How do you evaluate your own country in comparison to other countries? It could certainly be not done by staying in the country and when you do not have any international exposure. But when you are in US, certainly the comparisons occur because somehow US media tries to compare US with the world so that people always are updated about the role US plays in the world dominance. But, sad thing is I have never come across a single instance where US is being compared with India. Take our neighbor "China" and you will see atleast an article a day drawing some comparisons with US. And how US feels threatened with rising power of China. This post comes from the discussion I had with a friend about where does India stand in this entire situation amongst global powers and mainly when compared with China.
Take any sector. Energy, education, infrastructure, resources, standard of living etc etc. There are comparisons drawn between US and China. The recently concluded Olympics where both China and US stood number one in terms of different criteria like maximum number of golds and total number of medals is just one instance. Recently there was news about "Berkley" the mecca of Technical education in US being replaced from its current number one position in terms of churning out PHD students by two Chinese universities and US pushing hard to regain its top spot again. Take case of energy. It is believed that the next "renewable" source of energy would come out from "China" as its hunger for energy would increase tremendously. There is heavy competition amongst US and china on that front too. Take case of infrastructure development. It is believed that Beijing alone has 40,000 skyscrapers, more than any single US city. It is believed that Chinese built many World Tower Center like infrastructures for the Beijing Olympics, whereas ground zero(the WTC site in Manhatten) is still vacant and entangled in many bureaucratic suggestions. It is believed that Chinese pulled out lots of people from their poverty line level and there are just some 10 million people below poverty line in china. This number may be totally manipulated, but the fact remains that there are many people below poverty line in China. Average per capita income of Chinese person is $40, which is very good. So the comparison continues.
This brings my attention to worlds largest democracy "India". I never ever saw any US media comparing India with US. I never ever saw US feeling pressure from India except in some IT outsourcing related cases. Staying outside India and having a look around entire world gives a different perspective to look at your own country. It exposes lots of things which are not know when you stay in the country. It feels "India" is really living in the dream of its own. Its not progressing in spite of the economic progress visible through media at the rate of 9%. I believe India is going nowhere, we are strongly losing our cultural heritage to the latest globalization trend. We are becoming commercial and materialistic. I believe the current "India shining" concept is mainly because of its huge population. I see India as a huge market, a huge potential market with around 1.2 billion people and around 65% population in the age group of 18-30. Its a huge market for all the companies and all the commercial activities. Its progressing because of its people not because of its strong policies. But what happens to the brightest people? They leave this country and move to the places where they could make use of their brilliance because those opportunities lack. Why should US not become the most technically advanced nation when it attracts worlds best talents? Afterall its people who drive and make a country. A civilized, educated society could bring lots of changes. We in India are utterly glorious in our own acts. I feel our situation is
like the frog in the well who thinks he is the king and gets indulged in the self praise. Ok, so we had and are having the IT boom. But a slowdown in US slows down our economy. Are we a self sustainable economy? It is projected that Indian economy will still be running strong at 7% when the entire other world will go into downhill. I believe that is possible just because we have such a huge population and who can make it happen. Outsourcing had its peak days. What next? Are we coming with some thing more than that? I do not say that things would happen overnight. I do not say India will start doing great things overnight. That we would have great product companies, we would have great internal sustainable economy overnight. But somewhere we should see that development happening, and somehow if you compare India with China it feels India is lacking on major fronts. Its not giving enough attention to the Chinese threat that would arise in the future. The progress does not look constructive and planned enough.
Ok. So China has its own flaws. Its a communist country and many things are done by force. People are displaced out of their houses, there are heavy constraints like on freedom of press, or freedom of expression. Its to a certain extent monopoly. The Chinese government enrolled many kids into Beijing Olympics forcefully. It was told that "Any thing below a Gold is meaningless". Chinese agricultural sector is in shambles. There are various example of Chinease political dictatorship. But the end point is there are some visible outputs to see coming out of this. The point is Chinese are doing things with utter planning and with a vision of tomorrow. The recent Olympics brought lots of hardships for people of China too but it marked Chinese arrival on global front. We in India have lots of freedom. We are a real democracy but I feel again that we are taking to much advantage of the word democracy. We are not still able to solve basic problems such as education. The right to education bill which was supposed to be passed in this session of parliament was again moved out. Education is the key to success. We are measuring our success on wrong dimensions. We still have the caste based reservation systems and its spreading like a virus. We do not seem to be giving correct and positive signals about our progress. We lack a strong political will to bring on major reforms. I have been hearing about reforms in the police force since past 7 years, but nothing seemed to be done in that area. Are there any reforms in our governance? No. Reforms in the sectors which are necessary to make this country stand on its own are missing. The reforms are being done in the sectors which are not the basic ones. We are measuring our pride in terms of wrong things. Recent survey suggested that one third of poor people in world stay in India. So is the India shining concept applied for only the urban people? We are not taking care of moving ahead with a vision. The growth is haphazard. Sudden money that we are seeing has not only given us a lot of different attitude but it has created lots of problems in our society too.
Moral of the story. I surely feel the whole concept of "India shining" and other such is a big fraud. The whole democracy concept is being stretched too much and we are certainly losing on many grounds. What is the wrong if "Kashmiris" ask for an independent state if things are so bad otherwise too? Are we responsible enough to be a superpower? Are we responsible enough for our own people that we would be responsible for the rest of the world? Do we value human lives? Any day some bomb explosion claims lives of people. Doesn't our lives have any value?
I certainly see some major flaw in the whole shining India concept. And that makes me sad and wonder what will happen to us in some more years? Because the vision seems to be missing totally when the comparison arrives with other countries.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
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3 comments:
• I travelled China a month ago. I know before hand through our media that we are a decade back wrt infrastructure. After my visit, I changed a bit more. Not just in infrastcruture, but also in talent pool, creating employment opportuities. In every tier-2 city, we can see large number of industrial parks spreading over hundreds of acres (In india, land acquisition is still major problem without controversies) and a vast talent pool supplied by universities to get absorbed in these diverse industries. To add, not jsut in manufacturing but any field you can think of. In India, we have 30% attrition rate, and min 15% wage hike, just because our universities cannot supply enough people to suit the industry needs.
Coming to enterprenuership, Chinese do have definite advantages when we think govt support,infrastructure and talent pool, local market. However, enterprenuership is not just these four, expoliting existing problems around us and converting into opportunities. In the latter, both Indians and Chinese are same !!
Comment by Rajsekhar — August 7, 2007 @ 9:17 am
• It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been to India, but I was in China this summer for almost a month. Born and raised in India, exposed to Indian media, I too was shocked observing mass constructions/renovations in Shanghai and Beijing, their current skyline, transportation, and future plans. I had never thought that China was this advanced (atleast the parts I had been too), but I’m sure not all of China is like that. There is an obvious reason for China being ahead…thats simply because they started their industrialization 25 years before India. Yet, I was definitely amazed at the developments and coordination for future planning in China - I wonder if planning on a large scale even occurs in India. I thought back to my home in India, where they are now planning on ripping down the building to make a high tower, to create more living space. However, all the nearby buildings are doing the same thing - on their own. I wished there was some better kind of city planning authority.
One thing is for sure, however, the general population in India is definitely more aware of the world culture than the general Chinese public. I’m no expert, but I constantly wonder how these pros/cons of each countries will be affecting them in the near future.
Comment by unbiased — August 15, 2007 @ 1:53 am
• The spirit of enterpreneurship is much more alive and kicking in China, than it is in India. As someone who has worked on a project in China since 2005, I have visited the major cities (Shanghai,et al) as well as some smaller cities. I have found many more people in China who are eager to start their own businesses, as compared to India. They understand that a job is only a temporary phase to get some food and shelter. Many run small businesses on the side. Some alternate between business and jobs (failure in a business lands them in a job, where they again lick their wounds and start thinking about how to start a new business). I have frankly not seen this in India. Many Indians dream of the following sequence (good college degree in engineering, an MBA, then a job with an MNC, foreign postings, some nest egg, switch some more jobs and so on). Hardly one comes across anybody who would like to start a venture AFTER having the degree/MBA & the first job. The venture may be started by people who failed to get into an MBA course or an Engineering college.
Regarding infrastructure, yes, the Chinese infrastructure i their lowest tier city is FAR better than in India’s commercial capital. Do not challenge me on this. Visit any C grade city in China for yourself, the roads, airport, train, buses and taxis will be much better than in Mumbai any day. However what the Chinese are lacking is the “soft” infrastructure like Banking laws, IP rights, attorneys and attorney firms, doctors (yes there are very few GPs in practice in China, if you fall ill you cannot just visit a GP’s clinic you have to go to the hospital), stockmarket broking houses, etc, etc. They are now concentrating on building this up in cities like Shanghai. Hong Kong already has this soft infrastructure in place.
Now what is admirable about Indian enterpreneurs is that they still continue to build good companies and products IN SPITE of the pitiful physical nfrastructure.
Comment by Dissenter — October 7, 2007 @ 11:52 am
man here it comes finally comparing india on international level....i believe india needs a gorbachev who will tell the floks we are down the bottom.
india is this india is that,there are many posts on innernet about how much the west and rest hate india,they are right from there point of view.
NOW THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION...
WHAT DO YOU THINK SHOULD WE---(WE ARE THOSE PEOPLE WHO HAVE LEFT INDIA ANTICIPATING VARIOUS DRAWBACKS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN INDIA AND DREAM OF PURSUING THE CARRIER HERE IN WEST) ....OK SO THESE WE PEOPLE SHOULD DO FOR INDIA......SO TOMORROW US NEWSPAPERS WILL START COMPARING THEM WITH US.....WHAT CAN WE DO....COZ JUST GREAT THOUGHTS WITHOUT ACTION ARE FUTILE.....ARENT WE WORST THAN THOSE CORRUPT POLITICIANS BACK HOME IF WE FAIL TO PAY BACK TO OUR MOTHERLAND,ATLEAST THEY STAYED BACK AND DOING THEIR PART.
WHAT DO YOU THINK WHAT CAN WE DO???????
I believe India is too democratic. Democracy works when majority thinks and works in the same direction. In India everybody seems to have its own opinion so we go nowehere. Govt. is largely worried on how to retain majority in the parliament.
In contrast China's single party rule really helps it seems. Without opposition, they atleast can try to do something good for their country and can actually do it ruthlessly.
Indian is decades behind China in terms of infrastructure and policies. The Indian bureaucracy does the rest to pull the country backwards. Even if good policies are made and acts are passed they become almost un implementable because of the 'free' differences in opinion. Differences between state and central Govt. Differences between municipal bodies and state Govt. And the factions within.
As rightly said India is driven by its people and not policies. But such people are not great in numbers. Because we don't have a system to build such people. Such enterpreneurs and thinkers. So in the end even if we have vast humar capital, we are unable to groom and use them. We might have large number of population below 30s but don't have enough infrastructure to provide them education, social care or employment for instance.
The strength of India lies in service industries and it should accept that its greatest exports are its people. So we should make policies pro to it and not try to chase some unrealistic targets such as beating China in industrialization or infrastructure.
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