|
Literary Review
Testimony to anger
IN this country we have almost institutionalised a new genre of writers: the retired bureaucrats, who, the moment they hand in their robes, start telling us how rotten was the very order over which they were presiding till a few years ago. Not many such writers carry conviction. But Ms. Muthamma has to be the exception to this rule. And for a simple reason. She left the portals of decision-making long ago, and has been at it now for sometime with a remarkably undiminished enthusiasm and an equally unflagging intellectual curiosity.
Ms. Muthamma deserves attention for another reason. She was the first woman to break into the rarefied company called the Indian Civil Services and a year later in 1949 joined the Indian Foreign Service, the conventional male bastion. She naturally ran into institutionalised biases and discriminations; and, she resisted. Daily reminders of entrenched in-house unfairness probably ensured that she never got metamorphosed into a blue-blooded "system" high priest. This collection is a testimony to her capacity for anger and indignation.
However, this adds up to a less than satisfactory book because of a conceptually flawed selection of pieces, written over more than two decades. In the process of making the collection a representative of Ms. Muthamma's writings, the focus has got diluted. India has changed dramatically since the 1991 switch over to the "market"; the pre-1991 India had its own rhythm, reasons and raison d'etre. All that has changed, though not necessarily for the better. Perhaps it would have made a more rewarding collection had the editors put together her post-1991 writings. After all, the requirements of the operating "system" have changed, though we continue to try to work with the old instruments of the state order.
Notwithstanding this jarring absence of any thematic unity, each piece itself is worth a read. Ms. Muthamma laments, bemoans, and indicts, but with passion and without the reader being allowed to get overwhelmed with cynicism and defeatism because her judgments are invariably fair and reasonable. Her commentaries on the conduct of foreign affairs carry an extra touch of the insider's perspective, and offer a revealing glimpse of that delightfully organised humbug called the Foreign Office.
But at the end of the book, the "system" remains an enigma. Take, for instance, an August 1987 piece, which is rather representative of Ms. Muthamma's preoccupations. She writes: "our present system has failed us. What is required is not frenzied recrimination but a sober, earnest effort to devise a system that will work." This is a rather clichéd verdict, expected more from a newspaper columnist than from a veteran insider. After all, "systems" do not change (or allow themselves to be changed) so easily, certainly not without a revolution or without blood on the cobblestones. "Systems" permit only incremental changes, and a seminal change did take place in 1991. It is a different matter that the 1991 change too has been devoured by the old forces and practitioners of waywardness.
Slain by the System: India's Real Crisis, C.B. Muthamma, The Viveka Foundation, 2003, p.310, Rs. 250.
HARISH KHARE
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Literary Review
|
