Here is a list of books from a gruelling year, which may keep the reader company in another potentially hard year.
—
FROM Manipur to Gaza, 2023 witnessed gruelling times.
At least the reading was good. A little bit of diversion from the agony and death about which one reads in newspapers and on social media.
The books that I read in 2023 were driven by my profession; my interest in economics and history; and some that were recommended by friends. Here are some of them. Not in any particular order of liking. It is difficult to pick the best.
Frederick Schauer is a professor of law at the University of Virginia and the author of books such as Free Speech: A Philosophical Enquiry; Thinking like a Lawyer; and The Force of Law.
In the age of fake news, trust and truth are hard to come by. We have persons in high and influential positions who make blatantly false utterances that are taken as gospel truth. Very little, however, is presented as evidence.
Even if contested, no proof is ever presented. People are entitled to their opinions but not to their own facts. We do not realise that people when perceiving facts are often influenced by their normative preferences.
The Proof helps us understand what is or what is not, how we determine what is, and how we know what is not. It is about how to make an assessment of factual truth and falsity. The book helps us develop fresh insight into the challenges of reaching the truth.
A must read for those who want to determine what is true and what is false.
What was spoken in whispers and hush-hush tones in the corridors of the Supreme Court of India was confirmed by data. The book analyses the backlog of cases, the power and influence of senior advocates, master of the roster and strategic case assignments, diversity or lack thereof in judicial appointments and the possible pandering to political branches.
The authors have evaluated the functioning of the Supreme Court using hard data on its decisions, the lawyers who appear before it, the cases brought before it, the judges of the court and other such information.
The book concludes that many of the claims made by the court do not stand scrutiny. The court shields itself from public scrutiny through opacity, mystification and a construed image of working for the public good.
Further analyses show that there are no clear standards for admitting cases as special leave petitions (SLPs).
The book also concludes that designated senior advocates hog most of the cases. However, they contribute very little to the development of law nor do they bring better cases to the court. The book also finds that generally speaking, a judge can tell whether the case has merit or not but when unsure, they tend to favour the senior advocate.
This book came as a breath of fresh air.
Gautam Bhatia, along with the likes of Madhav Khosla, Arun K. Thiruvengadam, Sudhir Krishnaswamy and the Chandrachud brothers, among others, have enhanced our understanding of Indian constitutional law.
As the jacket of the Unsealed Covers says, the book "negotiates a unique terrain, where the actions of the judiciary, its engagement with our fundamental rights and its relationship with the executive are examined in terms of evolution and chronology… It also comments on some of the most important judgments of the past decade and the tenures of some of the most influential justices of the Supreme Court."
Bhatia does not spare the judges or the chief justices for some of their decisions. Justice A.M. Khanwilkar's judgments in the Romila Thapar, dealing with the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967); the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2022 [where it was held that there is no need to share, the enforcement case information report (ECIR) with the accused, communicating 'grounds' is sufficient]; the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (freedom of speech); the Watali judgment (personal liberty); Teesta Setalvad (observations by the judge which led to her arrest by the Gujarat police) and Himanshu Kumar (extra-judicial encounter killing) comes in for criticism and, according to Bhatia, are retrograde decisions.
Justice Khanwilkar was in the majority in the Sabarimala judgment but ordered a review of his own judgment. Bhatia says it was "an unreasoned volte-face".
Neither do the chief justices escape raps. The judgments of Dipak Misra (in Judge Loya and Unitech), Ranjan Gogoi (no man shall be a judge in his own cause), S.A. Bobde (everything was evasion), N.V. Ramana (failed in the Pegasus case) and U.U. Lalit (constituted a Bench of Justices M.R. Shah and Bela Trivedi that overruled the bail granted to Saibaba) come under scrutiny.
I strongly suggest that young lawyers have a copy of Unsealed Covers in their library. Read, of course.
Most of us in the legal profession have read the American Constitution, the Federalist Papers and every major American case. Though the Constitution of India is inspired by the American one, it is very difficult to understand the workings of the American government. The interaction between the legislative bodies, the Senate, the House of Representatives and the Executive, the Presidency.
There are many books but none gives us an overall understanding of the intricacies involved, the deals done, the caucuses, special interests and the lobbyists. Then an American friend recommended that I read the four-volume biography of Lyndon B. Johnson. A fifth is being written (not sure when it will be published. The author is 89 years old).
The book is described by The Times as "the greatest biography of our era". The author is Robert A. Caro, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. He started out as a journalist fresh out of college and left journalism to be an author.
Working describes the staggering lengths to which Caro had gone in order to create his books. He offers insight into the craft of writing, the pursuit of truth, the art of interviewing and the creation of literature.
Caro describes in great detail his experience in researching and writing his biographies of Robert Moses (the man who built modern New York) and Lyndon B. Johnson. One of the important lessons from the book is to keep oneself out of your subject's narrative. Let it not influence you.
Writing biographies have no deadlines. There is a lot of travelling to be done, interviews of the subject's friends and family (some may be dead and gone as maybe your subject). Hundreds of documents, letters and personal papers to read. When reading them, his advice: "turn every page".
Both books were a welcome addition to understanding how the Big-Four Accounting Firms (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler) and the Big-Three Consulting Firms (McKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Co.) work.
The book explains how the Big-Three influences government policies, it explains the entrenched relationship between the consulting industry and the way business and government are managed today.
The Big Con describes the confidence trick that the consulting industry performs in contracts with hollowed-out and risk-averse governments. The authors debunk the theory that consulting companies add value to the economy.
In fact, the cost of appointing these consulting companies and implementing their recommendations outweigh the costs saved. The book also talks about the destruction of native intelligence acquired over the years and the demoralisation of the government cadre.
The knowledge purportedly transferred is more often than not a cut-and-paste job of what was done in a previous project that would have failed in some other country.
When McKinsey Comes to Town also exposes the conduct of McKinsey and penetrates the firm's vaunted culture of secrecy and their complicity in abetting the conduct of unsavoury clients— from despots to opioid manufacturers.
The book exposes the hypocrisy, the avarice, the aiding and abetting of slimy and sleazy companies and governments and the malign ways these consulting companies operate.
Sadly, our government and the NITI Ayog do not seem to have read these two books.
This book narrates the ordeal of Abu Zubaydah, a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. Six months after 9/11, Abu Zubaydah, a small-time jihadist propagandist, unconnected with the Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden, was on a false confession of another jihadist arrested in Pakistan.
Abu Zubaydah was certified by the CIA as the number three ranking at Al Qaeda after Osama and Ayman al Zawahiri. The book narrates the journey of Abu Zubaydah from Pakistan to Thailand, to Poland and finally to Guantanamo where he is subjected to sleepless nights, stripping and the infamous "water-boarding", a technique followed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which had no scientific basis and designed by two pseudo-psychologists.
Abu Zubaydah was classified as trained to resist interrogation and capable of withholding vital clues hence subjected to 'enhanced interrogation techniques' which included water-boarding.
Despite all the torture, Abu Zubaydah could not provide any valuable information to the CIA. After 21 years, Abu Zubaydah remains in detention and no charges have been brought against him. The persons who designed the 'enhanced interrogation techniques' have not been charged and remain free.
That the world's oldest democracy can turn a blind eye towards human rights and individual rights is indeed sad.