Head Count

Ashish Bose

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique
• Humanities

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 07 juin 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184752281
• Langue: English

Extrait

The acronym ‘BIMARU states’ was widely used in the mid-1980s to refer to the population issues of India’s four largest states—Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Ashish Bose, the man who coined this much-discussed term, is the pioneer of demographic studies in the country.
 
In Headcount , the demographer sets the record straight on BIMARU, and in the process, presents his unique view of modern India. In his inimitable engaging style, Bose, who was born in 1930, paints a vivid portrait of a life well-lived—from his childhood in Kolhapur, then a princely state, to his encounters with three generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family and his recollections of the darkest days of Indian democracy: the Emergency. Filled with little-known facts and insights into the people and events that have shaped independent India, this is a deeply compassionate and readable memoir by one of the most important social scientists of modern India.
 
Ashish Bose (b.1930) is Honorary (Emeritus) Professor at the Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi, where he headed the Population Research Centre for several years. Through his long academic career, he has lectured extensively on demography across the world and has taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, the National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, and the National Defence College, New Delhi
 
A member of several government commissions on population and development issues, Bose has also been a keen participant in international conferences on these issues in India and abroad. The author and editor of over twenty-five books, he has been a regular contributor to the Economic and Political Weekly, Health for the Millions and Power Politics .
 
Cover photograph by Raminder Oberoi
Cover design by Puja Ahuja
 
 
 
 
HEADCOUNT
HEADCOUNT
MEMOIRS OF A
DEMOGRAPHER
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ashish Bose
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PENGUIN
VIKING
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
 
First published in Viking by Penguin Books India 2010
 
Copyright © Ashish Bose 2010
 
All rights reserved
 
The views and opinions expressed in this e-book are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by him which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same.
 
ISBN: 978-06-7008-351-0
 
This digital edition published in 2011.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-228-1
 
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this e-book.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
For my sons Jay (Joydeep) and Pro (Pradeep),
who have never faltered in their love and care.
 
 
And for my wife, Manjula,
whose devotion has filled my life with happiness.
CONTENTS
Copyright
Preface
 
FROM NEHRU TO BIMARU
The Enigmatic Pandit Nehru
Nehru’s Shaky Successor: Gulzarilal Nanda
The Benevolent Despot: Indira Gandhi
The Rise and Fall of Sanjay Gandhi
Emergency Temptation: Rajya Sabha Seat!
‘The Future Is Dark’: Atal Bihari Vajpayee
The Story of the Red Triangle
Maverick Raj Narain and the Community Health Debacle
A Pilot in the Prime Minister’s Saddle: Rajiv Gandhi
 
THIS IS THE LIFE!
In the Shadow of a Maharaja
Haunted by Hindu–Muslim Riots in Bengal
In Allahabad, the Oxford of India
Delhi Beckons
My Research Career
The United Nations Circuit
Beauty and Power: Imelda Marcos
A Perfect Gentleman: J.R.D. Tata
Bangladesh’s Revolutionary Rural Doctor: Zafrullah Choudhury
The Mother Teresa of Animals: Crystal Rogers
 
DANGER AND DRAMA
‘Indira Gandhi Will Lose’: A Malishwala’s Election Forecast
Interviewing Rural Folk for the BBC
A BSF Checkpost in Kashmir
Visiting Mumbai after the 26/11 Attack
Yogis, Sadhus and Miracle Men
‘Kaliyug Has Come’: The Illiterate Lawnmower
Facing Death for Killing a Bull
‘Naxalites Do Not Harm the Poor’: A Driver in Andhra Pradesh
Mindless Revenge: Anti-Sikh Riots in Delhi
 
Acknowledgements
PREFACE
 
This is not an autobiography but a collection of random pieces of my writing on several episodes in my life. There is no central thread which runs through these episodes. Whenever I had enough of demographic statistics, I turned to such writing. In this sense, these are my memoirs.
India has the second largest population in the world and has a record of uninterrupted decennial census operations right from 1881 onwards. Much of my professional research was based on the analysis of census data. I was fortunate to be helped in my research work by many census commissioners, right from the 1961 census commissioner, the late Asok Mitra. The census commissioner is responsible for the census operation all over the country—a tremendous responsibility in a vast country like India. Totally dedicated to census work, Mitra had the humility to consult a large number of scholars from different universities and invited them to conferences. Thanks to his benevolence, I was closely associated with the 1961 Census of India. Mitra’s successors also continued in Mitra’s style of functioning and the census office has remained open to all scholars.
The late Professor V.K.R.V. Rao, the founder director of the Delhi School of Economics and also the Institute of Economic Growth took a keen interest in fieldwork, both in rural and urban areas. Professor Rao succeeded in getting a grant from the Ministry of Health of the Government of India, to start a Demographic Research Centre (later renamed the Population Research Centre) at the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi University. Fieldwork allotments were included in the budget and I enjoyed doing fieldwork in rural areas. We were primarily interested in fertility behaviour and the practice of family planning because of the ministry of Health’s directive, but the glimpse of reality we got from fieldwork can never be substituted by numerous census volumes loaded with statistics.
I did serve as UN resource person in several important conferences, notably, the second, third and fourth Asian Population Conferences at Colombo (1972), Tokyo (1982) and Bali (1992). Some of my stories included here refer to these conferences.
In Delhi, it is impossible to remain aloof from political and diplomatic activity. It so happened that when I came to Delhi for my higher studies, my maternal uncle, the late Anil Chanda, who was secretary to Rabindranath Tagore at Santiniketan, was elected to the Lok Sabha from Bolpur constituency in West Bengal. Here in Delhi, he was drafted by Pandit Nehru as deputy foreign minister. As a result, as the president of the Gwyer Hall Students’ Union in Delhi University, I could occasionally invite ambassadors of other nations to address us.
Anil Chanda’s elder brother, Ashok Chanda, was the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, one of the highest constitutional functionaries of India. He too often invited me home. There, I got to know one of Ashok Chanda’s best friends, Air Marshal Subroto Mukherjee, then chief of the Indian Air Force.
Though I have been involved in several governmental commissions and committees set up by the government from time to time, I have never been tempted to join the government. The academic freedom I enjoyed in the Institute of Economic Growth permitted me to live my life like an adventure.
 
New Delhi
Ashish Bose
26 January 2010
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I
FROM NEHRU TO BIMARU
1
THE ENIGMATIC PANDIT NEHRU
 
I had always been fascinated by Jawaharlal Nehru’s speeches. I was still a student at Allahabad University when I first heard him at a public lecture. While the mikes were being tested, my friend whispered, ‘Do you know Pandit Nehru once slapped an electrician when his mike failed?’ Another friend added, ‘Of course, he would do that even now—he is an aristocrat after all!’
At that time, I knew very little Hindi, the language Nehru spoke. But, in spite of this linguistic handicap, I adored Nehru for his unique voice, style of speech and the magnetic spell he cast on his listeners. Over the years, I found that there was a direct correlation between the eloquence of Nehru’s speeches and the strength of the crowd which had come to hear him speak. Nehru was at his best when the crowd exceeded 50,000 people! Once, some newspapers reported that, when about one million people had turned up to hear him in Calcutta, Nehru was so moved that his eyes filled with tears.
 
∗ ∗ ∗
 
I was a doctoral student at Delhi Uni