Ashok's Blog

I interviewed Siddharth Dube when his nonfiction book, Sex, Lies and AIDS, was published, and as I always do, read the book before interviewing him (something I'm sorry to say, most reporters neglect to do).

I was impressed by his research, scholarship, and most of all, by his chutzpah in daring to write such a book in the face of government apathy at the AIDS epidemic sweeping the country (and the world).

A great person once said that in order for chaos to take over the world, all a good man needs to do is to keep quiet and step aside while the destroyers rage...although that's my phrasing, not the original quote.

Or, to to put it in the phrasing of the title of an anthology of absurdist writing, a genre I once favoured greatly as a young writer, 'I have no gun, but I can spit.'

The older, slightly wiser me would now amend that to, 'I have no gun, but I can write.'

I wish I could say now that Dube's book was a million-copy bestseller and changed the attitude of the Indian authorities - and the Indian public - to the epidemic.

Sadly, it didn't.

But a word here and a word there... and at least we can make our little corner of the world a little bit more sensitive and caring.

To spout yet another aphorism:

If you really want to change the world, start with yourself.

"The history of poorer Indians disappears without record"
Siddharth Dube, author of Sex, Lies and AIDS, in conversation with Ashok Banker

Siddharth Dube's first non-fiction book Words Like Freedom, an economic study of India through individual case histories was praised by none other than Nobel Laureate Economist Amartya Sen. His new book Sex, Lies and AIDS promises to garner even richer reviews. A study of Indian sexual lifestyles and attitudes and their impact on the spread of HIV infections in the country, it's a short but powerfully effective book. Dube's unique style combines a sense of personal outrage, individual insights, meticulous research and documentation, and case histories of real ordinary citizens. He spoke to Rediff.com in this exclusive interview with Ashok Banker.

What motivated you to write Sex, Lies and AIDS?

Despair. Sadness. Absolute despair at what I've seen build over the past decade, which is our mounting epidemic of HIV/AIDS. And even deeper despair at the calamity that lies ahead for tens of millions of Indians if we don't act now and if we don't force our government to act. I'm still astounded by our relative inaction given that last year India had the largest number of deaths from AIDS worldwide. What are our leaders and we waiting for? Given what I feel, the book was shaped to be useful, something that would inform as many people as possible of how bad the situation is already, that would reduce their prejudices and unfortunate scorn of people at high-risk or infected with HIV, and also push government action. In short, a force for some action. This is why I consciously kept the book short, as sexy as possible, and with a clear discussion of what we can do as individuals and what we should expect our government to do.

On the first page of your book you describe it as "a romp through sex in today's India, a serious journey towards understanding AIDS, and not least, a Kama Sutra for the age of AIDS." Why did you feel it necessary to investigate sexuality apart from the specific issue of AIDS?

Let's face it: HIV is primarily sexually spread. So it's clear why we need to talk about sex. HIV cannot be controlled if we or our policymakers continue to approach this subject -- sex -- with embarrassment, fear or far worse, prejudice and intolerance. To paraphrase from other settings: "Silence is shame." "Silence equals death." We Indians are too often prudish or hypocritical, and even worse, cruelly damning of the behaviour of others. But if we're going to try to prevent the HIV epidemic from getting worse it is essential that we learn, as fast as possible, an informed, sympathetic and humanist approach to discussing sex and other sexual things.

In both your first book and this one, you narrate several individual stories to illuminate larger aspects of the issue at hand. Why did you feel this technique was suited to your subjects?

Actually, the reasons for doing this -- focusing on real people -- aren't the same between these two books. My goal in the first book was to understand and represent modern India's history from the perspective of the poor, who are a great majority of our society. So this is why it is the memoirs of an impoverished family. Again, the book's analysis of why mass poverty has persisted in India despite 50 years of independence tries to closely represent their understanding, their views.

The reasons for focusing on real people in the second book, the one on AIDS, are more obvious. First, because it brings non-fiction to life, makes it powerful and moving. And second, because there is simply no better way to understand the very human and blameless reasons why people contract HIV. If nothing else, I hope these stories convey our common humanity. That people who contract HIV are not some lesser breed of humans nor had impaired judgements, but very much include you and me, however educated, good at heart, upright or whatever.

There's probably more pertinent information about AIDS in India in this short (156 pages) book than in the thousands of pages of Government studies and NGO reports. Was it easy getting all this information? How did you go about researching the book?

Thank you for that great and quite undeserved compliment! But to answer your question as to how I managed to research this book, I'm fortunate to be trained as a health policy specialist. And I've worked in India on AIDS issues since the late-1980s, both as a writer and as a specialist with the World Bank and other international agencies. So I was already familiar with a large amount of the research and policy literature. But there's another important reason, which is that some very kind people who know much more about AIDS than me, made my research easy by generously sharing their knowledge. I won't name them here but they are warmly thanked at the beginning of the book.

Can a book -- even a book as well-researched and effective as this one -- really make a difference to fighting the AIDS epidemic in India?

I wish it could; if things were only that simple. Unfortunately, I have the deepest pessimism about how the epidemic's future course in India. Only bold, unselfish leadership by every kind of Indian leader -- whether politician, nurse, activist, judge or saint -- can quell our epidemic. Sadly, such leadership is too rare in India or elsewhere, particularly when it involves an issue that is sexual and hence an easy target for contempt and ridicule.

There seems to be a small but growing number of books by Indian writers exploring various aspects of Indian sexuality. Pinki Virani's 'Bitter Chocolate: Child Sexual Abuse in India' was one. Your book is another. Even in novels like Raj Kamal Jha's The Blue Bedspread and Akhil Sharma's An Obedient Father issues like incest and sexual abuse were explored for the first time. What do you think is behind this surge of interest in Indian sexuality?

Sexuality is a reality of all societies, a central reality, no less than birth and death. So we are just seeing greater freedom to write about things that are a reality of Indian life. We are lucky to have that freedom, at least to have won that freedom for now despite the too many Indians who would censor this and every other freedom.

Your annexe on how to have Safer Sex is another example. You frankly discuss oral-anal contact, anal intercourse and other lesbian, homosexual and heterosexual methods of preventing the contraction of disease. Why do you feel there's such a national reluctance to discuss such issues more widely and freely?

There's a whole slew of reasons. Politeness. Embarrassment. Shame. A misplaced interpretation of tradition. The worst and least defensible reasons are hypocrisy and intolerance.

Newspapers frankly admit a preference for 'good news'. TV channels prefer the pretty image to the grim one. High society dos, celeb appearances, film star profiles, elite restaurants, the newspapers and supplements are full of the new glamour media culture. Do you think this obsession with beautiful people and pretty images is detrimental to any honest discussion of the problems underlying our society?

I very much agree, though the fault for this obsession with fun and consumerism lies as much with us privileged Indians as with our media. The vast majority of us are not outraged enough by our country's failures on poverty, ill-health, illiteracy, oppression and every other suffering. Or we simply swallow the very simplistic line that rapid economic growth alone will solve all these problems. (If so, why hasn't poverty declined in India over the past decade of record economic growth?) Unfortunately, this pattern of the media focusing overwhelmingly on the good life is worsening as our economy and society become increasingly dualistic and Brazil-style, where a huge proportion of the population barely share in progress.

One perhaps minor but shocking fact that you reveal in the book on Page 136 is that "condoms are not always effective in preventing transmission of some STDs, particularly genital herpes and warts". I doubt that most people are aware of this as condoms are usually held up as a one-point solution to all STDs and AIDS. Comment?

That fact is correct: that condoms do not prevent all STDs. So if anyone wants to strictly guard against all STDs, they must do even more than use condoms, for instance, be vaccinated against the hepatitis viruses, use latex barriers for oral sex and/or keep to a minimum the numbers of sexual partners. But the more basic point remains true that condoms are invaluable: they protect both sexual partners against the overwhelming majority of severe and life-threatening STDs.

The alarming figure you quote on page 107 -- "without successful prevention, by 2005 about five per cent of our adult population -- 3.5 to four crore people -- will have contracted HIV" is a shocker. You go on to say that "if current trends persist, this number could easily cross ten crores in another couple of years". This Kali Yug as you call it sounds terrifying. How accurate are these figures and how did you come by them?

Predictions are always fraught with uncertainty, particularly when they concern disease epidemics. But these projections are quite realistic, in fact far worse has been wrought by HIV/AIDS in Africa, havoc that is now being repeated in some Caribbean, Latin American and South-East Asian countries. The first projection is from the World Bank and the 3.5 to 4 crore people they refer to is just 5% of our adult population. In some countries of sub-Saharan Africa, about 30% of all adults are infected. And there is simply no reason for why levels could not eventually rise as high in India. Those of our government officials and health experts who argue that India is radically different to Africa in terms of the conditions for HIV/AIDS are always always proved wrong. So I stand by these rough estimates. Obviously, this does not equate with saying that these levels will be reached in exactly so many years.

You emphatically state several times in the book that the Government and official authorities are not well-enough informed about the problem. How do you arrive at these conclusions and more important, what can be done to correct this lacuna?

I think what I meant is that government officials and health experts know too little about sexual behaviours in India. Drawing them into a frank and public discussion of sexuality -- backed by good research studies -- would help correct their lack of knowledge. Unfortunately, on some issues -- such as the great extent of male bisexuality in India -- they are simply unwilling to accept the facts, however clear the evidence.

Who decided to use the cartoons by Mario in the book? Was it you or the publishers? Why cartoons?

The suggestion was first mine -- as I have a great admiration for Mario's ability to be provocative and sexy -- but that's quite irrelevant as Renuka Chatterjee, HarperCollins' wonderful chief editor, was very strongly in agreement and did everything to persuade Mario to do them. Why cartoons? Tell me, don't they make the book sexy and somewhat relieve the depressing tone?

Your first book was an economic study of India's problems as seen in the context of a single large impoverished family. It won you praise by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen among several others. What's been the response to Sex, Lies and AIDS thus far?

This book has done far better in sales than the first book (which is very serious and so less accessible), and also quite well in terms of reviews. So I am in the very lucky position of having no complaints about how both my books have been received! Frankly, I don't know what I would do without the praise: I consume it because researching and writing on these subjects is exhausting and very depressing.

Publishers claim that non-fiction far outsells fiction in India. Yet writers of Indian English fiction seem to get all the press. In fact, they're often lionized and held up as icons, while most writers of nonfiction are given short thrift in the media. How do you feel about this glaring imbalance?

It is peculiar that fiction writers get so much attention. I don't resent it in any meaningful way. But I do think it is a loss for the public, because non-fiction writing in India is increasingly accessible and exciting. And India is made for non-fiction! There is so much to document, so much to understand, to record. And how can even the most inspired fiction rival India's realities?! So I hope the public and publishers encourage India's non-fiction writers.

You've written two books in the last few years. Do you feel it's possible to make a living as an author of non-fiction books published in India alone?

I don't know what other non-fiction writers earn, but I couldn't survive beyond a few months on what I've earned from these books. But I am lucky as I've had grants to support the research and writing of both books. And then between books I work in New York and Geneva for various United Nations organizations.

Why aren't there more writers of serious non-fiction books in India? Is it because it's less glamorous and perhaps less lucrative? Or...?

I imagine the lack of money is the greatest impediment. Most publishers cannot afford -- and anyhow will not give -- advances that would allow a non-fiction writer to cover her or his research and writing costs, which can often stretch over two or three years. And most foundations are instantly opposed to funding research and writing of books, rather than keeping an open mind and seeing whether the book could play an important advocacy, historical or policy development role.

Have you started work on your next book? What will it be about?

I haven't started yet but I plan to write a second book about the AIDS epidemic in India. This book -- Sex, Lies and AIDS -- was written to be useful. And so I didn't include a lot of the research I have done and I wrote it simply, and rather quickly, so that it could be published as early as possible. So I want to revisit all these issues -- particularly that of poverty and AIDS -- in a manner that is both more in-depth and more literary. And I want to take more time writing it, perhaps two years or so. I hope to start in a year, late-2001. Apart from this, my ambition and dream is to put together a research project through which I can finance mid-career journalists to write accessible non-fiction books on poverty in India. It's a shame that there have been only a handful of such books in the past 50 years. The history of poorer Indians disappears without record, as a consequence. But even more important, books like these can help stoke the outrage that more of us should be feeling about our country's failures on poverty, failures that we're all complicit in.