Some long books are mesmerising, keeping the reader gripped as if in a fast-paced novel. Tony Judt’s Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 is a prime example. But, to paraphrase former US vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen in a famous debate with Dan Quayle, Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian are not Tony Judt; their 760-page A Sixth of Humanity is a motley collection of random facts and distractions masquerading as analysis.
My first instinct was to forgo writing a review of this book, knowing that I had sharp criticism to offer. I have known the authors for almost their entire professional lives; they are younger than I am and have always treated me with kindness and respect, as one might treat an older brother. With that in mind, please read this review not as a personal critique but as a reflection on the state of scholarship on the Indian economy, where sloganeering passes for analysis. As the economist Paul Krugman has frequently observed, slogans assume a life of their own, lingering long after they should have died: the essence of what he calls “zombie economics”.
