Book Review - A feast of vultures by Josy Joseph

A Feast of Vultures : The hidden business of democracy in India
By Josy Joseph


A Feast of Vultures is a brutal and honest reporting of not-so-hidden nexus between politics and business in India. The first chapter of A Feast of Vultures sets the tone for what is to come - a one man's struggle to get a road that will connect his village to the nearest highway. It is humiliating to be poor in this country. People are cold, rude, obnoxious, devoid of any human empathy in this country. The system works only if you know the right person and it requires money for the right person to do that work for you.

Josy Jospeh starts the book in a small village but soon moves on to bigger pastures. Be it defense or aviation industry, the structure is the same, the nexus is the same. In village it is the local MP/MLA/Panchayat, in center it is the main govt., Rajya Shabha MPs, cabinet ministers etc. There are fixers who will fix it when the price is right. There is a conflict of interest at every level but it is easily swept under the rug. The nexus is independent of which party is in power - be it at state level or at central level.

Josy spends its middle overs talking about the birth of aviation industry in India and how in pre-liberalization era worked, anything could have worked only if the business was in cahoots with the govt. There was hope that post-liberalization, it will be a level playing field. But the case is not only the opposite but the scale has gone bigger. The latter part of the book talks about the recent scandals such as the telecom one, coal scams, kingfisher airlines etc

This is a grim read. Not difficult one - the prose is very smooth. The writing flows and there are enough facts added to provide context. But this book sucks out the joy of life, crashes the dream of living in a country where honesty is rewarded. All morality lectures - all talk of dharma is just a facade to hide the underbelly. It took me over 4 months to finish this book. After I finished the first chapter, I did not pick it up for another month. I read the next two chapters in a week and then again went on a two week hiatus. The process continued until today when I had to finally finish before the year was over.

It is not that the book talks about something that is not known. But no one has told so boldly that the emperor has no clothes as this one. It is like watching the real world of matrix - dark, full of steel, machines and no trees, no nature, no sun. Yet it is a book that should be read, forwarded to friends, discussed over dinners. As Josy says, he wrote this books for the next generation. The least we can do is to ensure that we can make them aware of their country.

Finally, all that I can think of is that when there is a revolution in this country, one day, this book will be discussed on how we got here.