Outlook’s Executive Editor Satish Padmanabhan speaks to author Ruchir Sharma on his new book ‘Democracy On The Road’. Ruchir, who has travelled across India chasing almost all major election campaigns in the past two decades, tells us what has and hasn’t changed in the country over the years, the “celluloid” and “real” image of some places and why his respect for politicians has gone up.
Follow this story and more: https://www.outlookindia.com/
#OutlookBibliofile #OutlookMagazine #OutlookGroup
Follow this story and more: https://www.outlookindia.com/
#OutlookBibliofile #OutlookMagazine #OutlookGroup
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 After having sort of done this trip for 27 times,
00:05 over more than two decades,
00:06 just my respect for politicians has gone up on average.
00:09 Whatever little sort of feeling I had about it,
00:13 whatever sort of entering the fray has been totally extinguished,
00:18 because I've realized how just difficult this job is.
00:21 It's a 24/7 job.
00:22 Yeah.
00:23 There is no personal life,
00:25 because it's very intrusive in the way things are.
00:29 And to deliver with a broken state is extremely difficult.
00:33 Hello and welcome to Bibliophile.
00:42 And here we are today to discuss this most fascinating,
00:44 riveting book by Ruchir Sharma, Democracy on the Road.
00:48 Thank you very much, Ruchir, for joining us.
00:50 Ruchir has been taking a group of journalists for the last 20 years.
00:54 Yes.
00:55 And on 27 trips.
00:56 And this is an outcome of that.
00:58 And I must make this disclosure that I'm also part of the group
01:02 and I've been to a few trips with Ruchir.
01:04 So to begin with, Ruchir, as I was saying,
01:05 you know, this is something that sort of a real feel you get, you know.
01:09 We have read many political books, you know, about politics in India.
01:13 And this shows the it's an experiential sort of a feeling that you get.
01:17 Is that why you first of all, you know, wanted to do the book?
01:21 No, that was my entire idea,
01:22 which is the fact that I think that if you look at books which have been written,
01:26 you typically had books written about one election campaign
01:29 after one election was over or you had books written about one leader.
01:34 What I really wanted to do here was to write something
01:37 which was an account of India and also to take people into places
01:42 which we would never go to otherwise.
01:45 So as you know, there are accounts of, you know,
01:47 the fact that we've been to places like Betia, we've been to places like Lalgad.
01:51 So those are the kind of places that we have been to.
01:53 And for me, that is what I wanted to bring out.
01:56 And also to show that there's such a contrast between the celluloid image
02:01 of some of these places and what the real image is.
02:03 Like I have an entire section on Mirzapur in
02:07 February of 2017.
02:10 The celluloid image is that this is the place where if you were to go,
02:14 you could be knocked down at any point in time.
02:16 But you know what?
02:17 The reality is much more prosaic. And what are these places like?
02:21 So I think that's what I've tried to sort of bring out in the book.
02:23 So it's really a journey
02:25 across India rather than through the political lens,
02:28 rather than just a political book is how I'd like it to be perceived.
02:32 And in the 20 years that you've seen, I mean, you're such a keen observer
02:36 of both politics and economics and, you know, other things
02:39 that the country has to offer.
02:41 What would you say have been the biggest changes that you've noticed
02:44 both physically as well as in mindsets of people?
02:47 So one of my favorite sort of portions in the book really has to do
02:50 with my return to Bijnor trip.
02:52 So as you know, this book begins with Bijnor, which is where my
02:56 roots lie in a way, because my maternal grandparents were there
03:00 and I used to spend every summer in Bijnor.
03:04 So it sort of begins there and it ends also in Bijnor
03:08 because I returned to Bijnor to write the closing chapter.
03:11 And in between are all the 27 election trips that the group has been on.
03:15 And so at the end of the Bijnor chapter,
03:20 the return to Bijnor chapter, what I speak about is how
03:22 after changes upon changes, India remains the same in so many ways.
03:27 And for me, that really captures India because of one detail that I offer there
03:31 that 30 years ago, it took us four hours
03:35 to travel the 160 kilometer distance from Delhi to Bijnor.
03:38 30 years later, when I went there late last year,
03:42 it's still taking us four hours to travel the distance from Delhi to Bijnor.
03:45 Things have changed along the way.
03:47 That you have much broader roads,
03:50 concretized, you have much more development,
03:54 but the increase in traffic and also the increase in encroachments
03:59 and the development along the way has been such that time taken is still the same.
04:03 That I find quite remarkable.
04:05 And would you say this is drastically different from the other
04:08 emerging markets or other countries like India?
04:10 Like China, for example, is a totally different case in terms of what's
04:13 the infrastructure development and stuff.
04:16 There it always seems to be ahead almost of what the demand is.
04:20 Here we are always sort of chasing demand.
04:22 So that I think is the big difference between these countries.
04:25 Have you noticed any major change in the, I mean, you know, it's been 70 years now after all.
04:29 Have you noticed in people, you know, women coming forward more, let's say?
04:33 No, of course.
04:34 So in terms of the transformation of India continues in that way.
04:37 Women is a great point that you make out that you clearly see many more women
04:41 now on voting booths.
04:42 You clearly see more of them sort of wanting to assert their own vote
04:46 rather than saying that I'll vote the way the family votes.
04:49 So we see much more of that.
04:50 We have seen that.
04:51 I think that the Bengal election of 2011,
04:54 but most of these election trips when we end up doing them,
04:56 we typically go to the polls
04:58 well before the election date.
05:02 Right. I mean, our trips.
05:04 This was one election where we happened to just land in Kolkata
05:07 on the day of the polling.
05:09 And you could, you know, we were all very impressed to see the
05:11 the number of women who had shown up out there for voting.
05:14 So, yeah. So I think that is one change which has taken place.
05:16 But the second point that I'll make here is the fact that this caste business,
05:20 I think this is very interesting because at one level,
05:22 some of the very raw discrimination at a caste level is gone.
05:25 We no longer at the stage where
05:27 they can't enter the same bus or travel
05:31 on the same road virtually.
05:34 I think that sort of discrimination is gone.
05:36 But again, going back to my earlier statement,
05:38 that changes upon changes in so many ways, India remains the same.
05:41 The one point that I still feel that that hasn't changed
05:45 is that at a political level, I think these caste lines are still very strong
05:48 in this country.
05:49 And I think that's something at an urban level,
05:51 many people don't quite understand or appreciate that much.
05:55 But as I say in the book, there are about a multitude of factors
05:58 which determine what
06:00 dictates an election in India in terms of for a candidate, how to win or lose.
06:06 And I think that
06:07 one constant observation is that development is at best
06:12 just one of those many factors.
06:14 But to fight an election in India on the platform of development
06:17 is very difficult.
06:20 That even in one of the states that we have seen transform the most
06:23 in all our travel has been Bihar.
06:26 And despite all that Nitish Kumar has done for that state,
06:29 he still can't get more than 20 percent of the vote share.
06:33 And he's constantly in the need of building a caste coalition
06:36 to be the chief minister.
06:38 You know, the point you made about Mirzapur, I mean, as you
06:42 as you go there, the celluloid image that people here probably have in Delhi
06:45 and Bombay and what you...
06:47 Is it, would it be, would you say it's the same
06:49 when it comes to election political analysis?
06:51 You know, the analysis that people do in TV studios, etc.
06:54 in the cities, and when you actually go and meet the people,
06:57 especially the MLAs or the contestants,
07:00 do you find a complete difference in...
07:03 No, I don't think I don't want to dissolve the analysis that people are doing.
07:06 But all I know is the fact that
07:09 and I think that, you know, we've had people on our trips
07:12 who are very good pollsters.
07:14 Yes. But I think that what they what they'll also tell you is that
07:17 over time, they've learned the benefit of these trips
07:20 that compared to just raw data, when you are out there and talking to people.
07:24 The feel that you get is is what really shapes
07:29 the true analysis.
07:32 In fact, it's incredible that in the 27 trips, it's only once in the book
07:35 you say that you've got the group has got the direction of the election wrong.
07:39 Yes. Amazing record.
07:41 I mean, it's like better than any opinion poll, you know, can ever claim to.
07:45 Yeah. Yeah.
07:45 I think like the collective intelligence of 20 bright minds being on the road
07:50 is there's something to say for.
07:52 And now, of course, of those 20 people, there are some people
07:56 who have mentioned who have never won a poll.
07:58 And there are some people who won a poll multiple times.
08:00 But there's nobody who dominates also in such a way that they're winning every poll.
08:03 So I think that's something to be said about the collective intelligence
08:06 of 20 people out there on the road, sensing what is happening.
08:11 And what I also find very amazing is that within the group,
08:14 there are such ideological divisions as well.
08:18 And how we and I find it very remarkable that when two people get out of the car
08:23 to go and meet people,
08:25 that they can come back with exactly the opposite
08:28 sort of insights, even though they've been to exactly the same spot.
08:32 It's always a sort of a Roshamon effect.
08:35 Exactly. These trips are much more than that.
08:37 This is really a learning of this country,
08:40 because one, India comes alive at election time in terms of what happens.
08:45 It's a big carnival.
08:46 It's the emotions are, you know, out there on your sleeves
08:50 in terms of how people display them.
08:51 So I think that this is for me a real journey of India
08:54 more than just getting the election forecast correct.
08:58 That is something which we want to believe in.
09:00 In fact, the book is full of such absolutely fantastic anecdotes,
09:04 like, for instance, of Mayawati you talk about.
09:07 And then this is a crazy photo of Captain Vijaykanth, who's showing his muscle.
09:10 Yeah. You know, so what are the other colorful characters,
09:14 leaders that you met who are like, you know, who remain in your mind?
09:17 Like so many of them that, you know, for example, I think
09:20 that it became very difficult to meet Jalanita
09:23 subsequently because she became so reclusive.
09:25 So I still have that memory of meeting with her in 2006.
09:29 So vividly in my mind and also on,
09:32 you know, that she was both
09:35 a very popular figure and also a very imperial figure that
09:38 waiting for her to that nobody wanted to disturb her
09:43 in the afternoon to go and tell her that 20 people are waiting for you.
09:47 I see. And then, you know, after two or three hour wait, she finally emerges.
09:52 And the way the whole sort of, you know, set up is done there,
09:55 you know, that when you have such meetings, it sort of stays in your head.
09:59 Sometimes it's the build up to it.
10:01 So I think that Jalanita like is obviously that.
10:04 And then to also see.
10:06 And the other side is I think somebody like Lalu Prasad,
10:08 the other was so warm and welcoming and, you know, so informal.
10:11 And so entertaining in terms of that, you know, like that
10:14 no matter what people say about him, that when you are in his company,
10:17 you are really entertained.
10:19 That I remember that in 2014, when we went on our election trip to Bihar
10:25 and so many of the
10:28 leaders outside the BJP that you met were quite despondent
10:32 at that point in time.
10:33 But the one person who was still fighting along
10:36 and a sense of humor was still intact was Lalu Prasad Yadav.
10:39 And in the 20 years that you've been traveling, you would have, you know,
10:42 there has also been a sort of a generational change in the politicians also.
10:46 You know, the sons have taken over, the daughters are up.
10:49 How would you, I mean,
10:50 that the old world charm that you're talking about of a Lalu Prasad,
10:53 has that filtered down to some of the younger ones or is it a different breed?
10:58 It's no, I think that there's no generalization, but it does.
11:01 Now, for example, one person who I find is also, you know, has his own charm.
11:05 Maybe meet him is like Akhilesh in terms of, you know,
11:09 and I think that at some level he's possibly more endearing than Mulayam.
11:14 And who would you say has been one of the most astute politicians,
11:17 you know, who really sort of knows the pulse of the people,
11:21 maybe doesn't say so much.
11:23 Ram Vilas Paswan, that he always seems to get the winning side right,
11:28 apart from maybe 2009 when he was on the wrong side.
11:31 Yeah, but he, he seems like that,
11:34 but even small small conversations reveal a lot,
11:36 like one interesting character that I've always found, you know,
11:39 like fun to chat with at a, at a private level is someone like Sharad Yadav.
11:42 Now these are figures who are not that well known outside, you know,
11:46 like the small political circles or in Bihar.
11:48 But, you know, when you have these side conversations with them,
11:51 you come away appreciating about the insights they have on the ground.
11:56 And Richard, you know, before we end,
11:57 I have to ask before I leave you this one last question that have you never been
12:00 tempted to actually be in the pole fray? You know,
12:03 since you're such a sort of passionate observer and lover, I mean, like,
12:07 why not? How about conditions of vision?
12:09 Just as I told you that, you know, like after having sort of done this trip for
12:14 27 times, or more than two decades,
12:18 just my respect for politicians has gone up on average.
12:21 Whatever little sort of feeling I had about it,
12:25 whatever sort of entering the fray has been totally extinguished because I've
12:30 realized how just difficult this job is. It's a 24/7 job.
12:34 There is no personal life because it's very intrusive in the way,
12:39 in the way things are and to deliver with a broken state is extremely difficult.
12:44 Thank you very much, Richard. Thank you very much for talking to Bibliophile.
12:48 Thanks.
12:49 [Music]
12:54 [Music]
12:59 (upbeat music)