How to lose the plot

In his introduction to Temptations of the West, Pankaj Mishra says that the way societies in the Indian subcontinent experience modernity cannot be summed up in broad generalisations, instead they have to be experienced through individuals. It is sad to see, therefore, Mishra doing the very thing that he warns others against. The book is full of generalisations and the feeling of being hurried through it all.

Lately, bookstore shelves have been packed with thoughtful travelogues that go beyond personal journeys to places of beauty or conflict to a deeper understanding of a place through its history, demography and social structure. We've had the superb Maximum City by Suketu Mehta, the readable City of Djinns by William Dalrymple, and the insightful Carpet Wars by Christopher Kremmer. Mishra's book unfortunately falls way short of the standards set by these books.

His use of Allahabad as a signpost for the decline of Indian democracy, and worse, of the Hindi film industry as a symbol of "India shining", speaks of shallowness unexpected of anyone with a claim to a genuine understanding of India. Then, there are the cliches""the casteist politician and the hinterland strongman, caricatures as routine in distanced English writing as the exuberance of the filmi song-and-dance routine.

Why not talk of how the backward caste movement has revolutionised Uttar Pradesh? ... the fact that a Dalit woman, considered among the most suppressed of Indians, became chief minister of the state thrice? It is this that historians will look into. The Nehru dynasty is a non-issue in Allahabad.

Mishra appears to want to conform to the cliches of Western vintage about India, and so he ends up with a simplistic book which is neither scholarly nor intimate. If the book's subtitle, "How to be Modern in India, Pakistan and beyond", is a hint of intended parody, it fails to get any point across.

The subcontinent's engagement with modernity in the form of colonialism has not been a very happy one, we know. With its emphasis on rationality and objectivity, modernity came as a bolt from the blue for an India struggling past feudalism. Yet, despite being overwhelmed by modernity, India slowly subsumed it through a post-modern process which still boggles the mind. Out in the market, this is symbolised in the Maharaja Mac, but is no less evident in the ambivalence towards attempts to superimpose the real with the artificial.

The premium is on being open. Take German sociologist Max Weber's work on modernity. It is both depressing and uplifting, especially on the relentless rationality of modern life that entraps the individual. He speaks of reinvented traditionalism having the capacity to break this iron cage of rationalism. Mishra's book has no such insight, confining itself to election-despatch like frames. Mishra sheds tears for the disintegration of the old gracious Benaras (another Western favourite), but can he explain the city's unflappability in response to the recent terror attack on the Sankat Mochan Temple?

Modernity and globalisation go together. The more the world comes closer, the stronger the struggle to distinguish one from the other. We examine and are examined in turn. By writing a book whose voice is essentially of a traveller looking at India from afar, Mishra does the ultimate modernist turn. He examines without allowing himself to be examined, and loses the plot along the way. 

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TEMPTATIONS OF THE WEST
HOW TO BE MODERN IN INDIA, PAKISTAN AND BEYOND

Pankaj Mishra
Picador, London
Price: Rs 525; Pages: 438