1. The Red-Haired Woman
Many novelists are inspired and driven by asensitivity to place, but few are driven to the extent of Orhan Pamuk, who equates characteristic, intimate geography with creative predetermination. The relationship between east and west is better portrayed in his works than most of the other present-day novelists. In his book Istanbul: Memories of a City, he brings together historical aspects, personal recollections and political inquiries to render an overview of Istanbul which is synchronously precise and poetic. Similarly, this works for much of his novels. The Red-Haired Woman, translated by Ekin Oklap, is Pamuk’s 10th novel where he evolves his obsessions in intriguing unique directions. Although it forms a connection “between the nature of a civilisation and its approach to notions of parricide and filicide”, it also combines the comprehensive observations with the wide brush strokes mostly identified with the construction of myths and parables.
The Red-Haired Woman is a book that brings forth fatherson relationships with almost agonising severity. It sketches a boy’s exploration into adulthood and Turkey’s into irretrievable transition and is soaked with compassion and a sense of place. The first two of the three sections are narrated by Cem Celik. Amidst his father’s long, routine disappearances as a political activist, Cem, aged 16 at the beginning of the novel, leaves the chore of overseeing his uncle’s orchard and joins a master welldigger Mahmut as an apprentice. His father’s disappearing act leaves Cem seeking a substitute to the same, which he finds in Mahmut. During the frequent travels to the countryside with him, Cem understands the way a father figure can instill dread and love at once. Along more such visits he loses his heart to an enigmatic red-haired woman in the imaginative village Ongoren. The physical relation shared by him and the woman makes her say to him in a dismal, gloomy tone, “I am almost the age of your mother.” He and the woman are aligned to a trajectory that constantly brings together and compares fate, past, mythical cautions, and the routineness. This section ends in a brutal, distressing incident portraying a spur of faint heartedness in Cem leaving him remorseful for many years.
The second secTion of The novel sTarTs wiTh cem leaving The well and The ciTy
The relation between Cem and Mahmut is built up slowly without allowing one’s attention to deflect – the affinity between a father without a son and a son without a father. Mahmut says, “To survive, a well-digger must be able to trust his apprentice as he would his own son.” Two age-old, differing tragedies of fathers and sons: Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and the Persian story of Sohrab and Rostam from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh are referred to throughout this novel. In Sophocles’ work, Oedipus is the murderer of his father and in the other tale Rostam, although unknowingly, is the murderer of his son Sohrab. The two classics are the fascination of the protagonist Cem in the novel and the purpose of the novel’s response.
The second section of the novel starts with Cem leaving the well and the city. This section is lax and more dispersed. The next few years of his life are covered in just a few pages. Ayse is the protagonist’s new love and his father who is now back in Cem’s life says to him that she “is just like your mother”. Seemingly, the events and memories of the past still keep coming back to the present. Cem and Ayse accept these rather than attempting to dodge the lessons received from the past lives. Together they establish a company named Sohrab. They continue to flock over the tale of Oedipus and travel around the world studying texts of the Iranian national epic Shahnameh. They begin to understand the larger political issues thrown up by these tales and epics, and this is when we begin to read The Red-Haired Woman as a tale about contemporary Turkey– the bruises and ambitions leading to the election of an authoritarian leader and the complex, varied perils of such a practice.
The many things going on in this rather slender book can result in the narrative seem a little unstable or lopsided and more so in the second half. It is tagged as a novel that is predominantly about the relationship between fathers and sons, but it is also as significantly about mothers, and the space created by them amongst contending, hostile men. As Pamuk writes,“the logic of the universe turns on the tears of mothers”. The incidental mother is the red-haired woman who examines and then manipulates, the “sense of self that courses through (a man’s) veins”. As always Orhan Pamuk is also subtly political. An implicit critique of the “motorised rich” is there in the novel, who exploits the landscape by forcing ever more roads while slicing through ethnic communities. Criticism of the automated well-diggers letting in corporations to appropriate others’ water resources is also there in the novel.
Along with these and above all, it is a book of ideas. This novel encourages the fact that we should always investigate the past and in doing so we should never reject or bury it. All of history – definite, intimate, imaginary, reminds us to recall, relive and just to think better.
2. India: Priorities For The Future
India is on the cusp of a momentous change since it undertook economic reform in 1991. Regarded as the father of economic reforms, Manmohan Singh, the then Union minister of finance, ended his budget speech of 1991-92 with a quote from French novelist Victor Hugo: “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.” He then concluded it with the declaration: “Let the whole world hear it loud and clear. India is now wide awake. We shall prevail. We shall overcome.”
Despite consensus at the central level for a quarter of a century – that has transcended governments led by different parties and coalitions – reforms have been deployed in fits and starts and not as a continuous process.
Ask any of the stakeholders – be it India’s political leadership, Oxbridge-educated bureaucracy, multilateral financial institutions, think tanks, global credit rating agencies and economic experts – and they will lecture us on different macroeconomic reforms.
Several ex-RBI governors, such as IG Patel, C Rangarajan, Y V Reddy, D Subbarao and Raghuram Rajan have delighted us with their books describing their stint with the apex bank. Unlike their accounts, Bimal Jalan’s book does not offer a first-hand account of his stint or sensational accounts from the RBI. Instead, Jalan takes a different route by dissecting the wrongs in Indian politics and economy, and prescriptions for the future.
Jalan, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and exRajya Sabha member, has been chanting the mantras for India’s future and success since the 1990s. Jalan has authored more than half a dozen books on the subject.
In his latest, India: Priorities for the Future, Jalan urges India to seize the opportunities that lie ahead; that it is essential to bring about reforms in running India’s politics and governance, to ensure inclusive and incremental economic growth.
Spread over eight chapters, Jalan has divided the book into two periods in the recent Indian history. Drawing this vast experience, Jalan first focuses on the period from 1980-2000 that witnessed as many as nine governments and saw the initiation of the reform process in a nation that was strictly regulated. First, as the finance secretary and later as governor of the apex bank, the author was one of the dramatis personae who brought about the reforms. The second part of the book focuses on the years between 2000 and 2014.
The first seven chapters are devoted to the poor implementation, for which he blames the bureaucracy equally.
It is the eighth and final chapter that gives the concrete policy prescription for India, which will pave the way for the future.
On top is the need, according to the author, to amend anti-defection laws. He argues that even four-member parties can join a coalition government, threaten often to leave it, and hold the entire elected government to ransom. To end this political menace, he suggests that those switching camps should seek reelection.
The second suggestion is to review the distribution of powers between the Centre and the states. On one hand, Jalan is all for vesting all powers with the Centre in terms of internal and external security, and on the other, he strongly advocates a reverse transfer of power and responsibility in welfare development schemes to the states, for better delivery.
Several legislations were passed by the Parliament without a full debate, due to disruptions. “Over time, the passage of important government bills in the Parliament has become a mere formality,” he rues. For this, he suggests that the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and the Chairman of Rajya Sabha should be required to mandatorily suspend or expel members who frequently disrupt the House and no bill should be approved by a voice vote.
What troubles the former central banker is the declining administrative capacity of the bureaucracy to implement government plans and programmes. He also advocates scrapping the special legal protection to civil servants under Article 311 of the Constitution and the Official Secrets Act.
Pointing out how 100 members in the Lok Sabha have criminal cases pending against them, the author demands decriminalising the Indian politics. But then he goes on to sugarcoat his suggestion – “An urgent political reform is to reduce the attractiveness of politics as a career of choice for persons with criminal records. There is a natural reluctance on the part of investigative agencies and ministries to speed up investigations and prosecute persons who are leaders of political parties and/or members of the Cabinet!” But one wonders whether Jalan realises that the political class will not commit such hara-kiri by resorting to such reforms.
These are some of Jalan’s policy prescriptions to enable India to realise its full potential as one of the fastest-growing and emerging global powers. His proposals will also ensure that the benefits of growth reach all the people.
If you are a Jalan reader, there is not much in the book. But then we cannot blame him for reiterating these relevant issues that plague our governance. So far, his prescriptions have fallen on deaf ears. Let us wait and watch what is in store!