South African-born Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee published three novels about a writer named John Coetzee at PAGE the turn of this century. These ‘autofictions’ are Books 9 named Boyhood, Youth and Summertime. DECCAN CHRONICLE SUNDAY | 24 NOVEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD Sharp economics offers glimpse of Guide to Islam doesn’t answer Swamy we never had some questions ubramanian Swamy is Reset is a well-crafted Legacy, Swamy quite articulate- words. This is the Swamy we Mohammed Anas a brilliant man. His study. It racily traces the ly and even brilliantly explains never had. educational lineage history of India’s economy, the reasons for India’s present However, the useful part of the Mohan says it all. He was edu- predicament. He confirms what book effectively ends at page from the colonial exploita- review Scated at Delhi’s Hindu most economists of any stand- 171. Then there is a sixteen-page Guruswamy College, Indian Institute of tion to the lost opportuni- ing have been saying. The econ- appendix; I suspect an after- Statistics, Calcutta and ties due to the mindless omy is tanking. He writes that thought, “Towards A New Harvard University where he the “decline in GDP growth will Ideology of Integral Human- hat is the Muslim belief ? What is Islam? How review obtained a PhD in Economics at Central Planning bureau- continue into this financial ism” which is a restatement of have Muslims lived over the years? When did the age of twenty-six in 1965, cratic web, the missed year, dropping to below even the accumulated RSS gibberish and the phenomenon of Islamism enter the where his guide was the Nobel industrialisation and the 5.8 percent annual equivalent some notions propounded by its WMuslim world? How did it find acceptance Laureate Simon Kuznets. Soon missed opportunities of Q1 rate”. Indeed it is. The true leading thinkers like Madhav and resistance within the community? How did organi- after he joined the faculty as an UPA 1 and 2. GDP growth many suspect is Sadashiv Golwalkar and Deen sations like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and assistant professor. While at even lower than that. To but- Dayal Upadhyaya. It concludes Syria (ISIS) come into being and how were they accept- Harvard he was also a resident tress that Swamy quotes anoth- “Now in 2019, India’s GDP is the ed or rejected by them? How do and how should the non- tutor at Lowell House, an inter- Vajpayee felt threatened by er Subramaniam (Arvind) who third largest in the world after Islamic (outside) world and the West look at Islam and esting position since it also enti- Swamy and his overt ambitions. has discovered post exit perspi- USA and China. India has the Muslims? Ed Husain, Britain-based radical-turned- tles the appointee a set of rooms Swamy made few bones that he cacity to opine that growth may potential to move ahead of scholar, ventures to answer all these questions and helps in the hall of residence with a saw himself as a future Prime actually be about 2.5 percent China in the next ten years and readers understand the House of Islam (the Islamic way wood fireplace. When I took this Minister. He could have been, if less than officially claimed. To then challenge the USA because of life and its worldview) in his book of the same name. position in 1982, I got the same his temperament and overween- be sure Swamy doesn’t see any of Indian demonstrated capaci- Husain, whose earlier work, The Islamist, was a best- set of rooms. The coincidences ing ambition didn’t overtake optimism in the immediate ty to innovate new technologies seller, has been associated with Quilliam, a British didn't end there. When I was him. But Vajpayee and Advani horizon. To buttress this feel- for faster growth”. The last think tank dedicated to promote dialogue among reli- given a room at the now saw to it that Swamy left the ing, he helpfully quotes Dr great RSS innovation of new gions and champion moderate interpretations of them. Harvard Institute of Inter BJP. Rathin Roy, till recently a mem- technologies was when the In House of Islam, Husain applies the curiosity of a national Development (now Incidentally, such was ber of the PM’s Economic “nuclear physicist” Dr Murli layman rather than the convictions of a theologian to Center for International Swamy's standing as an econo- Advisory Council, that the Manohar Joshi in 1996 understand Islam, its history and its followers. He her- Development) on 1737 mist, the World Bank relied on a novice Finance Minister has discovered Ramar Pillai Ramar alds his approach with a quote of Averroes, the apostle Cambridge Street, I was allotted study by Harvard Professor fudged the budget figures and from a Tamil Nadu village who of reasoning among Islamic philosophers, who comfort- the room he once used. But Dwight Perkins and him to that for the “Budget Estimates claimed to be able to transmute ed his weeping disciples that even if people burn books, coincidences happily stop there. downgrade China’s per capita (BE) to be credible, revenue water to gasoline by a herbal ideas transcend aeons to reach the minds of thinking I wouldn’t claim anything close GDP to entitle it for the receipts will need to rise by a formula that he claimed was the people. to Swamy’s academic accom- concessional IDA credit. This whopping 1.1 percent of the result of a miraculous bush It is these ideas with which Husain tries to convey and plishments and brilliance. also ensured that India’s share GDP, while the Union Budget Boswellia ovalifoliolata. Thanks bust many a myth about the birth and travel of Islam When he was teaching eco- of low cost IDA credit was just allows for 0.12 percent to Joshi, Pillai from Mecca to the rest of the world. For Husain, Islam is nomics at Harvard, Swamy almost halved. It is little wonder increase!” obtained 20 acres of land to cul- essentially a religion of philanthropes, even though con- caught the attention of a RSS then that Chairman Deng Reset is a well-crafted and tivate his bush. But in fact it flicts of myriad hues inflicted the world of Islam from ideologue, Madhavrao Mulay, Xiaoping received both of them articulated study of what ails turned out that he was using the very beginning of who invited him back to India. in the Great Hall in Beijing. the India economy. It racily sleight of hand to substitute the post-Prophetic In 1974 Swamy was found a Swamy, like Perkins is a traces the history of India’s kerosene for the liquid he period. He quotes the place in the Rajya Sabha as a Mandarin speaker, and is also economy, from the colonial claimed to have derived from Prophet, “Islam began Jan Sangh member from UP. reputed as an expert on the exploitation to the lost opportu- the bush. In October 2016 Pillai as a stranger. One day, His tenure in the upper house Chinese economy. The govern- nities due to the mindless and an associate were convicted it will again return to ended when the Congress party ment of India could have bene- Central Planning bureaucratic of fraud and sentenced to three being a stranger.” had him expelled from fitted much by listening to him web, the missed industrialisa- years RI. The Prophet's predic- RESET: REGAINING INDIA'S Parliament for his now famous on this experience, but Arun tion and the missed opportuni- tion finds echoes in Scarlet Pimpernel act during Jaitely saw to it that he didn’t ties of UPA 1 and 2. It has none The writer, a policy analyst tomes of literature and ECONOMIC LEGACY the Emergency. Swamy didn’t get Modi’s ear. of the “I think and I believe” studying economic and security journalistic endeav- just invite Indira Gandhi’s bale- If he did perhaps the Indian stuff Indian thinkers and lead- issues, held senior positions ours produced to sub- by Subramaniam Swamy ful attention. He also invited economy wouldn’t be in the ers are prone to. It is replete in government and industry. tly call for the reinter- Rupa, `499 Atal Behari Vajpayee’s baleful mess it is in now. In Reset: with data to support every con- He also specialises in the pretation of Islam and attentions. For some reason Regaining India’s Economic clusion and doesn’t mince Chinese economy. sternly demonise Islam and its followers because of the birth of extremist organisa- tions in West Asia, Africa and Asia. The power and pathos of Sonagachi’s mysterious world Husain sees rise of such organisations as direct result of the minedly on her quest to get a who is to be broken in, the novice retired life. It is a woman-centric elsewhere. It was therefore best West-incited conflicts new angle on the children who who is in the process of learning book filled with power and to accept this truth and make the in the Muslims world featured in the award-winning the skills of her trade, the pathos but the irony is that the most of it. and the literalist Devi Kar documentary film, Born into sought-after expert who is at the world of Sonagachi has been The author begins the novel explanation of the reli- THE HOUSE OF ISLAM: Brothels. Her 500-word article peak of her career, the veteran built around the lust of men. with her discovery of the child gious texts by ortho- was duly carried by her paper who mentors and then there is Golapi’s husband and in-laws Lakshmi of the famed documen- dox ulema (clerics).