INHALING THE MAHATMA By Christopher Kremmer, HarperCollins, Rs 495

The Australian journalist Christopher Kremmer had caught the attention of the reading fraternity with The Carpet Wars — a well-researched and captivating account of the texture of the Oriental carpet. Kremmer dwells there on the various motifs of carpet-weaving and decodes their religious and political underpinnings, as he discovered them travelling across the Islamic heartland.

In Inhaling the Mahatma, Kremmer adopts the travelogue format once more, this time delving into the rich, yet bafflingly incoherent, texture of Indian democracy. The author, professedly an admirer of Hindu ideals, especially of the Gandhian variety, travels into the Indian reality, replete with the trappings of what Jean Baudrillard called ‘the hyperreal’. Among other things, Kremmer unravels the horrific core of the ‘syndicated Hinduism’ of the Hindutva brigade.

Kremmer’s focus in this book rests mainly on the last fifteen years of the Indian democracy. The exploitation of religion for political ends, the corruption among politicians and civilians, widespread paranoia resulting in riots, are some of the stock themes of the narrative. All these violations of the pompously upheld democratic principles are seen in the light of the Gandhian vision.

Kremmer, however, is not a cynic. He believes firmly that “India is a work in progress, a painting on a shifting canvas”. His job, it seems, is to point out where the paint has peeled off or where it is mismatched.

The book is divided into five sections, with 22 chapters more or less evenly distributed over them. Kremmer’s conversational style blends the mode of diary-writing with a dispassionate and objective delineation of Indian history. This is most evident where he discusses the history and the myth pertaining to the area where the Babri mosque was located in Ayodhya. Elsewhere, Kremmer’s cheerful style gives way to a chilling account of the murder of Graham Staines in Orissa. He manages these tonal shifts casually, without causing any discomfort to the reader.

Another interesting feature is Kremmer’s wit that comes condensed in epigrammatic statements. Take for instance, Kremmer’s comment which concludes his interview of V.P. Singh: “He’d paid Indian democracy the highest compliment that a politician could think of — it has survived leaders like him.” Or, consider what he has to say about the ‘well-heeled’ modern generation of urban youth: “They were children of social democracy delivered by capitalist midwives....”

Kremmer does not strike one as an outsider prying into the Indian reality. He moves in and out, never short of sympathy or sarcasm. He hurts without apology when and where he means to, no matter how sensitive the issue.