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Literary Review
Professional reportage
FAMILIAR with the country, the people and the language, Mark Tully and Gillian Wright take up some of the most controversial social and political issues of India's last decade, producing a thoroughly professional work of investigative reporting. The issues they raise often have their roots in the past and yet continue to rankle. They include the Tehelka scandal, farmers and water harvesting, religion in Goa and the Tabighli Sufi sect, the Right to Information and Kashmir.
As the authors remark in their introduction, their concern is with bad governance. "In this book we argue that one of the fundamental problems of India is a peculiarly Indian form of bad governance." The "obfuscatory rites of colonial administration" of such governance are responsible, and it appears that they are allowed to continue because good governance would go against vested interests. Politicians "have distracted the voters' attention by raising issues of caste and creed."
Thus, the first chapter deals with the resurrection of Ram, the Babri Masjid episode and the controversy over the proposed new Ram temple in Ayodhya. This chapter exemplifies the method employed by Tully and Wright. They begin by selecting a particular location from where they can function best; in this case, a vantage point from where they could actually see the destruction of the mosque, and following that up by patiently and persistently interviewing people from all classes of society to ascertain their views and beliefs. All leads are taken up and fairly presented. Their conclusions therefore are not in black and white but in as many shades of grey as such complex religious and political situations warrant, expressed in an easy, eminently readable style shot through with shafts of humour and irony. The authors do not fail to point out that India has a great potential, but needs to remove the brakes.
They turn their attention to the sore spots on our body politic. One particularly worthwhile chapter entitled "Misplaced Charity" deals with the vexed question of child labour in the carpet industry. In a laudable attempt to eliminate the work of children, the Rugmark International Foundation launched a campaign. It "was attracting U.S. importers by stating on its website that `The Rugmark label guarantees the carpet was not made by children'" and that "`Through Rugmark's media campaign your company will be highlighted in the national news as an importer of child-labour-free carpets.'"
In Mirzapur the authors were introduced to Edward Oakley, the chairman of its best-known and most efficient carpet company, Obeetee. The chapter is framed by the very human portrait of Oakley, who had refused to use the Rugmark label because he thought it impossible to provide "child-labour-free" guarantees, given the nature of the industry. Following this up, Tully and Wright go ahead and meet people involved in the industry from top to bottom. They find that monitoring was in fact taking place, children were not working at the looms, though some statistics regarding the number of looms and weavers were unreliable. Undeniably Obeetee lost out and so did other manufacturers whose products did not carry the label.
Among those interviewed is the principal of a model school run by an NGO called Project Mala. He had been sent out from England to assess the situation in the carpet industry, and concluded that education was the main need. Indeed, his school presented a pleasant sight especially when contrasted with the very few government schools in the area. Poverty and unemployment are the causes of child labour in the industry — and indeed elsewhere in the country. Of course the authors acknowledge the widespread prevalence of child labour in the country as a whole.
Seeing the elaborate and long drawn out finishing processes in the making of a carpet, Tully and Wright remark, "To a first-time observer, it's a miracle that those processes don't finish the carpet." This book too, bears the comforting marks of its attention to detail.
India in Slow Motion, Mark Tully and Gillian Wright, Penguin Viking, 2002, p.302, Rs. 450.
LOLA CHATTERJI
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