Shades of Truth: A Journey Derailed
Author : Kapil Sibal
Publisher : Rupa, Rs595
This book charts the history of India’s governance and shows how the current BJP Government, too, has failed to keep many of its promises, says AMIT GOEL
You never know what the voter will do. Will have to wait till 2019,” says Kapil Sibal in the conclusion to his new book titled Shades of Truth: A Journey Derailed. As he pens his ideas and thoughts in his latest literary presentation, he is quite vociferous when talking about the current political situation and what the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections might bring along. As the reader moves along the writer’s line of thought in this comfortably sized book spanning around 250 pages, his detailing of how the Indian society has developed fault lines in the past four years since the installation of the Modi Government in 2014 comes across sharply and unabashedly.
Through his book, Kapil Sibal has presented his case on why the Modi Government should not be voted back to power. The Congressman’s antagonist Modi becomes the protagonist in his book. He recounts how Modi, by way of his mesmerising and magical speeches and tongue-in-cheek acronyms, has succeeded in misleading the voter into distrusting the Congress. He further explains how Modi has created a poor image where the Congress has been inefficient and corrupt not only in the past few years but all through the 60 years of its rule at the Centre.
The reader is duly escorted through India’s journey from being hailed as a culturally and socially diverse country in the past to being called a dubious and deviant society that has little or no respect for peace and harmony. This bipolarity is evident in all spheres of life in modern India. India, as the largest democracy in the world, has been witness to some of the most tempestuous times in its history, either on account of numerous invasions and attacks that time and again convulsed the nation or on account of its own dogmas and prejudices that left an indelible impression on the cultural and social canvas of India.
History is also witness to the fact that we as a race are quite resilient and have mostly responded positively to change during upheavals and vicissitudes alike. Be it the two decades of colonial suppression or the aftermath of a painful Partition, India has always picked up the pieces and managed to reconstruct itself.
After all, we are a country of 1.3 billion with a diverse culture and an enviable heritage to back us. Despite the tensions and turmoil that accompanied India’s struggle for Independence, newfound freedom in the post-Independence era presented a tabula rasa with enormous potential to create a safe, secular and sustainable model of a nation for others to envy and replicate. Unfortunately, over the past four years, the BJP seems to have missed the bus and has afflicted the nation with intolerance, boorishness and bigotry. India is grappling with issues such as caste-based reservation and politics, gau raksha, women safety and gender equality, corruption and religious fanaticism.
Lucid and simple in its style of writing, the book also captures the events leading up to the Congress’s debacle in 2014. It starts with scams like 2G and Coalgate and ends with Anna Hazare’s Arab Spring, which had people convinced that the Congress Government had to go. Sibal also blames the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) for having acted in a partisan manner. However, he does not make any effort to admit that corruption did take place in Spectrum and Coal allocations while dismissing them as false propaganda by the BJP and CAG. According to him, Modi rule has compromised on each of the three pillars of democracy — judiciary, executive, and media.
Normally, a book written by a politician is reviewed critically and consumed with a pinch of salt, taking into consideration the bias that the writer might have. But, besides being a politician, Kapil Sibal is also an astute lawyer and a Harvard graduate. That’s why his claims in the book are accompanied by convincing arguments. But still, the fact that he’s a Congressman cannot be fully ignored.
Personally, it would have been a delight to read about the good things that the Modi Government has done during its tenure as well because that would have made the book a more balanced read. Just like it would be interesting to hear Modi saying that whatever happened in the country in the past 70 years was not all that bad. From the point of view of the anti-Modi brigade, the book is a must-read, although one does get a feeling of déjà vu at points as the book progresses. For die-hard Modi bhakts, it’s a serious no-no.
