Book Review: India Unbound

India Unbound is mainly about the transformation of India from (1942) to (1999). The book details about the Indian politics and the economy of India. India Unbound is the riveting story of a nation’s rise from poverty to prosperity and the clash of ideas that occurred along the way. Gurucharan Das examines the highs and lows of independent India through the prism of history, his own experiences and those of numerous others he has met – from young people in sleepy UP villages to chiefs of software companies in Bangalore. Defining and exploring the new mindset of the nation, India Unbound is the perfect introduction to contemporary India.

This book is not just about India - it is really about the economy, political ideologies, business, globalism, entrepreneurship, governments, the future, and much more. I found myself wanting to highlight the entire book! That’s because these complicated topics are explained with such simplicity (using India as the main case-study) that it all made sense. The book includes author personal stories, history of Indian politics and world lessons from other countries, and many of the rollercoaster downs and ups associated with good storytelling. Despite the mistakes and bleak past, the book is ended with the most excitement, passion, and energy for the future.

The book is categorized in three major parts: Our Spring of Hope (1942-65), The Lost Generation (1966-91) and The Rebirth of Dream (1991-99) or we can say it is divided into Pre-Independence Era, Post-Independence Era and Post-Liberalized India.

In Pre-Independence, British Raj did harm India, the reason that Indian handicrafts lost to machine driven goods is also significant. Hand looms all over the world were impacted by emergence of technology and since India was largest textile maker in the world, it got impacted the most. Emergence of “Brown Sahib” in British Raj: Primarily Brahmins learnt English and took up the clerical and managerial job for Britishers. Indians prefer vertical over horizontal relations, on numerous instances from wars to running industries.

In Post-Independence, most western nations were going through a phase of emphasizing wealth distribution. Unfortunately, many of the Indian bureaucrats trained in these nations forgot that India needed wealth creation first. Among common man, trade was not seen as positive outcome game, but it was perceived as zero sum game. While socialism was popular during Nehru’s era, it has lost most of its charm in a couple of decades, but during Indira’s rule, controls were further tightened. Several state-owned enterprises emerged during this era which was not profitable and it was illegal to close them. By 1980, 75% of state-owned companies were in losses and 14 banks were nationalized and in a decade, most of them were bankrupt.

In Post-Liberalized India, being short of foreign exchange reserves, India asks for a loan from IMF and starts economic reforms in parallel. Author praises Narsimha Rao (PM), Manmohan Singh (FM) and P Chidambram (Commerce Minister) for their role in liberalizing Indian economy. Several examples like Zee TVs Subhash Chandra, NIIT’s Rajendra Pawar has been given to illustrate first generation millionaires created by liberalization.

There are three ways to compete – superior [lower] prices, superior product and superior service, as of now, Indian industries follow superior prices and they should move to superior service now, the growth of middle class is one of the most significant consequence of liberalization. A major area where reform has still not occurred is education and nation is in a dire need of it. India missed Industrial revolution, IT revolution is therefore, critical for India. While some people fear that Indians is westernizing, author believes India is “modernizing” and the “spiritual component of life” is here to stay in Indian life.