than others? Possibly.

No foreigner has the right to migrate to another country. The visa stamped on a foreign passport is always a favour bestowed on the passport holder rather than an entitlement. Every country has the right to implement the most appropriate immigration policy. That being said, immigration is an emotional topic, especially during a recession when jobs are being lost and the economy feels pinched. It is very easy to cause scare mongering and get voters excited on this topic. Sometimes the scaremongering works, sometimes it doesn’t. I do wish Carswell and Hannan had not remained silent on this issue.

Book Review: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's August 1914

August 1914 is the first book in Solzhenitsyn's Red Wheel series which covers the collapse of Tsarist Russia and the birth of the Soviet Union. Set during the initial stages of the First World War, it delves into the reasons for the catastrophic defeat suffered by the Imperial Russian army at the hands of the Germans in the area around the Masurian Lakes, in what's now called the Battle of Tannenberg. Prior to the First World War, Russia had a string of defeats, at Crimea and then against the Japanese, followed by a none-too-glorious Turkish campaign.

Colonel Vorotyntsev plays the most important role in August 1914. A member of the Russian General Staff, Vorotyntsev travels (mainly on horseback) throughout the war theatre meeting various senior Russian army officers, analysing Russian positions and tactics and finally reports back to Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army. It goes without saying that Vorotyntsev is very much unhappy with the way things are done by the Russian generals. In the course of Vorotyntsev's wanderings through the war theatre, we get to know of their near total ineptitude. None of the generals have bothered to keep in touch with the latest advancement in military technology or tactics. And why should they, when the War Minister himself has boasted of having not read a single military textbook since he left university 35 years ago? Promotions are always by seniority. Orders are telegraphed without using codes (en clair) since the operators don't have much schooling and do not understand code.

Russian generals do not have access to much intelligence. There are a few aeroplanes for aerial reconnaissance, but nothing compared to what the Germans have. German artillery is a lot better and lot more effective. There is one motorised ambulance unit for the whole Russian army. Russian generals are totally clueless about the whereabouts of the German armies whilst the Germans know exactly where the Russians are. There is no coordination whatsoever. Soldiers advance on foot for many miles through enemy territory only to get lost and have to trudge back. Despite all this, Russians fight with enormous gallantry and courage, putting up with extraordinary hardships.

The Commander in Chief of the Russian army is Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, Tsar Nicholas II's uncle. Solzhenitsyn shows some respect for his military abilities. When the Grand Duke was made the Commander in Chief, he had plans to revamp the entire general staff and put competent people in vital positions. However, the Tsar tells the Grand Duke to not to replace any of the Tsar's appointees, which meant that the Grand Duke’s plans come to naught.

Most generals don't have a plan of action other than to save their own skins. They make false claims of having won battles and captured territories. Generals are very religious and prayers form a vital part of the campaign. When the Tsar gets to know of the enormous casualties suffered by his troops, he sends a letter to the Commander-in-chief. It says "Dear Uncle Nick, I deeply grieve with you over the loss of our gallant Russian soldiers. But we must submit to the will of God. He who endures to the end will be saved. Yours Nicky (Nicholas II)" In addition to such words of encouragement, the Tsar dispatches an icon of the blessed virgin appearing in a vision to the Holy Father Sergius. Apparently this icon has accompanied the Russian army on many of its battles and campaigns, both successful and the unsuccessful (such as during the Russo-Japanese war).

The climax of the novel comes towards the end when Colonel Vorotyntsev manages to meet the Grand Duke and appraise him of what's happening on the war front. The Grand Duke convenes a meeting of all Generals. Vorotnysev launches into a brilliant analysis of what's going wrong. Articulate, erudite and his anger under control, he tears the Generals apart. The Grand Duke is silent, thus implicitly supporting Vorotnysev. However, towards the end Vorotnysev makes a fatal error. After criticising the generals, he criticises the treaty between Russia and France which obligated Russia to launch the war fifteen days after mobilisation started. In reality, the Russian army needed sixty days. Vorotnysev tells the assembly that Russia had an obligation to support friends but no obligation to commit suicide. Throwing untrained troops into battle fifteen days after mobilisation was, in Vorotnysev’s opinion, a criminal act. The Grand Duke is forced to ask Vorotnysev to leave. The treaty was signed by the War Minister and himself and approved by the Tsar. No one has the right to criticize the Tsar, the deeply religious Grand Duke agrees with one of the idiotic generals.

Towards the end of the book, the capture of Lvov by Russian troops is announced. It is a great victory, the public is told. In reality, Russian generals have committed a blunder. They had the Austrian army in a pincer, but allowed them to escape. They have captured an empty Lvov from which the Austrians had already withdrawn.

Solzhenitsyn does not tell us much about Vorotyntsev's personal life other than that he is not on very good terms with his wife. And herein lies the biggest flaw of this book. When compared with any of the other great Russian war stories – be it Tolstoy's War and Peace or Sholokhov's Quiet Flows the Don, August 1914 lags behind in the quality of its tale. Solzhenitsyn's only focus in August 1914 is the war and the political realities of those times. He does not bother to tell us about the person behind any of his characters, many of whom make a brief appearance and are never seen again. Once in while, Solzhenitsyn does get philosophical. ‘What makes a human being cease to shun death?’ his readers are asked. But on the whole, the book is an analysis of the causes of Russia's defeat. If you are looking for a story and nothing more, you may be disappointed. On the other hand, if you enjoy political commentary and analysis (as I do) you will really enjoy this book.

That the Russians are very patriotic people is brought out very well by Solzhenitsyn. He tells us of Russian families exiled by the Tsars to the Caucasus which after many generations are still devoted to the Russian empire. Revolutionary spirit and desire for change is shown to be widespread, even among the rich people. However, so-called revolutionaries sign up to the army when Mother Russia is said to be in danger. The Russians have enormous contempt for the Germans, even though they find Germany to be an advanced country. Solzhenitsyn is very good in describing the awe with which Russian soldiers see Germany when they are in German territory. It is a case of people from an underdeveloped country being suddenly exposed to a first world country.

Various minor characters softly slide past the reader in the course of this 650 odd page saga. One of them is Isaaki, a model student who considers himself a “Tolstoyan”. Isaaki goes to Tolstoy's farm one day hoping to set eyes on the great man. Isaaki is lucky. Not only does he catch a glimpse of Tolstoy, who is shorter than he expected, but also exchanges a few words with him. Isaaki is not Jewish, but is mistaken for one (because of his name) when he applies to University. Unfortunately for Isaaki, the quota for Jews is full and his application is rejected. Isaaki is forced to produce his baptism certificate in order to get admitted.

There's Madame Kharitonova, a Headmistress, who is of a liberal and revolutionary bent of mind. She hates her son for having enrolled in the army. However, despite her liberalism, she hates it when her daughter runs off and marries a poor engineer.

Ilya Isakovich Arkhangorodsky, a Jew, is one of the rare minor characters who we get to know much better than any other minor character. Ilya Isakovich is an engineer, an expert on flour milling machinery and the owner of many mills and factories. Since Solzhenitsyn was always dogged by claims that he showed traces of anti-Semitism, I was particularly interested in the way he has depicted Ilya Isakovich. Solzhenitsyn contrasts Ilya Isakovich with Obodovsky, a very famous and talented Russian engineer. While Ilya Isakovich is stocky and well dressed, Obodovsky is tall, fair and is dressed untidily. Ilya Isakovich is rich, while Obodovsky doesn't really care about money. Obodovsky used to be a revolutionary, but gave up his cause and devoted himself to engineering. Having travelled through Europe seeing how things are done, Obodovsky has come back to Russia to make things better for his country. However, Ilya Isakovich is not your average rich Joe. After gaining his engineering degree, he worked in a mill as a workman (even though he could have started off as an engineer) before he became the chief manager and finally the owner of the mill. He soon acquires many more mills and factories. We meet Ilya Isakovich's pretty wife who doesn't say much and his two teenage children who call themselves revolutionaries. They condemn the support shown for the Tsar by the Jews of Rostov who held a service in the synagogue to pray for Russia and the Tsar and took out a 20,000 strong procession. Solzhenitsyn tells us that Ilya Isakovich is not a practising Jew and that his family "ate matzos for Passover and then at the orthodox Easter, they baked Easter cakes and painted eggs."

There's an interesting discussion between Ilya Isakovich, Obodovsky and Ilya Isakovich's two children. Obodovsky tells the children that a revolution will be pointless. Ilya Isakovich is very indulgent towards his kids, but he has no sympathy for a revolution either. Instead, both the engineers want to industrialise Russia. "Heat the tundra, drain it and see what minerals lie underneath,' Obodovsky tells them all. 'Climate change! Global warming! I screamed in my head. However, let's not forget that it was a different era altogether.

I wouldn't say that Solzhenitsyn has shown Ilya Isakovich as slimy or a weasel, unlike in the case of Tsezar Markovich, a Greek-Gypsy-Jew, a character in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. However, the net effect of Solzhenitsyn’s depiction of Ilya Isakovich, especially when contrasted with Obodovsky, is one of a man who is superior to everyone else around him, in terms of the ability to make wealth. It is not that Solzhenitsyn does not mention other wealthy people in his story. There are many wealthy landowners, one of whom is Tomchak, who manages to buy an exemption from military service for his son. However, Ilya Isakovich is the only character who lives a very comfortable life without doing physical labour or owning any land. I don't think this should open up Solzhenitsyn to a charge of anti-Semitism since many Jews in Russia did live comfortably using their brain power.

Book Review: Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh's latest offering has made it to the Booker Prize short list. It’s a big book, slightly bigger than his recent books, the Hungry Tide and the Glass Palace, and is the first of a trilogy of books revolving around the Opium Wars.
The Opium Wars took place between Great Britain and China in the mid 19th century when Britain insisted on the right to export opium to China. Like the Glass Palace, it is a roving tale and its scope ranges from the opium fields of the upper Ganges to an opium factory to the South China Sea to an ex-slave ship, the Ibis, which sails from Calcutta with its hold-full of indentured labourers for the sugar plantations of Mareech (Mauritius).

Taking a cue from the likes of Vikram Chandra, Ghosh has littered his book with words from Bhojjpuri, Anglo-Indian slang and seamen's jargon without bothering to add a glossary. One gets to hear words such as Shaitan, Hurremzad, Kismet, Jadoo, BeeBee, Dufter, Afeemkhor, Cubber (Khabbar) quite often. A native of the sub-continent would understand these without much difficulty, but I am not sure how easily a non-native would. I read a review in the Guardian where the reviewer says he doesn't know where the ship is headed to, though Ghosh tells us on many occasions, right from the beginning, that the Ibis is headed to Mareech (Mauritius).

Once in a while, the vernacular is accompanied with the translation in English. When a Bhojpuri speaker says 'malik, paroséka gaōse áwat bani,' it is accompanied by 'From a nearby village.' I guess Ghosh doesn't expect many of his readers to know Bhojpuri. In any event, the net effect wasn't too bad, at least for me. One does get a feel of places and people better with all this vernacular and slang.

Ghosh's story involves many a 'white' character and whenever one writes about people other than one’s own, there’s a good possibility that someone will cry ‘Stereotype’. There's Zachary Reid, a mullato (who looks almost Kosher White) from Baltimore, Benjamin Barham, an unscrupulous British merchant and many others. I thought Ghosh has done a decent job in portraying these characters, but I read a few reviews which suggested otherwise.

There are a few things about this book that I did not like. At the beginning of the book, Deeti, a poor opium farmer's wife has a vision of the Ibis that would later take her to Mareech. I find that too farfetched for a book of this nature. Towards the end, one of the indentured men is being flogged on the Ibis and this victim (a low caste ex-wrestler of colossal strength) manages to snatch the whip and hit his assailant with a blow that rips off his head. Who does Ghosh think he is? Forget Hollywood, even a Bollywood stunt director would blush with embarrassment if asked to manufacture such a scene.

For me, the drawback in this book was that it had too much crammed into it. At many places in this book I got the feeling of being rushed along much faster than I wanted to be. If Ghosh had to do justice to all that he had covered in this book, he would have required twice as much space, but he might have produced something similar to A Suitable Boy which I think is the best ever book written by an Indian. But no, Ghosh doesn't have the time. He has collected a fair amount of research material which can’t be wasted and has to be crammed into the Sea of Poppies. Despite all this, Sea of Poppies is a good book. A very good book. But it falls short of being superb or brilliant.

Book Review: To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account by Saul Bellow

I have been desisting from reading Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow’s account of his odyssey to Jerusalem for many years until I completed my own, since I didn’t want my vision to be coloured by anyone else’s, even those of a writer I admire so much. A week after I got back from Israel, I managed to get hold of this book and started reading it immediately.

Bellow goes to Israel in 1975, two years after the Yom Kippur war. The BA flight is full of Hasidic Jews. Bellow himself comes from a Russian Hasidic family which migrated to Canada and understands them very well, unlike the BA stewards who are exasperated with the Hasids. Most of them don’t seem to speak English. The young Hasid sitting next to Bellow starts talking to him in Yiddish. He is shocked when Bellow eats a non-Kosher chicken and offers to send him $15 a week if only Bellow would promise to never again eat non-Kosher food. Bellow refuses. The offer is hiked to $25 a week. ‘Not worth the amount of effort involved in hunting for non-Kosher food,’ Bellow explains apologetically. I don’t want to reproduce the entire conversation here and spoil your fun, but suffice to say that the Hasid didn’t know who mathematicians were (Bellow’s non-Jewish Rumanian wife is one) and had never heard of Einstein.

Bellow’s account mainly consists of the various people he met and the opinions he heard while in Israel. His point of view, expressed rarely, is more towards the end, though it does filter through indirectly once in a while.

Bellow’s contacts and acquaintances are wide ranging. He meets with a friend John Auerbach who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto, his cousin Noto who had fought in the Soviet army during the Second World War, a bishop from the Armenian Orthodox Church, authors, poets and politicians. He talks to Jews, Christians and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians. There are extensive quotes from Satre and Bellow’s comments on Satre’s opinions. Towards the end of the book, there is a meeting with Henry Kissinger after Bellow returns to the US from Israel. Since many of the people Bellow meets are ones who move in the higher echelons of society, Bellow gets to hear many an ‘inside story’, some of which are reproduced in the book. I’ll leave it to you to read them for yourselves.

Some of the (true) stories Bellow tells us are heart rending. His friend John Auerbach, a Kibbutznik seaman, has recently lost a son. John’s son served in an electronic warfare unit and was returning from action when he was killed in a helicopter crash. John himself has a tragic story. At sixteen John had escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto leaving behind parents and a sister who were killed soon after. Somehow John managed to obtain a Polish seaman's papers and worked for German freighters for the duration of the war. Bellow tells us how once, when John was working on a German freighter, he had to wait in a line of nude men, to be examined by a female doctor for venereal disease. John was the only circumcised man. The female doctor looked into his face and… let him live. After the war, John went to Israel and joined Kibbutz Sdot Yam.

Bellow tells us that guns are a common sight in Jerusalem at any time. At the time when Bellow was in Jerusalem, bombings were very common (as they still are). Residents used to carry out patrols. When Israeli Arabs were asked to participate in the civilian patrols, they refused. Bellow explains that in refusing, the Arabs were only trying to avoid a charge of collaboration. Bellow is told that the PLO would like to provoke riots in the Old City since it would cause the UN General Assembly (which Arab nations control) to pass resolutions against Israel.

Bellow meets with Amos Oz, the Novelist. Oz tells Bellow that Israel contains more different versions of heaven than an outsider can imagine. Everyone who came to Israel has brought his own version of heaven with him. I found this very interesting. Everyone has a vision of heaven. A heaven filled with champagne, a heaven consisting of a long stretch of beach where you sunbathe or surf or swim, a heaven with 72 virgins, or maybe 72 tall, bronzed and handsome men, a heaven filled with dogs or cats or other pets, a heaven where you just sit around and play a harp with angels hovering around and so on. However, none of the visionaries expect to find their heaven on this earth. In Israel, you have 6 million odd people trying to find their heaven within a small parcel of parched land on this earth!

Mahmud Abu Zuluf, editor of Al Kuds, the largest Arab newspaper in Jerusalem, is a moderate. He is hated by the leftists and his life is threatened. Once his automobile was blown up, but he escaped. Zuluf tells Bellow that he believes Jews must give ground in East Jerusalem (which is where the Old City is). They must divide authority with the Arabs. He feels that Jews are too reluctant and too slow to accept reality. According to Zuluf, and Bellow seems to agree, Arabs are continually gaining strength while Israel becomes weaker. Israel is more and more dependent on the US while the Arab nations become more powerful and modern.

David Shahar, a Jew, tells Bellow that Arabs cannot tolerate a Jewish state, even a miniscule one which was why they did not accept the UN partition plan. If they just wanted a state, they would have had it many years ago.

Bellow tells us that the CIA has estimated that the next war (after the 1973 one) could cost Israel 9,000 dead and 36,000 wounded. Such a victory would be a defeat if one took into account the Israeli population. In the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Israeli losses exceeded British losses during World War I, if one took into account British and Israeli populations.

Bellow tells us that in less than thirty years after its creation, Israel has produced a modern country. It produces door knobs and hinges, plumbing fixtures, electrical supplies, chamber music, airplanes and teacups. It is both a garrison state and a cultivated society, both Spartan and Athenian. It tries to do everything, to understand everything, to make provision for everything. It is stretched to the limit.

At a dinner table, Chaim Gouri, an Israeli poet and journalist tells Bellow the story of Israeli soldiers who stole a Peugeot from a wealthy Arab family during the six-day war (in 1967). Chaim Gouri managed to get them return the car. Soon after, some of the soldiers went back to that Israeli family and took from them some family jewels. A Dutch woman who hears the tale starts grinning. She explains how when the 1967 war broke out, Dutch Jews stored food for the expected Jewish refugees since Israel was expected to lose the war. Instead of Israel losing, they now had to deal with a complaint about looted bangles!

Bellow never runs short of stories of how irritating Hasidic Jews can be. Justice Haim Cohn who represented Israel in the UN Human Rights Commission, wanted to marry a divorced woman. He applied to the rabbinical authorities for permission which was denied because he was a Cohen, a hereditary High Priest. Therefore Cohn decided to de-High Priest himself. A High Priest must be unblemished and Cohn proposed to get himself surgically mutilated by removing the joint of his little finger. He was told that it would not work. So, he got married in a civil ceremony in New York. He was then told that it was disrespectful to the rabbis. So, he got married again by a conservative rabbi. The rabbi who married him was rebuked by colleagues and had a hard time.

Professor Tzvi Lamm of the Hebrew University charges that Israel has lost touch with reality. Zionism, in its initial stages, may have appeared to be an unrealistic dream, but the first leaders were intensely practical. They knew what they could achieve. But the victory of 1967 led to an 'autism' or a break with reality. Israelis started to speak of Jordan’s West Bank as 'liberated' territory. This autism keeps Israelis from understanding that taking possession of Arab territories would unite the Arab world, threaten Israeli existence as a state and aggravate Israel’s insecure situation. Zionism's initial goal was only to rescue Jews and save them from annihilation. After 1967 victory, Israelis started to talk of demography and getting the Arabs to migrate. Settlers go to 'liberated territories' like the West Bank and the Golan Heights and take land from the 'natives' with army support. Israel’s policy of expansion and territorial conquest is not much different from Nazi Germany's attempt to expand, which led to World War II. Lamm says that Israel was only meant to mean life to Hitler's survivors. It was not meant to be a political power. He condemns the 'overbearing self righteousness' of Jews' historical rights to the land. He has few illusions. He says that the enemies of Israel are terrible and want to destroy Israel. The moderate enemies will destroy Israel politically and the fundamentalists will do so physically. Even the most realistic policies cannot guarantee survival. One can almost feel Bellow nod in agreement with Lamm.

Harold Fisch, an orthodox professor from England, takes the opposite view. He claims that the liberated territories must be reclaimed by the Jews. The West Bank and even the East Bank are promised lands. Even if Jews may be annihilated by the Arabs as they seek to reclaim their land, they have no choice but to go ahead. Jews must be prepared to accept their fate, he tells Bellows.

Bellows has devoted a decent chunk of his book to Satre whom he quotes extensively, Satre is left wing, but is sympathetic to Israel. He wants a socialist revolution in the Arab world. Satre feels that a socialist Arab world will find it easier to accept Israel. Bellow doesn’t agree. He tells us that Marxist-Leninist leaders of the Arab world have opposed Israel more than the feudal princes of the oil kingdoms. In 1949, Satre had refused to sign a petition condemning the death of millions of prisoners in Soviet prisoner of war camps on the ground that it would strengthen American imperialism. Satre says that anti-Semitism in the Soviet bloc is a result of the dual affiliation Jews have. Thanks to the Law of Return in Israel, Jews may choose to migrate to Israel. This right to move is not available to other citizens and encourages anti-Semitism.

Nadezhda Mandelstam a Russian writer (and wife of Osip Mandelstam, a very famous Russian poet who perished in Stalin’s Gulag) tells Bellow that anti-Semitism in Russia is propagated from above. Bellow also quotes Andrei Sinyavsky, a (non-Jewish) Russian writer and dissident, who takes a different view. He says that in Russian popular consciousness, the Jew is an evil spirit who has got into the body of Russia and made everything go wrong.

Bellow wonders why Satre and other Western intellectuals don't make as many demands of the Arabs as they make of the Jews. Why don't they demand that the Arabs, especially the Marxists among them, make peace with the Jews who have suffered monstrously in Christian Europe and under Islam? Bellow tells us that the land occupied by Israel is only one sixth of one percent of the land occupied by the Arabs. 800,000 Jews were driven out from Arab lands to Israel after it was formed. They were robbed of their properties. They are also refugees, but why don’t they get any sympathy, Bellow wonders.

Bellow takes a leaf from Professor Tzvi Lamm’s book. He repeatedly says that Zionist pioneers only wanted a sanctuary and they did not plan or try to recover the Promised Land. Bellow looks around for Arab intellectuals who he says can be found only in Israel.

Bellow wonders what would happen if Israel were to give up the West Bank. Would Jordan want it? Bellow turns to Professor Kerr's account of the 1970 fight between Jordanian forces and Palestinian militias after the Palestinian militias threatened King Hussein’s authority beyond a point. The Jordanians killed 37,000 Palestinians, more than were killed by Moshe Dayan’s soldiers in 1967 during the Six Days War. As the Jordanians vanquished the Palestinians, an Iraqi force of 20,000 stood by and watched. A Syrian armoured brigade tried to interfere, but was forced to retreat. What prospects would the Palestinians have under Jordanian sovereignty, Bellow wonders? If this was how Arabs treated each other, how would they treat Israelis if they won? Bellow would like Israel to withdraw from the West Bank, but Israel is stuck with it. When it was with Jordan, the Palestinians gave nothing but trouble to Jordan. Jordan does not particularly want the West Bank back. It would rather let Israel keep the West Bank and give trouble to Israel for holding on to it.

Bellow makes one argument in the book which I did not find to be particularly tenable. Bellow says that though no one enjoys losing property, Arab losses as a result of displacement are not significant. When Aswan dam was built in Egypt, a greater number of people where displaced. Why can’t the Arabs be generous and accept the loss of the Israeli chunk of Palestine? Why can’t they get on with their lives? Bellow wonders.

Israelis seem to admire Henry Kissinger, a Jew, for what he has achieved for himself, though they don’t really like or trust him. After Bellow returns to the US, he has a meeting with Kissinger. Kissinger speaks piously about his Jewish feelings. Apparently he had family members who died in concentration camps. Kissinger claims to be emotionally involved and to have defended Israel, though Israel might not realise it. He has stood between Israel and its enemies in the US government, he tells Bellow.

An interesting explanation is advanced in this book for the Arab inability to accept the State of Israel. The Arabs had ruled over the Jews for over 1,000 years. Even before that, the Arabs had controlled Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine for long stretches of time. How then could the Arabs accept the idea that the Jews, who were subject to Islamic rule for so long, should have a state of their own? I found this very interesting. If applied to the Indian context, this could explain why many Muslims in British India wanted partition. Before the British and other Europeans arrived, India was ruled by the Mughals, Arabs and Turks. For around six hundred odd years, Hindus, and other Indians had been subservient to the Muslims. How then could Indian Muslims, after independence, live on equal terms with Hindus in an undivided India where the Hindus would outnumber them 2:1?

Book review: Sathnam Sanghera's If You Don't Know Me by Now

Much before Santham Sanghera's misery memoir, If You Don't Know Me by Now, got published, I knew him very well. Or I thought I did. For those who don't know, Sanghera is a British journalist of Indian origin who used to write for the Financial Times and is now with the Times
Reading Sanghera's very British and very interesting pieces in the FT and the Times such as this and this, I used to think, here's yet another British Indian who's done well. Sanghera's family, I thought, must be one of those traditional Indian families where education is prized above everything and the educated non-working mother sits the kids down after dinner and helps them with their homework. However, Sanghera's autobiography which unflinchingly lays bare the life stories of himself, his parents and various other members of his family, tells us a different story all together. And a shocking one at that.

Sanghera's father and elder sister suffer from Schizophrenia. Sanghera's mother, the sole breadwinner of the family is illiterate and had to rely on her sewing to put chappatis on the table. Sanghera's father migrated to the UK in his youth, to join a number of family members already there. Even before he was married, his family knew that he was ill, but they thought that marriage would cure him. Sanghera's mother came to the UK when she was sixteen or so, to be married to a violent mentally ill man. Things only got worse for Sanghera's mother before they could become better. Until Sanghera's father was arrested (for violent assault), imprisoned, diagnosed as mentally ill and treated (with medicines and electroconvulsive therapy), Sanghera's mother bore the brunt of the violence. She was slapped in the face on her wedding day and later punched in her stomach on her wedding night. Later, his paternal grandmother began to suspect Sanghera’s mother of being a witch, someone who brought bad luck to Sanghera’s father and the rest of his family.

Sanghera, the youngest child, was his mother’s pet and his mother lavished her love on him. He was handfed traditional Punjabi food (which Sanghera now considers unhealthy and yucky), dressed in colourful clothes which are very un-British (memories of which seem to still upset Sanghera) and made to grow his hair long (unlike his brother and father who have short hair). Even though no one in Sanghera’s family had been to college and his parents don’t speak English at all, Sanghera manages to get into a good grammar school and read literature at Cambridge.

Sanghera has an elder brother and two sisters. They all go to ordinary state schools and get run-of-the mill jobs, including his eldest sister who suffers from Schizophrenia. His eldest sister’s first arranged marriage breaks down, but she is married off again to a man imported from India who needs British citizenship. Sanghera’s first breakthrough is when at the age of 14, he goes to a barber on his own and cut off his long hair. He expects his mother to be deeply upset, but she takes it very calmly. After his hair is cut off, Sanghera becomes ‘normal’. He makes friends at school, girls are interested in him and he is no longer bullied.

Sanghera is in his mid-twenties when he accidentally finds out that his father has always suffered from Schizophrenia. It is a shock to him, but it explains a great many things. At that time, Sanghera has had a series of broken relationships and he is under pressure from his mother to enter into an arranged marriage. All of this makes Sanghera want to understand his family’s history and he delves into his parents’ past, the medication his father took, the doctors who treated him, the courts which sentenced him, the violence suffered by his mother at the hands of his father etc.

Sanghera hates everything about his Indian-Punjabi community. He hates the food, the attitudes and values (towards women, family honour), lavishness (especially for weddings) and everything else. For example, as Sanghera explains how much he hated community get-togethers such as weddings, he says “……….And then, just when I dared to hope I was running out of cousins to get married, cousins I didn't realize I even had started appearing from India as well, bearing gifts of sugar cane, asking to be shown the whereabouts of the nearest porn shop and announcing that they wanted to be married too…………. As soon as they made it through Customs and Immigration, or as soon as they were liberated by their human trafficker of choice into an alleyway in Dudley, and before they had got used to Western customs such as not spitting on the living room floor, arranged marriage aunties were scouring the land for potential spouses, their criteria being that the person be a British Sikh of the appropriate sex and caste and be willing to get married very quickly.”

Sanghera’s anger extends to everything Indian. You’ll find phrases such as “Indians always need to blame someone” very often in the book. The India-born GP who treated his father during the initial stages of his illness did not make legible notes of his father’s case or the treatment given. The GP practice, which is still run by India-born GPs, does not promptly produce records pertaining to the treatment when Sanghera makes a request while doing his research. Sanghera places the blame squarely on the GP’s Indianness, though I doubt if many GP in the UK in the 1960s maintained legible and elaborate records of their patients and the treatment given. Sanghera also has similar problems with the Wolverhampton Crown Court in getting hold of details pertaining to his father’s imprisonment. But here, there are no Indians involved and so India makes a narrow escape.

I have many British Asian friends and a few of whom are not particularly fond of their connection to India or Pakistan. The majority are however, very proud of their lineage and all trappings that go with it (mainly religion and language). The other day I was having a drink with a few friends, one of whom is ethnic Punjabi, whose parents (like Sanghera’s) came to the UK in the 1950s as illiterate labourers. There was only pride in my friend’s voice as she explained how her parents managed to put her through school and college and made her a solicitor. It is also very common to see British Asians change their attitude to India after the economic boom in India. For example, Randeep Ramesh, a British Indian journalist, explains in this article how the earlier contempt for India changed into pride and admiration.

Sanghera does not state that his total hatred for Punjabi and Indian culture is connected to the childhood he had. However it is reasonable to make this connection since Sanghera also hates Wolverhampton, the British Midlands town (close to Birmingham) where he grew up. There are very funny passages in the book about the first Starbucks Café in Wolverhampton and how the not-so-sophisticated citizens of Wolverhampton get used to café culture. I am not really sure if Sanghera’s anger towards Indian/Punjabi culture was ingrained from childhood or it was something he developed after he found out about his father’s illness and the violence his mother suffered at his father’s hands. Even though Sanghera makes his childhood sound extra-horrible, it is possible that it is the result of hindsight (clothes in horrible colours and rich, fatty Punjabi food etc.). Sanghera says that he never saw his father hit his mother and he himself was never the victim of violence (though once when he was in primary school, a couple of semi-crushed cockroaches were found in his shoes as he changed for PT).

Sanghera is (very rightly in my opinion) very grateful to the UK which allowed the son of immigrants such as his parents to go to Cambridge and become a very respectable journalist. He (again very rightly) rails against ‘multiculturalists’ who argue against forcing immigrants to learn English, which would allow immigrants (such as his mother) to be aware of their rights (against domestic abuse) and fight for them. However, I wonder if Sanghera is aware that had his parents stayed on in India, they would have been relatively rich (as most Jat Punjabis who own land are, thanks to the green revolution), Sanghera would have had a decent education and a very good chance to make something of himself.

Even though Sanghera’s pain and anguish show at every turn, the book is not a very heavy read. From the beginning of the book, Sanghera tells us that he is working towards writing a letter to his mother where (at the risk of breaking her heart) he will tell her that he does not want an arranged marriage and that he plans to get married to a girl of his choice. The letter is to be written in English and translated into Punjabi before it is sent to his mother. Does Sanghera manage to write this letter? What are the consequences? Does his mother become very upset or does she take it as calmly as she had when he cut off his hair? Do read this good and very interesting book to find out.

I remember the story of a Keralite who went to the USA in the early 1960s and came back for his first visit after 30 years. 'Let’s go to visit XYZ,' one of his brothers told him a few days after he got there. 'Sure,' this gentleman said and walked out of the house shirtless and bare-chested, clad only in his mundu. His brother ran after him and expostulated, ‘surely you are not going out like this?’ Pat came the reply. ‘But I’ve always walked around like this,’ It took the brother sometime to convince his American brother that people in Kerala no longer walk around town clad only in a mundu. Similarly, I wonder if Sanghera realises that marriages in India are no longer always arranged by parents and that most Indians have stopped spitting on the floors of their living rooms.

I feel that this book should be prescribed like medicine to all parents in India who wish to have their daughters married off to unknown men of Indian origin living in the UK and the USA. How many such parents are aware of the time-warped lives Britons of south-Asian origin live in? Granted not every British-South-Asian family would be similar to Sanghera’s, but the general descriptions of how traditional and orthodox Indian communities in the UK can be are a must read for Indians in India.

Towards the end of his book, Sanghera has a few good words for Wolverhampton, which he says has changed for the better. There are no similar sentiments towards India. I wish Sanghera would spend a few months in Delhi or Mumbai and see for himself how much India (especially urban India) has changed.