Apr 10
7

Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World

5 Comments

Product Description
India is everywhere: on magazine covers and cinema marquees, at the gym and in the kitchen, in corporate boardrooms and on Capitol Hill. Through incisive reportage and illuminating analysis, Mira Kamdar explores India’s astonishing transformation from a developing country into a global powerhouse. She takes us inside India, reporting on the people, companies, and policies defining the new India and revealing how it will profoundly affect our future — financially, c… More >>

Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World

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5 Responses to "Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World"

  • Azad says:
    April 7, 2010 at 6:57 am

    This book reads more like a dream of what India could be rather than an objective assessment of what it is. It is proof that Indians continue to suffer from a serious inferiority complex with the constant need to assert their “greatness” without down-to-earth critical assessment of reality facing the country.
    Rating: 1 / 5

  • SF Book Reviewer says:
    April 7, 2010 at 8:30 am

    This book lacks objectivity or analysis — as one other reviewer stated, it is a breathless gush of cheerleading and sympathetic attitudes towards India, devoid of any analytic content.

    The book is doubles as an equally gullible critique of American capitalism and world leadership. These passages lack all analytical depth and seriousness — you can hear better critiques of America by spending twenty minutes at a protest.

    The author believes that India is the solution to The Problem That Is The Hated America, which feels forced. Your time is much better spent on other things. I’m actually asking for my money back from the company that sold this to me.
    Rating: 1 / 5

  • Sara Akbar says:
    April 7, 2010 at 10:45 am

    This book is full of gross, sensational stories that if you follow India 10% of the time you will know about. The author jumped on the India bandwagon to make a buck. No one is denying that India has poverty, gender issues, health issues etc – but by lumping every Indian state together and every Indian together shows that the author doesn’t understand the diversity India has or the purpose of India.

    Read a book by an academic to understand India – there are many out there – Mira should have done that first instead of reading news articles.
    Rating: 1 / 5

  • L. D. Gasman says:
    April 7, 2010 at 12:23 pm

    Go visit India. Watch Bollywood movies. Don’t read this book. Actually, Planet India is more of a gush than a book; a stream of vignettes reporting successes and failures of organizations and individuals caught up in India’s economic revolution.

    No analysis really. Much gullibility. I would say “uncritical” too, if it weren’t for the unending attacks on America that fills the pages. Many of these are funny, in the way that the stuff that used to come out of Radio Tirana was funny. The U.S. government doesn’t do enough for the unemployed, apparently, Kamdar tells us. If only we did things Ms. Kamdar’s way, no doubt I wouldn’t have to wade through destitute and economically tortured throngs singing “buddy can you spare a dime” every time I walk through the streets of Virginia. And, Kamdar tells us, in the U.S, yummy local food at yummy local restaurants has been pushed out by e-v-i-l fast food empires. This doesn’t quite resonate with me, I’m afraid. I have been dining in small town mid-Atlantic America for 30 years now and can point Ms. Kamdar towards some very nice places to eat; a lot more than I could 20 years ago.

    The point of all of this and other deep thoughts that Kamdar has on the state of contemporary America is that (according to Kamdar, anyway) India won’t be doing wicked, wicked things like those outlined above. Indian businesses will be “doing well by doing good,” which is a phrase that is repeated several times throughout the book. But isn’t this an American phrase? And when Kamdar talks about the Indian entrepreneurs who give back to society, one is reminded that the quintessentially American plan for wealth making is to make as much money as possible and then give it all away. Few of Europe’s wealthy would think this way, I suspect. This is why so many of them are socialists. It makes up for actually doing something.

    But I digress. As one of the other reviewers here points out, there isn’t much in Planet India that you wouldn’t already know if you kept up with things Indian in the quality press; in the Economist, say. And a lot of what is in Kamdar’s writing’s you might have guessed anyway. It turns out that the Indian nouveau riche behave much like the nouveau riche in other countries; big surprise that!

    Now, there are some interesting parts of Planet India. At one point Kamdar suggests that the religious mythology of India may have global meaning to international youth tuned in to the logic of comic superheroes. That is a genuinely novel idea and one that gets a couple of sentences in one chapter. The truly tragic stories of the farmers whose businesses have been ruined by the rise of Indian agribusiness are worth reading too.

    But for the most part, Kamdar fills her pages with usual pieties about the environment, economic justice and democracy and at various points sounds like Gore-on-speed. It’s just as well that she can spell “sustainability” and “corporate,” since these words appear in almost every third sentence. (Not really, but it seems that way.) And in case you wondered, “sustainable,” means “really, really good” and corporate means “really, really evil.” “American corporate” means “really, really, truly, I’m not kidding you, you better believe me evil.” It’s the kind of thing that one might expect from a commentator at the BBC, CNN or NPR. And what do you know, Kamdar works for all three.

    In the end, perhaps the most interesting thing in Kamdar’s writing’s is what she does not say. She doesn’t talk much about how the scaling back of socialism in India was what caused the Indian boom in the first place. And it would be interesting to know, just what proportion of the Indian elite shares her trendy, lefty view of the world. Unfortunately, I suspect the proportion is high.

    But let’s hope I am wrong. One thing that Kamdar is right about is that what India does is important to everyone in the world. And the more India turns to capitalism the better it will be for all of us.

    Rating: 1 / 5

  • deg18 says:
    April 7, 2010 at 2:03 pm

    I had a chance to take a sneak peek at Planet India by Mira Kamdar and I can’t wait to read the whole book when its published.

    Like her first book, Motiba’s Tattos, Kamdar applies a very personal approach to a massively global subject. In Planet India, she broadens her view to this large nation’s rapid rise to economic and cultural phemonenon.

    From the bits I read, Planet India is destined to be required reading – not only for scholars but for all readers curious about how a thousands-year-old culture has become a modern nation.

    Rating: 5 / 5

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