Book review: Captain G.R. Gopinath's writing in 'Our India' is sharp, empathetic, well-reasoned

Captain G.R. Gopinath

Air Deccan founder Captain G.R. Gopinath, who wrote Simply Fly: A Deccan Odyssey (2011) and You Cannot Miss This Flight: Essays on Emerging India (2017) has a new book out. Titled Our India: Reflections on a Nation Betwixt and Between (HarperCollins, 2022), it is a compilation of his opinion pieces, columns and vignettes written for various publications.

The book is divided into four sections – 1. Enterprise 2. Society and Governance 3. Politics 4. Musings. The author writes about matters as wide-ranging as entrepreneurship, the Covid-19 pandemic, electoral politics, communal harmony, brain drain, and the Goods and Services Tax (GST). As he questions the idea of “love jihad”, he also opens up about the time when he fell in love with a Muslim woman, and planned an elaborate scheme to help her escape her parents’ house. He offers warm recollections of his interactions with famous men from different walks of life – cartoonist R. K. Laxman, singer Pandit Jasraj, writer-director Girish Karnad, poet-politician Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Café Coffee Day founder V.G. Siddhartha.

Gopinath’s ease with holding forth on numerous subjects comes from his diverse life experiences. He is a retired Indian Army officer. After serving in the Bangladesh Liberation War, he got a Royal Enfield motorcycle dealership. He became a farmer, sericulturist and author. He entered the aviation sector and started a low-cost airline. As a politician, he has worked for the Bharatiya Janata Party, and contested elections on an Aam Aadmi Party ticket. It seems that he has learnt enough to swear off politics, and stick to being a commentator.

If you are wondering why he calls India “a nation betwixt and between”, the answer is quite simple. He views India as “neither a totalitarian Hindu state nor an enlightened democracy with secular credentials, neither ruled by a dictator nor governed by a liberal democrat.” India, to him, is “neither a developed economy nor a backward country”. He points out that India has made “great scientific strides, but many of its people and political leaders are also under the spell of ancient myths of our past glory and are lost in age-old superstitions.”

The author’s ideological position could also be described as “betwixt and between” because he cannot be fully claimed by either the ruling dispensation or the opposition. He slams the Indian National Congress for its “progressive and liberal” pretensions while trying to secure “Muslim votes” by opposing triple talaq, and reprimands the BJP for “endorsing khap panchayats, imposing medieval dress codes and banning entry of women to temples” as it tries to “consolidate a Hindu-majority vote bank by portraying itself as anti-Islamic.” It is quite refreshing to find people in public life who call out the hypocrisies of both parties.

The writing style is sharp, witty, empathetic and insightful. His criticism is well-reasoned. It is not laced with hate. He is critical of successive governments that have held on to Air India like “family silver” but is also willing to acknowledge the gaps in his own understanding.

In this book, Gopinath reveals that he once confronted aviation minister Sharad Yadav about “indiscriminate recruitment of people in Air India’s Class IV category.” Yadav said, “Do you know that 10 per cent of the employees – high-end management, pilots, engineers and others – pocket 90 per cent of the total salary at Air India? So, adding another 3000 employees or more in the lowest salary bracket won’t make any difference to the overall kitty.”

When he writes about the Tatas being “crazy about Air India”, he also notes that he does understand the value of a legacy that is framed in emotional terms given that “J.R.D. was India’s first licensed pilot in 1929” and “flew the first commercial flight in 1932 that was carrying airmail from Karachi to Madras via Ahmedabad, Bombay, Poona, Kolhapur, Bellary and Bangalore, in a single-engine tiny three-seater unpressurized de Havilland Puss Moth.”

At the same time, Gopinath advises founders of companies to keep the interests of employees and shareholders in mind instead of holding on to their venture in a rigid manner even when that decision is financially unsustainable. According to him, ceding control is desirable if the business can get a new lease of life. Instead of dealing in abstractions, he refers to his own experience with Air Deccan, and how at one point of time, he was in talks with Vijay Mallya, Anil Ambani, Ratan Tata and Dayanidhi Maran who were interested in making investments.

Gopinath has experienced the high-flying life, both literarily and metaphorically, but he feels most energized by “the millions of small entrepreneurs” that keep the Indian economy running – fruit and vegetable vendors, mechanics, artisans, dhaba owners, shopkeepers, and people who run lodges and homestays. He writes, “Information and data are said to be the new fuel of the modern economy…But there is limited space in that stratosphere…You can’t eat information and everyone cannot live in the Internet bubble. We need food, clothing, water, housing, transportation, electricity and hospitals, and also flowers, poetry and art.”