Confident, Empowered, Roaring Tiger were some of the adjectives used for India as it turned 60 on this 15th August. But what if India wouldn't have opened its economy 16 years back? How would this day be? The day would be similar to 15th Augusts before 1991. The day would have passed in the world media without anybody noticing it or at the most, somebody would have written a sorry article about how India is struggling even after 60 years of independence to grow at more than the Hindu rate of 2-3%. Inside the country, government employees would have forcibly shown up for the flag hoisting ceremony, so that they wouldn't have one less leave on their payroll. Students would have no choice but to show up in school and sit through long speeches that would have told them how India was a great country. And everybody would have wondered, "Where is the greatness!" There was no growth in the country, no new jobs, inflation was rising, corruption was rampant...in a nutshell, future had nothing to offer. This was the sorry state of India before 1991. Patriotism came with a sense of guilt. I remember how everybody used to talk that the need of the hour was a dictator or a magician who could solve India's miseries with one sleight of hand. Or maybe it was time for Lord Vishnu to come on earth in His next avatar to get rid of all of India's problems. I was too young to understand what was happening but all I was waiting for was Vishnu's reincarnation.
I guess that happened in 1991. Thats when India dissolved the license raj system, opened its economy, became dependent on global economy but still became independent in the true sense of today. Things are very different today. Every child is looking forward to becoming a youth and every youth is looking at ways to contribute to the growth. And this time they will also get real opportunities to do that. All this in 16 years is a commendable feat. This growth should not be of worry until one sees the rich becoming richer, and poor becoming poorer. Manmohan Singh doesn't miss any opportunity, be it speech at CII or Independence Day speech, to remind the business world of its social obligations. The business community probably realises that social unrest is not in its best interest and is taking needed steps to help the government. Sunil Mittal said that a major difference between India and China of today is that India lacks behind China in hard infrastructure but India is way ahead in terms of soft infrastructure. I think India's growth is being laid on strong foundations and the soft infrastructure will take it a long way.
Those who compare today's India with today's China and fashionably say that India will need decades to catch up with China, should look at the conditions in both the countries before the economies opened up. That would be fair comparison.
It wouldn't be surprising to find that India was worse off than China before the two economies opened up. India's leading foreign affairs expert C Raja Mohan termed the first five decades of closed economy and Non-Aligned approach of India as '50 wasted years'. You cannot disagree to that. Just after attaining freedom, Nehruvian policies started defining India's future. India opted to follow a path of Non-Alignment - an independent foreign policy framework vis-a-vis a bipolar world. India went behind closed doors and built high walls around it. Intentions of Nehru are not doubtful. But he didn't make sure that the governments after him understood his vision. All the sources of information or knowledge - newspapers, TV, Radio, school curriculum were full of rhetoric such as India is great, Indians are great, etc. Indians' brains got hard-wired to think that everything about India and Indians was great. And even if the country was great, they should have let them discover it and not force it down their throat. Anyway, successive governments used this as a means to manipulate the common people, to hide the governments' incapabilities or unwillingness to solve India's growing problems; the governments exploited it to a shameless level giving empty promises which they had no clues on how to deliver. India was in a very bad state before 1991.
That is why it was India's 16th birthday and not 60th.
I guess that happened in 1991. Thats when India dissolved the license raj system, opened its economy, became dependent on global economy but still became independent in the true sense of today. Things are very different today. Every child is looking forward to becoming a youth and every youth is looking at ways to contribute to the growth. And this time they will also get real opportunities to do that. All this in 16 years is a commendable feat. This growth should not be of worry until one sees the rich becoming richer, and poor becoming poorer. Manmohan Singh doesn't miss any opportunity, be it speech at CII or Independence Day speech, to remind the business world of its social obligations. The business community probably realises that social unrest is not in its best interest and is taking needed steps to help the government. Sunil Mittal said that a major difference between India and China of today is that India lacks behind China in hard infrastructure but India is way ahead in terms of soft infrastructure. I think India's growth is being laid on strong foundations and the soft infrastructure will take it a long way.
Those who compare today's India with today's China and fashionably say that India will need decades to catch up with China, should look at the conditions in both the countries before the economies opened up. That would be fair comparison.
It wouldn't be surprising to find that India was worse off than China before the two economies opened up. India's leading foreign affairs expert C Raja Mohan termed the first five decades of closed economy and Non-Aligned approach of India as '50 wasted years'. You cannot disagree to that. Just after attaining freedom, Nehruvian policies started defining India's future. India opted to follow a path of Non-Alignment - an independent foreign policy framework vis-a-vis a bipolar world. India went behind closed doors and built high walls around it. Intentions of Nehru are not doubtful. But he didn't make sure that the governments after him understood his vision. All the sources of information or knowledge - newspapers, TV, Radio, school curriculum were full of rhetoric such as India is great, Indians are great, etc. Indians' brains got hard-wired to think that everything about India and Indians was great. And even if the country was great, they should have let them discover it and not force it down their throat. Anyway, successive governments used this as a means to manipulate the common people, to hide the governments' incapabilities or unwillingness to solve India's growing problems; the governments exploited it to a shameless level giving empty promises which they had no clues on how to deliver. India was in a very bad state before 1991.
That is why it was India's 16th birthday and not 60th.
1 comment:
Bureaucracy and the lack of infrastrucure are so damaging for India.
Last year 5 millions containers were loaded in India compared to 20 millions only for the Shanghai port.
By the way, Happy birthday! Hope you have nice weather in Bali. :)
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