Temptations of the West

Ben Macintyre

This is not a gentle book, but it is a brave one - and, for anyone in the West able to look beyond clichés and rhetoric, an essential one.
— The New York Times

The New Yorker

Mishra, a Hindu, has been accused in his native India of “pandering to white pro-Muslim audiences in the West”—a notion that, he points out, was “optimistic” even before September 11th. In this acute survey of South and Central Asia (including Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Tibet), he reports on how countries are facing the crisis of modernization, hobbled by political corruption, poverty, and the abiding hatred of one tribe for another. Particularly illuminating is his chapter on Nepal, which, despite a veneer of regular elections, has long been mired in a battle between monarchy and Communism, both anachronisms in the West. Mishra cautions us not to underestimate “the rage and despair of people who, arriving late in the modern world, have known its primary ideology, democracy, only as another delusion.”

Publishers Weekly

Mishra eloquently expresses his indignation at folly and injustice in these eight travelogues and profiles illuminating the challenge of Western-style globalization in South and Central Asia, where the pull of the West is countered by the politics of nationalism. In "Allahabad: The Nehrus, the Gandhis, and Democracy," Mishra weaves bitter commentary on the postcolonial dynasties into his observations of the "uneven" process of democracy at work during the 2000 elections in the "decaying" North India city of Allahabad. Mishra draws a complex portrait of successful Bollywood filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt in "Bollywood: India Shining," whom Mishra is prepared to find reprehensible but comes to afford grudging respect. Mishra brings the same eye for character to "Kashmir: The Cost of Nationalism," about the brutal "cycle of retribution" between Muslims and Hindus in the contested region. On meeting a pro-India renegade commander who epitomizes an "unthinking preference for violence and terror," Mishra watches the man's "movie star glamour and... brute power" fall away as the commander demands a "free hand" in dealing with Muslim guerrillas. These instances of vivid description and personal reaction provide moments of clarity in this dense, well-written book (after An End to Suffering). (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Mishra, a Hindu Indian journalist and novelist (The Romantics), here provides first-person reporting of major turmoil in eight Asian countries in recent years. These are standalone chapters: covered here are the legacy of the Nehrus in Allahabad, the Islam-Hindu conflicts in Ayodhya, the corruption of the Bollywood movie industry, Kashmir and its continuing Muslim-Hindu conflicts, Pakistan for more of the same, and Afghanistan and its continuing quagmire, plus brief chapters summarizing recent events in Nepal and Tibet. The title, however, is both awkward and somewhat misleading. While Western influence-and clandestine and sometimes overt military involvement-may indeed intensify these conflicts, it alone is not to blame for them. Moreover, though Mishra provides competent reporting, he offers no unique insights or analysis and no suggestions for dealing with the region's many problems. What he does offer is a unique perspective: that of a native of the region rather than the usual vantage point of our own journalists who often lack both background and local language skills. A worthwhile read given this region's increasing importance on the world stage, but be braced for discouragement. Suitable for larger public libraries.-Harold M. Otness, formerly with Southern Oregon Univ. Lib., Ashland Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Novelist and New York Review of Books regular Mishra (An End to Suffering, 2004, etc.) blends reportage with travel memoir in a riveting collection of essays about religion, poverty and political jockeying in southern Asia. Examining the clash between tradition and modernity, the author seeks to understand the seeds and fruits of both Hindu nationalism and radical Islam. Mishra begins his peregrinations in India, where he grew up. Insisting that there's more to his homeland than intractable tension between Muslims and Hindu nationalists, he zeroes in on the now-sizable middle-class, which wants the same things Americans and Brits want: stability, security and material possessions. By Mishra's account, even the most ardent Hindu nationalists do not wish, "like the jihadis, to challenge or reject the knowledge and power of the West." Pakistan, however, seems to him "much further away." Though he constantly scrutinizes his own prejudices, the author cannot deny that he feels anxious about the Islam that he encounters in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Throughout, Mishra slips in lessons for ignorant Westerners, even offering a sympathetic but hardly naive discussion of Muslim thinker Mohammad Iqbal. And he rejects simplistic analysis: Ruminating on the Taliban's destruction of giant Buddhist statues, for example, he admits to being silenced by a radical Islamist who asked why Western journalists were so up-in-arms about these statues but didn't seem to care about the horrible conditions of refugee camps near Peshawar. The book has a few flaws, however. The author pays less attention than he should to gender; women pop up (there are Bollywood starlets, forceful politicians, veiled, anonymous Muslimwives), but only as cameo appearances. Short final chapters on Nepal and Tibet feel tacked on; readers would have had plenty to digest without them. Subtle, sobering and very smart.