Boom review: Indianomix Making Sense of Modern India
The book draws from a potpourri of academic work to show Indians are far from inscrutable.
Indianomix: Making Sense of Modern India
By Vivek Dehejia and Rupa Subramanya
Random House India
Pages: 219; Price: Rs 399
For most people, the name Shatrughan Sinha triggers images of a movie star whose screen mannerisms and dialogue delivery were often more popular than the movies he acted in. Some might recollect he was once India's health minister as well. However, it is unlikely memories of Sinha the health minister will ever overwhelm those of the movie star.
But towards the end of November 2012, there was a moment when some journalists might have wondered about Sinha's prescience as health minister. A decade earlier, a US government agency had predicted India would have about 20 to 25 million people with HIV/AIDS by 2010. The forecast drew a sharp reaction from Health Minister Sinha who felt it was alarmist.
In 2012, official statistics showed that only about 2.1 million people had HIV/AIDS, making India an example of a success story in dealing with the virus. Another way of looking at it would be that the magnitude of the challenge was overstated due to mistakes by foreign agencies while making projections for India. Sinha was proved right. HIV/AIDS no longer makes for the screaming headlines it did a decade ago.
India's experience with HIV and many other developments are used by Vivek Dehejia, an economist, and Rupa Subramanya, a journalist, to probe patterns of behaviour in the country. This book uses a potpourri of academic research in social sciences to demystify Indian behaviour. Indians are anything but inscrutable, the book suggests.
Economics, more than other streams of the social sciences, underpins the book. Its approach is similar to that of the bestselling Freakonomics by economist Steven D. Levitt, which used economic concepts as the reference framework to explain everyday riddles.
There has of course been similar work on India before. This country has for long attracted social scientists who saw it as one big lab to hone their skills. A good example would be the almost four-decade-old work of George Akerlof, who won the Economics Nobel in 2001.
An interesting section of the book recounts work done on why poor people seem prone to using their instinct and intuition rather than rational decision making. The poor tend to have less slack, making them prone to relying on gut feel as the best option, the book says. To get a sense of what the book is getting at, consider an unrelated issue.
In 2007, before T20 cricket overwhelmed India, and became extremely lucrative, Mahendra Singh Dhoni had to make a difficult decision. In a pulsating World Cup final against Pakistan, Dhoni had to decide which of his players would bowl the match's last over with the opposition within striking distance of victory. In an audacious decision, Dhoni turned to little-known Joginder Sharma. Sharma, who never donned the India colours again, turned out to be an unlikely hero as India won the cup.
Dhoni has seldom subsequently displayed similar audacity in decision making. It begs the question: has he become a more rational decision taker as stakes of all kinds have increased? The book coherently brings together a host of research to help the reader make more sense of the world, including the mind of Mr Dhoni.
Sanjiv Shankaran
By Vivek Dehejia and Rupa Subramanya
Random House India
Pages: 219; Price: Rs 399
For most people, the name Shatrughan Sinha triggers images of a movie star whose screen mannerisms and dialogue delivery were often more popular than the movies he acted in. Some might recollect he was once India's health minister as well. However, it is unlikely memories of Sinha the health minister will ever overwhelm those of the movie star.
But towards the end of November 2012, there was a moment when some journalists might have wondered about Sinha's prescience as health minister. A decade earlier, a US government agency had predicted India would have about 20 to 25 million people with HIV/AIDS by 2010. The forecast drew a sharp reaction from Health Minister Sinha who felt it was alarmist.
An interesting section of the book covers work done on explaining why poor people seem to be more inclined to rely on instinct and intuition rather than rational decision making
India's experience with HIV and many other developments are used by Vivek Dehejia, an economist, and Rupa Subramanya, a journalist, to probe patterns of behaviour in the country. This book uses a potpourri of academic research in social sciences to demystify Indian behaviour. Indians are anything but inscrutable, the book suggests.
Economics, more than other streams of the social sciences, underpins the book. Its approach is similar to that of the bestselling Freakonomics by economist Steven D. Levitt, which used economic concepts as the reference framework to explain everyday riddles.
There has of course been similar work on India before. This country has for long attracted social scientists who saw it as one big lab to hone their skills. A good example would be the almost four-decade-old work of George Akerlof, who won the Economics Nobel in 2001.
An interesting section of the book recounts work done on why poor people seem prone to using their instinct and intuition rather than rational decision making. The poor tend to have less slack, making them prone to relying on gut feel as the best option, the book says. To get a sense of what the book is getting at, consider an unrelated issue.
In 2007, before T20 cricket overwhelmed India, and became extremely lucrative, Mahendra Singh Dhoni had to make a difficult decision. In a pulsating World Cup final against Pakistan, Dhoni had to decide which of his players would bowl the match's last over with the opposition within striking distance of victory. In an audacious decision, Dhoni turned to little-known Joginder Sharma. Sharma, who never donned the India colours again, turned out to be an unlikely hero as India won the cup.
Dhoni has seldom subsequently displayed similar audacity in decision making. It begs the question: has he become a more rational decision taker as stakes of all kinds have increased? The book coherently brings together a host of research to help the reader make more sense of the world, including the mind of Mr Dhoni.
Sanjiv Shankaran
