Yesterday’s Failures are Today’s Successes

ballukhan, silly:
I think that we are talking past each other.
I am not saying that these noveau Indians are the only ones with an Indian identity, but they do represent a sort of identity that is new to India. Back in the 50s and 60s we also had a certain pan Indian identity, which is represented on the chowk by nasah and myself (I hope nasah saheb wont mind my daring to put myself in the same category as himself!); I would also include people like RAS and temporal in that group even though they are Pakistanis. We were also haughty and arrogant, we thought both America and Russia to be inferior to us since we were free of both Mcarthyism and Stalinism (although we didn`t see anything wrong in taking the first opportunity to go to the same West we called decadent and exploitative) and we believed that, in our -i.e., Nehru`s leadership of the non-aligned block in the cold war, we were the conscience of the world. We are now an almost extinct species and these noveau Indians may also not survive as a specy for ever. But the local and religious identities have always survived and will probably always survive.

dost-mittar
Talking of Nehru`s other possible successes doesnot constitute a rival viewpoint.

Re banking and other Asian economies, weren`t the S.East Asian tigers economies` near-catastrophic meltdowns some years ago and Japan`s economic troubles precipitated by poor banking practices? Didn` t something similar happen in Russia, too - too much FDI too fast?

China and India escaped the worst effects of those times. The point is there has to be a balance between too much government oversight and too little, esp when life savings or jobs of millions of people are at stake.

For Pankaj and Arjun`s kind perusal:



THE CAPITALIST THREAT

What kind of society do we want? ``Let the market decide!`` is the often-heard response. That response, a prominent capitalist argues, undermines the very values on which open and democratic societies depend.
by George Soros
--excerpt--

IN The Philosophy of History, Hegel discerned a disturbing historical pattern -- the crack and fall of civilizations owing to a morbid intensification of their own first principles. Although I have made a fortune in the financial markets, I now fear that the untrammeled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society. The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.

Dost mitter

On a thread that disappeared you asked about the legal status of honour killing. Following is a quate from a post by none other than romair.

``Once again, the supporters of, “Constitutional democracy” in Pakistan were quiet. Constitutionally and democratically speaking, if the elected assemblies do not want to legislate against honor killings, then what right does an unelected and unconstitutional President have to take action against it, on his own? ``

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#106 Harimau...... Thanks for telling about Bharat Dynamics.
If you know what is hsb (Hbs?) Report ? Thanks for troubles.

#106 Harimau...... Thanks for telling about Bharat Dynamics.
If you know what is hsb (Hbs?) Report ? Thanks for troubles.

sadna:
I agree with most of your post.
``China and India escaped the worst effects of those times``
It`s too early to say if the Chinese banks are out of the woods yet. They have been lending recklessly on the behest of their government without regard to sound business practices, much like the earlier lending by the public sector banks in India. Indian banking system seems to have survived intact because of some effective remedial actions taken by the govt. and RBI.
In case it has not been clear until now, I am not a laissez fare economist, only that the govt. should not have a seat at the boardrooms of the corporation, except to make rules to ensure that no hanky-panky is going on there.

gujjubania:
``There is nothing new in what you say.``
...nor did I intend to, except to draw attention to the unintended effects. The article makes only peripheral reference to the economic liberalisation; instead it tries to debunk the myth that the credit for the current success belongs to our earlier leadership for choosing english as its official language and the setting up of the institutes of higher learning. The credit for the first goes to south Indians and the second did not succeed in its intended effects. In fact, IIT engineers could be hired for a few hundred rupees a month during late sixties and seventies. I got my first job in 1964 in India after doing a simple M.A and was getting paid more than an IIT graduate did.

Ref ahmedmadani #117

[#106 Harimau...... Thanks for telling about Bharat Dynamics.
If you know what is hsb (Hbs?) Report ? Thanks for troubles.]

HBS I presume would be Harvard Business School. This might have been a paper for a course in Public Policy but I do not have access to it.

Ref dost-mittar #111

[soysauce:
``I`m not knocking you, mind you, but you might as well make the title read Yesterday`s (successes/failures) are today`s (successes/failures) and all four combinations would be valid.``
I do not disagree with this at all! In fact, I stated at the beginning of the article that ``One of the lessons learned from these analyses is that the unintended consequences of government programs and policies are SOMETIMES stronger and quite different from their intended effects.``]

Dear Dost-Mittarji,

You need to use words of one syllable when writing to Maasanamuthu. Or colloquial Tamil.

Ref Cranberry-sauce-stuffed-Turkey #102

[The power of IITs is a myth. We haven`t had breakthrough technological or scientific innovations coming out of IITs. The smart ones from IIT would be smart even without an IIT education and IITs merely act as a selection filter. For what it`s worth, two of Microsoft`s VPs are alumni of guindy engineering college/anna university, madras.]

So right. Who can forget the new TVs based on the RGY phosphors?

By the way, would these two be any of the Quota Candidates?

I remember a scientist (a former Deputy Director of the Central Electronics Research Institute) who was an adjunct professor at Anna University. When he was approached by the faculty to also become an advisor to PhD students, he refused. His reasoning, as told to me, was: ``at some point somebody wearing a towel on his shoulders will show up at my doors and gently suggest that I should a) admit so-and-so to the doctoral program and b) I should approve XYZ`s thesis. None of this is compatible with good academic work and so I refused.``

The Man with the Towel on His Shoulders, for those who are unfamiliar with Tamil Nadu, are the political leaders and their hangers-on who normally wear a white dhoti, white kurta and a very long white towel whose borders would be red and black signifying their affiliation with the DMK/DK.

This is of course the reason why the Chennai Mathematical Institute is affiliated with Bhoj University in Madhya Pradesh and not with Perarignar Anna University or with the University of Madras. We already see a bunch of high schools offering the Cambridge Examinations as an alternative to your Plus Two (no quota candidates are studying there), several other high schools offering the Central Board curriculum (no Maasanamuthus here either, no surprise) as an alternative to the State Board.

We in Tamil Nadu know exactly where Anna University ranks. The IIT Madras is right across from Anna and you guys are not fit to carry the sh!t of the IIT students. At least the IIT students have demonstrated their ability to study hard and pass an exam to get into their institution whereas you have produced a caste certificate and usually a bogus one at that to get into Anna University.

Ref fuzair #97

[Thanks for the post but I fear logic and facts will be of no use. IIRC, macgupta and I have had that discussion before (on just how evil was the British Raj) and there is no point in trying.]

The Raj was evil as were its political agents. The policy of the Raj was to turn India into a country from which they could extract raw materials at low cost and dump British manufactures to the exclusion of most others (I recall my folks telling me inexpensive Japanese cloth used to be available in India). The political agents and Residents were there to control independent tribals and rajas.

The average civil servant -- all the way I would think up to the Chief Secretary level in the Provinces -- had a great deal of autonomy in how they ran the administration. While racism played a part in British-Indian relations, even that happened after the Mutiny of 1857. Before that quite a few Englishment ``went Native`` in their dress and eating habits and had Indian wives and concubines. The Civil Service was impartial in its arbitration of disputes amomgst Indians which was important to the people who had been treated so high-handedly by the Rajas, Maharajas, Ranas, Sultans and Nawabs. The British also brought in the concept of a professional full-time army, the railways (privately owned and thus subject to the charge that profit was the motive), built several roads (no tolls were collected so one would have to say this was for administrative convenience if not for public convenience), irrigation projects, etc. Where they failed was in public health and immunizations.

As to education, under the British, Indians earned 3 Nobel Prizes for work done in India. (Sir Ronald Ross born in Almora in 1857 for Medicine, Rabindranath Tagore and CV Raman.) Under our new Nawabs, all talent has to leave the country in order to do good work because anywhere from 50% to 88% of colege admissions and jobs are reserved for the Retards.

dost-mittar
I am almost totally ignorant of what Nehru actually said or wrote on the subject, but, IMHO in his vision for modern India, Nehru forgot that regions constituting presentday India were strong trading powers for most of history. They could not have been so without being good producers of surplus and inclined towards enterprise.

He missed taking into account the fact that economic lethargy, poverty and illiteracy didnot necessarily constitute the natural state of his countrymen. ( Eg, in a recent NYT writeup on excavations on the Red Sea coast which unearthed quantities of peppercorns and cotton cloth, the Emperor Nero was quoted as complaining of balance of payments crisis with India 2000 years ago :)).

Nehru`s oversight was like that of many modern Arabs, for example, who have forgotten that Arabs were great seafarers and traders in the past but now consider `globalization` or increased interaction with outside world and its ideas as inherently wrong or unnatural.

Ref dost-mittar #121

[In fact, IIT engineers could be hired for a few hundred rupees a month during late sixties and seventies. I got my first job in 1964 in India after doing a simple M.A and was getting paid more than an IIT graduate did.]

I recently met a retired Indian gentleman in the US. He is an early IIT-Kharagpur graduate and in those days they either stayed on In India or, if they went for higher studies to the US, returned to India. All I can say is while he was happy for his son`s financial success in the US, he seemed rather amused by the big deal being made about the whole thing. He seemed quite at peace with himself and the way his career had shaped up.

Ref sadna #114

[Re banking and other Asian economies, weren`t the S.East Asian tigers economies` near-catastrophic meltdowns some years ago and Japan`s economic troubles precipitated by poor banking practices? Didn` t something similar happen in Russia, too - too much FDI too fast?

China and India escaped the worst effects of those times. The point is there has to be a balance between too much government oversight and too little, esp when life savings or jobs of millions of people are at stake.]

The reason the Asian Tiger economies collapsed is that they permitted free inflow and outflow of capital. So when the Western investors didn`t see the returns they wanted, they pulled out their capital.

China and India have restrictions on convertibility of capital accounts. Thus both escaped runs on their currencies as happened to the Malaysian ringgit till Mahathir had enough and pegged the ringgit at Rg. 3.75 to a dollar and stopped capital account convertibility.

Another difference is how the Chinese managed FDI. By guaranteeing no labor strife, good infrastructure (electricity, transportation, ports, etc.) they got FDI. In India we have the babus of the bureaucracy deciding how many pennies a foreign investor can bring in. Add to that bad ports, unreliable electric supply, poor roads, you got the worst of the third world. China also pegged their renminbi whereas India lets the rupee float. This worked when the Indian rupee depreciated against the dollar and Indian (IT) companies were able to report huge profits in rupees but now that the rupee has gone up from 49 to a dollar to 45-and-change to a dollar, these guys are crying buckets.

It is just that India has way too many LSE graduates running the economy whereas China has the equivalent of the Marwaris running their economy. You can see the difference.