This introduction will give a feeling of deja vu for those who have read P Srinath’s ‘Everybody loves a Good Drought’. Finally, either a small portion or nothing reaches the ultimate beneficiary after the politicians, the low-level officials, the middle men take their cut.

I am not sure whether it is out of helplessness or plain indifference.Īs an introductory chapter, he takes us to Bihar (our showpiece for dystopia and anarchy) and the state of utter lawlessness, leakages in the PDS and the pathetic state of affairs in the hinterlands of India (think education, sanitation, public health) where the doles / largesse of the government is usurped by all and sundry who can dip into it. By the time you reach the end of the book – you get depressed at the state of the affairs which most of know but feign ignorance. Some are so venal that you feel ashamed – leakages in the public distribution system, crony capitalism, wilful subversion of rules to suit some, extreme cases of skulduggery and political chicanery by our rising Industrialists….and the list continues. He peels the layers of the onion and goes beyond our normal self-congratulatory themes of success and discovers a host of ills. As we celebrate the success of Indian democracy and the multiple social development programs for the poor and also the rapid rise of free enterprise and all that it does to the India shining story – he digs below the surface.

The book is like a summary of some of the stories that put India to shame in the last 2 decades.

A Feast of Vultures by Josy Joseph