Thursday, 14 March 2013

Review of Chanakya's New Manifesto


Dismal.Miserable and downright depressing.

I’m not talking about the  book Chanakya’s New Manifesto but about the state of Indian affairs depicted so honestly and transparently in the same book.

From its cover and prologue , the book seems to give a one stop solution to solving all of India’s problems since Independence. The book as the name itself suggests talks about Chanakya an Indian teacher, philosopher and royal advisor to Chandragupta Maurya, and responsible behind his rise to power. It presents a detailed understanding of the problems facing India and how Chanakya’s famous Arthashastra ,an ancient Indian political treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy.

The start of the book is downright depressing. Why? Because the state of Indian affairs is just that.  The author has highlighted the crisis areas in 4 main areas

Democracy

Governance

Corruption

Building of an inclusive society

In each of these sections he presents the difficulties faced by the country and also a 50 plus point representation of Arthashastra if applied to modern times.

Pavan K. Varma’s Chanakya’s New Manifesto is definitely not a book to skim through on a leisurely Sunday afternoon . It needs serious reading and understanding to fathom India’s problems and the solutions that may help India overcome them. The book is more useful for the men in power to co-relate and apply rather than the common man.
Crises in each of the above mentioned categories is explained in detail . Its not something unknown  but when explicitly put together makes a deep impact on the reader’s mind. The author has done a detailed study on the Arthashastra and applied it to each of the categories.

Some of the recommendations of the author is to modify the laws that have been set down to be followed by the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. He has also recommended setting up new committees to oversee collaborations between different departmenst of the administrative system. He has mentioned methods of cutting down on the corruption level in the country. The points mentioned to create an inclusive society is quite an eye-opener.

The amount of understanding and research that the author must have gone through to come up with a step by step representation of the solutions to Indian problems both law as well as administrative is commendable.

To summarize, the book is not for someone who already has a deep understanding of Indian current affairs and limitations of the Indian system. However it could help the politicians and law-makers as a guide to setting better laws and guidelines in ruling the country.

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