The author Shashi Tharoor is a diplomat for the United Nations as well as a novelist. His book, India: From Midnight to the Millennium, is an appealing account that shows off the grand skills of the novelist.
In the chapter titled “Scheduled Castes, Unscheduled Change”, the author tells a story of a childhood friend that grows up to become an officer for the I.A.S. thanks to the affirmative-action program of India. This law holds almost fifty percent of the federal jobs for those in a disadvantaged class.
Shashi Tharoor sees the crimes of politics and corruption of bureaucracy as two of the biggest problems in India. The corruption to bureaucracy is largely due to “the permit-license-quota Raj” led by socialism by Nehru. Nehru himself is not corrupt, but is socialism legacy has fallen under growing attacks recently. In the book, Shashi Tharoor claims that the most harmful phenomenon in the independent political life of India is crime in politics. One of the first people appointed to the present government has close to twenty criminal charges against him that are pending. It is believed that the present defense minister won his appointment by playing to the students and Muslims that want to do away with the laws that prevent them from cheating on exams.