Book Review

By:-
Sushil Riyar
IDAS(P)-2016
 About Author
• Josy Joseph, author of the book is an award-winning investigative
journalist.

• His investigative stories include

 The Adarsh Apartment scam,

 Naval War Room Leak case,

 Commonwealth Games, the 2G

 Spectrum Allocation scam, and

 other government decisions that have highlighted nepotism and Corruption in

governance at all levels .
• He is presently the national security editor of The Hindu.
• Rs1000 crore defamation case was filed against him by Naresh Goyal of
Jet Airways after publishing this book.
 Brief Summary
• Book starts with story of a village in Bihar which struggles for roads
and toilets and ends with story of Ambani’s house in Mumbai.
• Author has divided book in three parts based on different themes.
• First part covers the 3 types of middle men in system
– Mr. Fix-it
– Political Loyalists
– Arms Dealer
• Second part talks about rivalries of airline companies and rampant
chrony-capitalism.
• Third part discusses the contemporary issues of environment and
how rampant industrialisation and mining is changing the landscape.
 Analysis
• Author begins his story with a 30-page prologue set in Hridaychak village in Bihar,
which requires a road to get its children education and primary health—and this
road requires a herculean mix of fixing and petitioning. The prologue, though
overlong but sets the context for the rest of the book.
• The book basically underlines that if you want to succeed in this country, you need
connections.

• Middlemen are the people who help you establish these connections.

• ’Mr. Fix-it down the street’ or ‘Bahubali’ in the villages and backward areas.

• Loyalists of Primeministers (eg. MO Mathai, RK Dhawan, Vincent George)

• Relatives like Robert Vadra

• Arms dealers to strike favourable deals (Quattrocchi, Nandas and Choudharies)

 Analysis
• Second part of book is focussed on corporate rivalries and Chrony-capitalism an
alternative to middlemen.

• The book’s most interesting section is the three-chapter “The Very Private Private
Sector”, which deals with the rise and fall of East West Airlines and the murder of
its managing director, Thakiyudeen Wahid.

• Author’s narrative points towards Jet Airways Boss Naresh Goyal gave a ‘supari’
to the Dawood Ibrahim gang to get rival Airlines owner killed. Interestingly, this
narrative reads like a thriller.

• Book also reveals how Naresh Goyal shifted loyalities with change of govt. and
was rewarded both by NDA and UPA govt. This is striking picture of chrony-
capitalism in India..
 Analysis
• Author also looks at the conflict of interests in and at the fact that a quarter of our
law-makers are businessmen. Even worse are the politician-lawyers.
• Author in the last talks about burning and new emerging issue of our time i.e.
environment exploitation by mining barrons like Jindals and Vedantas.
• Epilogue to the book shows a glimmer of hope. Author mentions institutions like
Indian judiciary which amid all this despair cancelled coal block allocation and
gave some remarkable judgements.
• Author is also happy with new laws like RTI which despite weak whistleblower act
is empowering citizens.
 Evaluation of Book
• Best part is :
 Author has beautifully chronicled the history of corruption in last 3
decades.
 He has named people. There is no hiding anything and shielding
anyone.
 All chapters of book lead towards deep rot which has set in system
and depict a realistic picture of India.

• However :
 Book paints a pessimistic image about India. Reading this book was
really depressing.
 Author’s left leaning bias sometimes comes out in the book.
 Also, the narrative is a bit meandering. A tighter editorial control could
have been better.
 Recommendation
• Book is a must read for
– New entrants to civil services like us to understand the
complexities of Indian politico-economic system.
– For anyone dealing with defence procurement to
understand the role of middlemen and history of
corruption in defence acquisition.
– For serving bureaucrats to reflect why our breed has
become so infamous.
THANK YOU
 Some interesting lines
“In this country, it is okay to do practically anything: use fake promoters, accept
bribes, commission murders, intimidate media, manipulate courts and grab power.
The one big rule: don’t get caught.”
“Everywhere I found evidence that proved my theory: everything is on sale, all you
need are the resources to engage the right facilitators.”
“Instead of dealing with the grievances that fuel these insurgencies, politicians, the
mainstream
media and security analysts have worked to create an ill-informed, often abusive and
intolerant
discourse around them.”
“a frank admission that welfare could not override lifeless rules.”
“The Indian democracy works only through middlemen who know how to get the
moribund
system moving.”
“Nalanda is symbolic of the decline of Asia and the rise of the West in the second
millennium.”
“Democracy in India is only a ‘top dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially
undemocratic’.”