This is an ambitious book. It sets out to explore the often violent struggles that have ensued when societies in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Nepal faced cultural, religious and political influences from outside. The subject is definitely not new, but has been addressed largely in generalisations that ignore the real people and their often hidden motives. In the foreword to Temptations of the West, Pankaj Mishra asserts, “Needless to say, the societies I travelled through are too internally diverse to be summed up by broad generalisations of the kind preferred by policymakers and op-ed columnists.”

 

Mishra starts out in a dusty library in Benares, where he befriends Rajesh, a Brahmin, whose family has been reduced to penury by the government’s reservation policies. Rajesh’s future looks bleak, and Mishra returns a few years later to find that his old friend has become a contract killer. It’s a story of thwarted hopes and ideals that sets the tone for the essays to come.

 

In Bollywood Mishra finds a starlet, stripping off her clothes in her search for fast fame, ignoring the objections of her father, a politician claiming to represent Dalits who turns out to be the owner of a large agricultural estate. In Peshawar Mishra finds an opium-addled former Bangladeshi soldier, who is wanted for the role he played in Mujib’s assassination.

 

These travelogues are peppered with an acidic commentary on South Asian politics. Mishra details the rise of a unified national opposition centred on the Nehru family and the Congress party, and chronicles the gradual fracturing of this opposition. He meets foot soldiers of the RSS in Ayodhya, and Islamicists in Pakistan. He finds Tibetan youth in India who want to launch a violent struggle against Chinese occupation, and Nepali peasants who have turned to the Maoist insurgency.

 

Though some of the essays are insightful, most are dated. When Mishra talks about caste, it’s the caste politics of 10 years ago. And Mishra’s own prejudices prevent detailed investigation. His views on the role of the Indian Army in the Kargil war are not backed up with evidence, and his condemnation of Hindu nationalists and NRI Indians smacks of the generalisations he accuses others of.

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