Unmaking the Indian muddle
Citizenship and National Identity, edited by T.K. Oommen. Sage Publications, New Delhi. Pp 324. Rs 375.

Strange world of
Sartre & Simone
Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre: The Remaking of a Twentieth Century Legend by Kate Fullbrook and Edward Fullbrook. Basic Books, New York. $14.

Of selling pleasure
Marketing Nuggets by S. Ramesh Kumar. Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi. Pp. 362. Rs 395.

Oh, those blood-splattered partition days!
India Partitioned: The Other Face Of Freedom, edited by Mushirul Hasan. 1947-1997 Jubilee Edition. The Lotus Collection, Roli Books, New Delhi. Volume 1 and 2. Pp. 295+298. Rs 595.

Women on women — a revelation
The Fiftieth Milestone: A Feminine Critique edited by Shanta Sarbjeet Singh & Jyoti Sabharwal. Sterling Publishers, New Delhi. Pp. 331. Rs 450

Unmaking the Indian muddle

Citizenship and National Identity, edited by T.K. Oommen. Sage Publications, New Delhi. Pp 324. Rs 375.

THE question of relationship between citizenship and national identity is of vital importance for states even if placed in radically different situations in terms of history, geography and levels of development and modernisation. This collection of nine essays by scholars from all continents is part of the reflection of worldwide concern. Prof Oommen, one of our leading social scientists, has situated the theme in a rigorously argued introduction. For this he creates his own definitional framework and therefore, his analysis is necessarily reductionist in nature.

For Oommen, nation is a people with a homeland and at least a common language. It is a cultural concept. “Ethnie” as distinct from “ethnic” is a nation without a homeland. Citizenship denotes civic entitlements and obligations in a state which is a political entity. Citizenship is acquired while membership of a nation is inherited. Nation involves identity while the essential of citizenship is equality. Therefore, the problem is of the relationship between identity and equality.

Massive movement of people over the centuries has created states with more than one nation. Many a nation has been divided into two or more states. Some states are merely a collection of ethnies while in others there is a dominant nation and a dominated ethnie. Colonisation created ad hoc administrative units without regard to cultural, linguistic or tribal affinities, obliterating some and pushing the others to inaccessible jungles. The oustees created a local group akin to their culture and adept at their language. It is to this that they transferred the power ultimately. This group sticks to the same boundary that it inherited.

Added to this is the phenomenon of globalisation whittling down the sovereignty in favour of various international regimes. The demand for greater local autonomy by various group interests from below and the pressure exerted by worldwide human rights and green movements from sideways have made the concept of a nation state, such as Germany and Italy, redundant. The feudal hegemonistic model of a dominant nation suppressing an ethnie is not possible and the pluralistic model of the USSR type in which nations could live together in terms of equality within a state and citizenship and nationality could be separated, has failed because nations could not be treated equally. This comes in conflict with pan-continental themes of revolutionaries taking their inspiration from communist revolutions, on the one hand, and assertions of local tribal or ethnic aspirations for reorganisation of polities, on the other hand.

States have tried to cope in various ways with varying degrees of success. Some have resorted to limited autonomy of regions as in the UK. Some have made it compulsory for ethnies to learn the language and manners of the dominant nation to claim equality as in France. Japan has resorted to the creation of hierarchies of civil entitlements with built-in scope of mobility. Former colonies, on the one hand, face the demand of tribal or national assertion and, on the other hand, deal with revolutionary pan-continental movements inspired by universal ideologies.

Oommen’s view is that minimising the identity requirement of nation to a common language with a common homeland, inherited by the dominant or adopted by the ethnie, with citizenship as an instrument to moderate the hegemony can provide some relief. For this, clarity of concepts for theory-building is necessary. This is his defence of his framework. Whether this minimisation of requirement for identity is possible or necessary and whether this can ensure the entitlements to a citizen are issues we can now examine while looking at the applicability of the thesis of Oommen to India, the most complicated polity on this earth from the angle of identity and equality.

Oommen’s fundamental proposition is that Indian society is formed through a process of accretion of immigrants and dislocation of original inhabitants, only example of the later being the dislocation of the Dravidians, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes due to the Aryans invasion. All these are highly contentious propositions. The Aryans neither created nor uprooted the existing Scheduled Castes — namely, the untouchables or even the Shudras. These are later Indian institutions.

Some tribes, whom we have lumped together and started calling the Aryans, at the most in groups of some hundreds, crossed over into India over the centuries. Looking to the productive conditions of the times, they could hardly gather mass and a commonality of ideology as to take over the entire Aryavrata at one go or within a short time and to survive after driving away the original inhabitants. Development of tribal Vedic or more imperial Vedanta philosophy is purely an Indian development of later times.

Oommen probably still believes in the discredited assimilative theory of the creation of the institution of caste. Mainstream Indian civilisation has been largely confined to river valleys whatever be the accretions. None drove away the original inhabitants to inaccessible parts. There is no parallel with the white invasions of the Americas or Africa. Invading Aryans did not impose Sanskrit. Panini was a hundred per cent Indian. Aryavrata as the fatherland of Aryans is an Indian concept given by Manu.

We cannot ignore, as Oommen does, the cultural contribution of native pan-Indian empires like Buddhism of the Mauryans and Brahmanism of Shungmitra, Guptas and Vardhans. Contribution of Islam and the West is well established. There was no foundational mixing with Islam. Largely it created mixed little local traditions.

He emphasises the terms “desh” (homeland) and “videsh” (foreign land) commonly used in India to mean one’s own cultural zone and the other’s cultural zone to point out the mental make-up behind the demand for homelands and expulsion of others in various parts in India. Examples however relate to areas which were on the periphery of river valley civilisation and whose administrative integration is a post-colonial event. Protest over illegal foreign immigration endangering the political entitlement of the citizen is not a uniquely Indian phenomenon. The important fact is of repeated attempts at pan-Indian cultural integration (not Hindu only) in the river valleys in spite of repeated political disintegration. Can we define “nation” as a people who have repeatedly shown a willingness to live together?

The three religious arguments — (1) Hindus are the original inhabitants of Hindustan; (2) Savarkar’s argument of Hindu cultural polity and (3) India being a nation of pure Hindus — have been rightly condemned for well-known reasons. However, there are two more strands of the role of religion in the making of the Indian nation.

The contact with the West led to a strong reinterpretation of Vedanta (not Hinduism) as a monotheist religion with humanist values. Reformist zeal imparted by the Prarthna Sabhas and Brahmo Samaj reached the pinnacle with Vivekanand. Its humanism skirted the issue of caste by emphasising renunciation of worldly possessions by the Brahmin and the present need for the virtue of “rajas”.

It deeply influenced the English-educated elite leading the freedom movement, including Nehru. Romantically, it was the marriage of eastern spirituality with western materialism. This has given us our Constitution with its fundamental rights and individual freedom; its modern bureaucratic structure and its centralising tendencies; its modernising project and its schism with tradition and its equality — meritocracy protecting the privileged. This is operated at two levels. It is humanist to those who are conversant with its institutions. It is most feudal in operation in the case of the “other”. This is the other’s alienation and indifference. He is the outsider and the exploited.

Indian Islam’s contact with the West revived similar monotheism, free of Arab imperialism, respectful of legal institutions as developed in India, wanting a Muslim homeland within India. Staring with Sir Sayyed, Iqbal became its best spokesman. Jinnah’s fear of loss of power to provinces created a separate Pakistan. This is parallel with Indian elite’s insistence on centralised authority even at the cost of partition.

Language cannot be separated from religion in terms of culture, symbols, myths and nuances. Unlike anywhere else in the world, linguistic reorganisation was not problematic here. The problem with Urdu is not one of script or of world stock as much as it is of culture, history and religion as pointed out by Iqbal Masood or Shahabuddin. Denial of pre-Islamic local history, insistence on images of armed, world conquering Islam killing or converting the infidels and destroying the idols in the land of the convert is part of this problem. Minimisation of identification requirement to language is difficult and inadequate. Models based on western experience deny the complexity of India. Reductionism leads to fitting of facts to theories. For Oommen caste is not material.

India requires massive decentralisation, may be a three-tier system to give power to the people, to look for mutual adjustments and solution at the local level. It requires openness. It requires individualised approach to the non-river valley area and border area traditionally having intimate social intercourse with neighbours outside India. It requires positive discrimination and not mere constitutional equality. It requires abolition of caste. It has to deny monolithic monotheism of all.

It also requires Gandhi’s religious eclecticism respectful of little local traditions of mutually mixed symbols, respectful of “evils” that have diluted the fundamentalist propositions for mutual survival. It has to unbundle trade, transport and communications nationally and even unilaterally with neighbours. All this without denying the role of local Indian religious traditions underlying the creation of this nation, or should we say, state.
— G.V. Gupta

Oh, those blood-splattered partition days!

India Partitioned: The Other Face Of Freedom, edited by Mushirul Hasan. 1947-1997 Jubilee Edition. The Lotus Collection, Roli Books, New Delhi. Volume 1 and 2. Pp. 295+298. Rs 595.

THE partition of India into India and Pakistan is an event of major significance in the history of our nation. The question whether partition was inevitable or not is as much a matter of controversy now as it was in the mid-40s. Whatever the causes and whatever the questions, the fact remains that partition pained and like all surgical amputations, it could not cure, just cut at the ailment.

“India Partitioned’’ is a collection of writings by a wide variety of men and women who had lived the days of partition, and in their writings of those times one senses the trauma this part of the country went through. Most of the writers are now well-known figures in various fields of creativity, and almost all of these works have been published elsewhere either as a chapter of a novel or in a collection of short stories and poetry.

These pieces are not limited to being part of popular literature of that period. Included in these volumes is also a large collection of traditional historical sources like the pamphlets being circulated by the Muslim League, diaries of those who were in one way or the other witness to the grotesque events of those days, and even memoirs in the form of interview with those who had been tragically affected by the events of August, 1947.

The striking feature of these two volumes is the great variety it offers to the reader who is bombarded with an almost endless range of possible reactions to this event. What runs as a thread is the commonality of concerns and a basic unity of thought. The desensitisation of the mobs, the conspicuous awareness of mutual differences between the two communities are all too obvious in almost all anecdotes.

The first volume starts with an introduction by the editor who provides a historical background of the major events which led to partition, focussing on the activities of the Muslims League and its mobilisation campaign. What freedom meant to the various groups and what Pakistan meant and symbolised to the Muslims is also discussed in the introduction. The last part portrays the silent loneliness of divided hearts, broken homes, lost fortunes and uprooted families.

The works collected in the first volume seek to encapsulate three overarching themes: the Muslim League campaigns, the meaning attached to the two-nation theory, the bloody legacy of partition and the nightmare of millions uprooted from their homes and separated from their families and friends. This division proves rather arbitrary and needless as the stories and poems stand on their own merit and are well written and equally well translated proving a literary delight.

The stories by Saadat Hasan Manto, Rahi Masoom Raza, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Vishnu Prabhakar, Bhisham Sahni, Krishna Sobti and Ismat Chughtai are very readable though the translated version of Fikr Taunsavi’s work does not do full justice to the acute sensitivity of the author to human tragedies knitted with his natural flow of humour and sometimes puzzling images of fun and frolic.

Saadat Hasan Manto’s works are an eye opener for even those who are not totally new to the story of partition and have heard about it from those who went through it. It provides vivid images of the looting and plunder by the mobs during riots and a variety of anecdotes bring to the reader a whiff of those times, the contradictions of marginal life wrought in crisis and the various adjustments the victims made to cope with the crisis.

The most readable of the poems included in the first volume is the translation of a famous poem of Faiz Ahmed Faiz called “The morning of freedom’’. The Urdu version reads much better but this translated one gets the message across of how the day of freedom was not a moment of happiness but one of anguish, pain, unfulfilled hopes and expectations.

The second volume draws from diaries, more poems, memoirs, excerpts from autobiographies, accounts of riots and four unpublished interviews. The second volume is supposed to bring home two points. First, the varied individual and collective experiences and second, the complex nature of the Pakistan movement itself.

The diary of Ganda Singh, a noted historian of the Sikhs, provides valuable information for a scholar working on the history of partition. Khushdev Singh, a medical doctor who served the riot-affected people at Dharampur, wrote his memory of those days, parts of which find their way into this volume and is an interesting piece to read.

Excerpts from the memoirs of Kamla Devi Chattopadhyaya and Badruddin Tayabji have focused on the riot-hit Delhi city, while the memoirs of Aruna Asaf Ali speak of illogical manner in which patriotism had been interpreted. Parts of K.A. Abbas’s autobiography tells in his own inimitable style how the city of Bombay was affected during partition.

Interviews with Kamlabehn Patil and Lakshmi Sehgal, both involved in the struggle for freedom at some point during partition, make it rather clear how partition proved to be the biggest disillusionment for those who had dreamt of a nation free from all differences, where the mind would be without fear and the head held high.

Interviews with residents of two villages which were seriously affected by post-partition riots, make interesting reading and one realises how subjectively and variously the truth can be interpreted. Amrik Singh, a school teacher of Doberan village, is convinced that the attackers of the village were outsiders and those who were killed were martyrs.

Similarly, Simret Singh, a witness to the riots of Rawalpindi, had an even gorier tale to tell. In his Thamali village a large number of Sikhs were killed when a mob set fire to the gurdwara they were seeking shelter in. Recalling this incident, Simret Singh tells about the Muslims who had helped save them and how the “shahidi’’ of those who were killed is remembered each year on the same day.

It is creditable that this volume does not miss out on the stories the man on the street had to tell of the partition days. These were the men and women who suffered and breathed the smoke others could just see rising and comment upon. The views of these men and women counts and without these, this volume would certainly have been incomplete.

The second volume ends with a translation of Amrita Pritam’s famous poem, “Aj aakhan Waaris Shah noo’’ the poem in itself is a masterpiece and conveys in a few lines the kind of pain that would be said in a thousand words and still not seem enough.

The volumes are well edited. Mushirul Hasan, a historian himself, has taken care of even the most minor details, trying to get the picture closest to the truth across, especially since most of the works have been translated, a few cases of distortion are inevitable. Along with the introduction are comprehensive prefaces to both volumes and a glossary ends the second volume.

The books are attractively bound and would occupy a place of pride in any bookshelf. The frontispieces are illustrated with drawings by Krishen Khanna who made these during partition and post-partition years and are included to represent those years through an artist’s vision.

If this set of two volumes is designed to support and supplement historical literature on India’s partition unfolding some aspects of the epic tragedy with the aids of stories, poems, diaries, eye-witness accounts, etc., it does a good job. But priced at Rs 595, not many of the target audience would be able to afford it.

But in case it is supposed to stand as a witness to the hypocrisy, barbarity, recklessness and ultimately the absurdity of communalist thought and move the reader, one would imagine that a collection of the original stories and poems along with the translated versions would make the effort much more effective. The sensitivity and sensibility of the writer’s work has to be retained in order to sensitise the reader.
— Chitleen K. Sethi

Strange world of Sartre & Simone

Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre: The Remaking of a Twentieth Century Legend by Kate Fullbrook and Edward Fullbrook. Basic Books, New York. $14.

THERE is a magicality in the past that attracts us to it. We may not appreciate much the professions of the historian but we always try to learn more about history through our own sources and devices. This has had a curious consequence; while books written by historians normally rot in the literary wasteland, those history books written by non-historians exert a major influence on our thinking. At times they also work to demolish the myths that historians might have inadvertently created.

The present book by the Fullbrooks is one such. It looks into the details of the early life of Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir together. In the process it rounds off the genius of Sartre and de Beauvoir, highlights their various insecurities and their coping strategies, revises much of the already known details about their relationship and gives a new meaning to the adage that behind every successful man there is a woman.

Jean Paul Sartre had been the only son of his widowed mother, living with his grandparents. A doting mother, a loving grandmother, and a stern and overbearing grandfather provided young Jean Paul with a household which was quite overtly literate. Jean Paul learnt early to value books and the learning was seen as a source of pleasure and power.

His grandfather himself was a small-time writer. Everyone within the family took great pride in the books that the patriarch had written. The result of all this was that Jean Paul quite early in his life decided to devote himself to becoming a great writer.

In the process of growing up, we are told that he also came to realise that he was uncommonly ugly. Showing an ability to convert even a disadvantage into something useful, Sartre quickly learnt to please others by the force of his personality. At school his teachers soon realised that he was more impressive as a talker than as a writer. The charm that Sartre exuded as an adult was the result of considerable conscious effort.

However, all his charm failed to help him win girlfriends. To win the admiration of his male classmates he forced his mother’s maid to fabricate a letter to him recalling their good times together in Paris hotel rooms. But the truth was soon out, much to his embarrassment.

As a student he performed indifferently, sometimes being the genius of the school and at others barely being able to get through his exams. Having obtained entry into one of the elite academies, he managed to flunk his tests and was thrown out. At the academy he persisted with his desire to be a great writer and made friends who would become intellectual and administrative leaders of the world in their own right.

The one creative thing, however, that he did do here was to lose his virginity to a seasoned young actress who also dabbled in being a high class prostitute. Sartre she loved and not for his money, for he had little. The relationship continued over the years till she died in 1967 at the age of 60. Her permanent gift to Sartre and to the rest of the book-reading world was her efforts to get his early writings published, which were being constantly rejected by publishers when Sartre offered them on his own.

A while later he became enamoured of the lover of his friend, one Simone de Beauvoir, but it took him three months to get to talk to her and many more to convince her of his suit. As the Fullbrooks retell the story of de Beauvoir and Sartre, it becomes clear that she took him more seriously than he took himself. The Fullbrooks also establish that many of the early ideas that Sartre claimed as his own were actually hers even though she traced their intellectual origin to her discussions with Sartre.

The authors of this volume point out many such instances, some of which could be easily considered to be an act of plagiarism had de Beauvoir insisted on claiming credit for them. Instead of doing so, she rather tried to negate herself and pass on the credit to Sartre. It makes one wonder how prolific with ideas de Beauvoir must have been to be able yield many of her ideas to Sartre and still have enough left to claim as her own.

While trying to impress the young Simone, Sartre managed to fail his exams and was thrown out of the academy. This, however, did not lower him in the eyes of his newfound love who continued to believe that he was the smartest thinker in history and had the potential of being the most influential writer of his time. This was an opinion she would continue to hold all her life.

There were only two drawbacks in Simone’s happy imagination of her lover which she would point out on occasion. First, that his ideas, such as they were, were incomprehensible to anyone, including himself. Two, that he could not write fiction well. The Fullbrooks deftly reconstruct this story of de Beauvoir’s misgiving and bring to light the sexual and psychological tensions under which the two lived.

Sartre also impressed the young de Beauvoir with his rejection of the institution of marriage. It had to be an intellectual partnership. Soon thereafter when he began to insist that they have a proper marriage it was she who reminded him of his own beliefs. Later there were occasions when Sartre, now acknowledged to be a great philosopher, on the verge of marrying some young woman whom he had bedded for a few days, would be reminded by de Beauvoir of his publicly stated position on marriage.

Lest we become judgmental about Sartre’s mating habits, the Fullbrooks point out that both he and de Beauvoir, she more than he, chose multiple partners of both sexes. At the same time, as part of their mutual truthfulness they fully shared details of each mating episode, thereby revelling in vicarious enjoyment, hopefully without the knowledge of their concerned partners. For her at least this sharing of information provided rich details for her more influential writings. It was quite evident that these two great minds of the present century were living with a morality which was very different from the normal.

All in all, the Fullbrooks have written a very readable book which provides interesting insights into the lives, literature and ideas of Sartre and de Beauvoir.
— Rajiv Lochan

Women on women — a revelation

The Fiftieth Milestone: A Feminine Critique edited by Shanta Sarbjeet Singh & Jyoti Sabharwal. Sterling Publishers, New Delhi. Pp. 331. Rs 450

IT was a pleasant surprise when the book review editor asked me, a mere male, to review “A Feminine Critique”, judging by the virtual stranglehold Indian women reviewers have on everything that appears to be vaguely connected with affairs feminine.

What is the male point of view of the scorecard women have prepared of their achievements, or the lack of them, in the past 50 years of independence? To go by this book, well, I have no hesitation in granting the ladies two “goods” as Pankaj Kapur of the erstwhile Colgate Top Ten would exclaim on the idiot box. One “good” for the editors having had the good sense to bring out this collection, and the other “good” for all the women who have struggled in a male-dominated society and carved out an impressive space for themselves in India’s social and power bases:

A galaxy of writers who expectedly are all women except for two male “intruders” in columnist Praful Bidwai and psychiatrist Biswajit Sen, have come together to give a fairly penetrating and vivid account of the journey of women since freedom. They cover all aspects of professional, economic, social, literary and political life and the direction they see their gender taking in the next millennium. The future holds both promise and a challenge for the Indian female who, not surprisingly, talk in many voices.

Heading the pack is Bachi Karkaria of The Times of India, who while narrating the bias present against women journalists as late as 1969, tells her own story. While looking for her first job with the Amrita Bazar Patrika in Calcutta, she was brushed off politely with a “but we don’t have a ladies’ toilet” excuse.

But then there were the persistent category too, who swam against the tide and stuck it out. Like an “Aunty Wendy” role model, Fatima Zakaria of the Illustrated Weekly of India and The Times of India group who, according to Karkaria, had administrative ability but “modest” writing skills, making her “one of the earliest targets of the kind of salacious odium that still attaches itself to the trajectory of ambitious women, even those with clearly manifest professional talents”.

Bachi Karkaria says that women venturing into the world of print, especially the newspaper, have now covered much ground despite their late start, and are poised for “a breakthrough to the top”. The way women have switched over from the “soft” stories to hard ones like Sucheta Dalal’s scoop on the Harshad Mehta scam, would indicate just that. I would like to think that some of our male editors-in-chief and editors should get their act together before they find their chairs occupied by the handbag and satchel brigade.

Amrita Pritam (“I was far ahead of my times”) writes about a woman’s self and poetry. She feels that “women connect with poetry more naturally because they are more inward-looking. They can go into their own psyche.” “They are dictated to by their being” and more often than not are dependant on the male, or the “breadgiver”, as she says in this poem. “My bread-winner/I am a doll of flesh/For you to play with/I am a cup of young blood/For you to drink/I stand before you/Ready for use”. This was written many years ago, and even today women from the weaker classes and those who are not economically independent, are going through the same travails as their predecessors.

Neerja Chowdhury, the political editor of The Indian Express, laments the marginalisation of women in the political field, and says that in spite of a headstart at the start of independence, women are not getting very far in the democratic process. Interestingly, there was a sharp decline in women representation at the height of Indira Gandhi’s career, when the fifth Lok Sabha only had a mere 4.29 per cent representation for women. One sure index of Indira Gandhi’s own popularity!

Overall Neerja Chowdhury opines that in spite of electoral politics, in which caste, community, religion, money and muscle power play a dominant role (and where woman cannot match man), the womenfolk cannot be kept out for long from their share of power.

A few words about some of the other contributors would be in order. Shanta Sarbjeet Singh, one of the editors of the book, does not go beyond the Introduction, where she paraphrases the essential message of each of the 20-odd writers.

Co-editor Jyoti Sabharwal is more forthright and open in her views and lambasts those literally dying to earn a celebrity status at any cost. (“The) fashion designers, models, the most unflattering shenanigans of the so-called beauty queens” all feel the sting of Jyoti Sabharwal’s verbal whip.

She does not even spare a fellow columnist (you know who), when she comments on the latter’s earlier suggestion to female models to strip to reach the top. And she asks the question; “But would this exhortation to strip also hold good for her four daughters from two husbands and a paramour thrown in?”

Praful Bidwai, our male feminist, rightly suggests that the women’s movement in India must take the battle for justice “beyond the limited notion of equality and towards total human emancipation”.

Kiran Bedi, the first woman IPS officer, is also there talking a good deal about prison reforms and all that where she regrets that she “never saw (this) reformative streak in my fellow officers even one bit. All I saw was the drive at being punitive.” What amused this reviewer was the line, “You have to take the media along without seeking publicity for the self.” And imagine Kiran Bedi saying this!

Mrinal Pande, a senior media personality, brings up an interesting point about the sexist nature of politics in literature and more pronounced in the vernacular field. She says: “The general conclusion is that the vernacular output is usually inferior when compared to the one available in standard English and if it is from a woman writer, it is even more likely to be so.” One is not too sure whether this observation is entirely true, but in my opinion the real bias is not so much sexist, as in an upwardly mobile social circuit clique composed of smart (not necessarily good) authors, textbook producers-turned-publishers (not the least interested in scouting for real talent), and clueless bureaucrats in positions of power and patronage, who have turned writing and publishing one big “bhindi” bazar. The sufferers are some very good male and female writers, who do not know how to sell themselves.

Sterling, Shanta Sarbjeet and Jyoti Sabharwal are to be complimented for bringing to centre-stage the achievements and the plight of women of India. However, any meaningful gain would only come about for our womenfolk if the twin bane of lack of education and the rising production of children, more pronounced in our weaker sections of society, is first taken care of.
— Himmat Singh Gill

Of selling pleasure

Marketing Nuggets by S. Ramesh Kumar. Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi. Pp. 362. Rs 395.

Marketing has already become an established discipline in business management the world over and is now assuming its due role in the Indian context of growing but fierce competition. Until recently the Indian economy was sheltered, there was little choice and the consumers had a few options. Now the reverse is the case and the marketing concept is making sure that the consumer needs are fulfilled to their entire satisfaction. Marketing as a service function has also emerged as a potential factor in the growth of business.

The author of this book has introduced marketing to corporate executives who are yet to be formally and fully exposed to the subject in terms of conceptual applications. Kumar has tried to explain the theme in a simple, structured and lucid style in line with practical applications in India.

The book's highlight is the discussion on marketing when a number of brands vie with one another on a "narrow differentiation plane".

The book is in four parts. Part I "Changing marketing scenario" deals with the environment and inertia of the marketing kind, technology edge to selling, evaluating marketing efforts, linkages between business and business marketing innovative manufacturing, sales curves and life cycles of high-tech products, reading the purchasing situation focusing on corporate image and lessons from the global playground.

Part II "Product marketing — brand — linkages" discusses products brand interface, exploring niche marketing, exchanging the service factor, stretching to stay alive, catering to suit individual business style, taking on titans, price perception right channel turbo marketing and reaching the consumer.

Part III "Behavioural Dimensions of Marketing" examines association of brands and consumer psyche, adding an extra edge, brand, loyalty, creative positioning strategies, reference groups and consumer behaviour, know-me know-my brand, facing a brand deluge, fantasy satiation, products and personality, sustainable core position impulsiveness in consumer behaviour, domains of customer satisfaction, importance of attitude in consumer behaviour and brand visibility.

Part IV "Consumer oriented strategies: orchestrating pricing decisions" grapples with consumer decision-making service connection, queueing up for customers, planning sales effort, fine tuning personal selling, choosing right customers, behavioural dimension of negotiation, motivation of the sales force, in search of an identity, positioning services, communication mix for business to business marketing and so on.

The author says that increased buying power, western influences, information explosion and flow of new technologies are some of the factors responsible for product and brand proliferation in the Indian market. The rural market which did not have any significance in yesteryears, has opened up new vistas for companies selling consumer products. Brands are vying with one another to obtain a "favourable and appropriate" perception of consumers, says the author.

Liberalisation, globalisation, modernisation and privatisation have forced Indian marketers to re-examine their marketing strategies and formulate a conceptual framework which would ensure a competitive edge. The flow of foreign direct investments and joint ventures with MNCs have enlarged the scope of marketing.

Kumar presents a unique mix of practice-related concepts which could be used in a variety of situations. He has covered a broad range of marketing concepts highlighting their applications of these concepts in the practical context in India.

There is a detailed description of creative marketing strategy. Strategy formulation, product mix, price promotion, packaging and distribution system are very important. The author has rightly laid emphasis on each of these themes.

The author has highlighted the theories built on the basis of consumer behaviour, sales management, business-to-business marketing and brand management areas.

There are India-specific examples and application of marketing concepts. Books that are available on marketing give only American MNC examples which do not suit the Indian environment.

The impact of competitive factors on marketing mix elements have been analysed in terms of quality. Very few marketing experts lay emphasis on distribution networks which affect the price and quality of goods. But Ramesh Kumar has explained marketing mix elements in great detail and in a simple, language with Indian examples, so that management students can easily understand the concepts.

An important aspect of this book is the stress it lays on the creation of value addition to practical marketing strategies through conceptual dimensions. Value addition through marketing strategies is not normally understood. But the author has described in such a lucid way with Indian examples that it can be understood by an average reader.

Topical subjects like customer satisfaction, synergy across functional areas and managing brands have been covered in great detail. The customer is the king for a marketing man. His satisfaction means the growth of a product and increase in sales and heavy revenue gains.
— P.K. Vasudeva