The Defeat of a Congress-Man: And Other Parables of Modern India

BBC correspondent Tully, a Calcutta native who lives in New Delhi, describes India as a functioning anarchy, a corrupt, chaotic place whose denizens often must pay bribes even to get a bank loan. Free of the condescension or glorification that tinges much Western writing about India, this remarkable report captures the subcontinent's ache and promise in a series of clear-eyed sketches about the new wave of Hindu fundamentalism, a village wedding, the sanitized TV series Ramayan (based on the Hindu epic), the pandemonium of a religious festival, sectarian communist politics in Calcutta, and the central government's clumsy putdown of Sikh separatism. Tully views the tourist industry, cultural exchanges and the Roman Catholic Church as contemporary forms of imperialism. The title piece, a profile of an Indian parliament member, opens a window on one state's stagnant development, worker strikes, organized crime and stifling bureaucracies. Tully limns an India torn between rabidly imitating the West and clinging to traditional values. (Apr.)