Yesterday’s Failures are Today’s Successes

re: Indians

Any thoughts on the elections being held on Monday in India? Any prognosis?

Ciao

“shabdon kaa arth to bataiye:
bakheeli?
razzaqi?....”(Pankaj)


Janab Pankaj sahib: bahut hi mushkill sawall kiya aapnay...

Bakkheeli means: stinginess ....miserliness ...meanness ...niggardliness ...a general unwillingness to part with even a small amount of money...uncouth...unsharing

“Razzaki” comes from the Urdu word “rizq” means sustenance ....“roti khana kapra”... ...”bread and butter”... livelihood....subsistence...generosity..... bigheartedness, bounteousness, bounty, charitableness, kindness, sharing, unselfishness....

Isn`t AMAZING the great subcontinental peot Allama Iqbal had commented on the Reagnomics of nineties -- with such acumen -- 80 years ago -- summed up the whole charade of in just ONE couplets......what a genius .....bravo!

sumundar se milay peyaasay ko shubnum
bakheeli hai yeh razzaki naheeN hai

Now here is the 21st century translation of that marvellous couplet....

From the ocean of your opulence, oh God, you give us a few drops of ``trickle down`` DEW to quench our thirst?...

You are one stingy Reaganomist sob , oh God, you are indeed no good-for-nothin Philanthropist.........:-)

re: post # 62

``The bottom line is: when Nehru took unfettered reins of govts - both centre and states and with virtually no opposition - India was at near the top of the Asian league, when he left, it was at near bottom not only in economic but in most social and infrastructure indicators.``
Dost-mittar sahib,
I do not think the above statement is accurate.
When the British came to trade with India, India was still a prosperous nation. When they left, India was down in the dumps, accounting for less than 1 % of world trade. India in 1947 did not even produce a needle. So, to say it was at the top of Asian league would be inaccurate.
Much of the years of Nehru era were spent in gaining self-confidence, establishing infrastructure and consolidating the idea of a ``nation state``, so vital for any nation. Nehru`s economic policies had its unintended consequences but i do not have time to dwell on that right now.
Sridhar

Ferozk

If the numerous poll surveys are to be believed, Congress under Sheila Dikshit is all set to sweep Delhi owing to her excellent performance. People seem to credit her with making Delhi less polluted by introducing CNG and with all the economic development of the state. BJP is all set to sweep Madhya Pradesh due to the same development factor. Uma Bharti seems to be riding ``We want power, roads`` slogan as the Congress performance on these basic necessities has been pathetic over there. The battle in Rajasthan and Chattisgarh is evenly poised. Congress performance has not been sterling in either state but it is not pathetic too, relatively speaking. However, the anti incumbency factor may upset calculations at the last moment. The good thing is that these elections are being fought on the developmental issues and the emotional issues have generally not been raised. the score could be 2-2 or 3-1 for either party.

``If the numerous poll surveys are to be believed, Congress under Sheila Dikshit is all set to sweep Delhi owing to her excellent performance. ``(pankaj)

mashalla....... subhanalla.........Shiela...... India`s next prime minister...:-)

``If the numerous poll surveys are to be believed, Congress under Sheila Dikshit is all set to sweep Delhi owing to her excellent performance. ``(pankaj)

mashalla....... subhanalla.........Shiela...... India`s next prime minister...:-)

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//..Shiela...... India`s next prime minister...:-) ...//

Sure. Anybody other than the ``Gandhi`` clan would do.

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dost-mittar #62
``The bottom line is: when Nehru took unfettered reins of govts - both centre and states and with virtually no opposition - India was at near the top of the Asian league, when he left, it was at near bottom not only in economic but in most social and infrastructure indicators. ``

Do you have any figures for this?

After scratching around, here are a few human development indicator comparisons:

At Independence average life expectancy was 32. Now its above 60.

Literacy rate was 14% at independence, now it is 65% .

Infant mortality was 200 per thousand at independence, its 66 now(over a larger population, we were 400 million in 1947).

There were 28 medical colleges in 1950, now there are 106.There were 19 universities in 1947 now there are 219.

You will find more figures of comparison with 1947 here:
http://pib.nic.in/archive/50yrs/50featr/ind50.html

``Only a nation that believes in devis and devtas even after they fail to deliver would worship such a man. ``

Most of the Communists were atheists but worship Lenin, Stalin, Mao despite their each causing deaths of 10s of millions. The Christian or the Muslim world of believers is not free of blind support for the worst of their leaders. Why drag Hindus` religious practices into this?

And I have never come across a single Indian who wants to worship Nehru, nor do I worship him or any of our leaders. I think he got a lot of things wrong, even badly wrong. I thought we were having a free exchange of views here. Maybe I was mistaken.

//..on my travels I have often ended up picking up clothes, artifacts that I realise later have a `Made in India` label. And these superior goods are fighting for space along with cheap Chinese items...//

Sure - but in terms of numbers they are just a drop in the ocean of chinese goods dominating floorspace in supermarkets all over the world. In terms manufacturing - India is way behind China and other nations, many thanks to the ``Small Scale Industries`` policy.

//...I would say there are several Indias and instead of trying to force them to mesh, there should be an attempt to accept the differences...//

Who is forcing anybody to ``mesh``? If there is any ``meshing`` happening - then it is automatic because may be that is the way people want to move - with less contradictions and more focus. Lessening the differences is a good thing. Cohesion is a good thing. No country has progressed where different entities pulling it in all different directions.

anil#48:
Thanks for the info.
I am not surprised at the conclusion of the HBS report. Even if a lopsided investment in higher education were justified on economic grounds, which it was not, it could not have been justified on equity grounds by any egalitarian society, let alone one wedded to socialism.

I cannot respond to your remarks regarding capital being used more efficiently in India than in China without further studies. It is quite possible it was so in the private sector where it was quite costly but I doubt it if it was so in the economy as a whole if public sector was also included in the calculations.

When I said labour intensive industries, not investing the capital required to update machinery and equipment to be globally competitive. I was thinking more in terms of capital intensive versus labour intensive industries. If you notice, even now the growth in India is taking place in labour intensive service producing industries, albeit the labour is not of the cheap, unskilled type.

Dear Farzana:
I am glad that you picked up on something which others have not in the discussion, the concept of ``Indian``. I agree with you that there are many Indias including one of non-resident Indians and of chowkies. But most Indians view themselves generally in terms of their local, caste, ethnic, language and religious identities. The group that I describe, which one might call the ``nouveau Indian`` however does think of himself/herself as primarily Indian. At the risk of raising my friend nasah`s ire, it may be compared to an earlier, nobler generation of pan-Indians who banded together to fight for the liberation of the country.

``They want to go for `higher studies` overseas and find work there.``
If the news reports are to believed, more of them are now staying back and some firms are in fact recruiting in North America to take people back to India. I believe that most people want to stay in the surroundings they grew up in (including villagers) unless they can significantly improve their or their children`s living standards. If new graduates can do that in India, they will stay there, or so I would like to think.

``on my travels I have often ended up picking up clothes, artifacts that I realise later have a `Made in India` label. And these superior goods are fighting for space along with cheap Chinese items. ``
This is the result of having to compete in the global market place. Not too long ago, the only Indian garments sold here were produced in cottage industries and generally in ethnic stores. One would buy a kurta pajama whose buttons would come off after the first wash and seams will come off at unseamly places after the secon wash.

Veeresh:
``I could name more, but keep to these five on additional grounds of (a) non-monopoly and (b) in the face of open competition, including foreign in some cases.``
I agree. If these two conditions are satisfied and the govt. is dealing with the enterprise at an arm`s length ensuring a level playing field with the private sector entities, a public sector enterprise can be successful. But why waste precious public resources on activities which private sector could do anyway, when there is a crying need for resources in creating social and economic infrastructure that nobody else would?

sridar:
``When the British came to trade with India, India was still a prosperous nation. When they left, India was down in the dumps, accounting for less than 1 % of world trade.``
There is no doubt that the British exploited and impoverished India. But it is also true that they created some infrastructure first to meet the needs of their vast Raj and later perhaps also from a sense of the white man`s burden. Whatever the motivation, the fact remains that at the time of departure, they had left India with the basics of a modern infrastructure required for development.

``India in 1947 did not even produce a needle.``
This was a favourite statement of congress politicians at almost every election meeting durinng the 60s and 70s. I do not know whether or not it produced needle in 1947, but it certainly produced a lot of other things. India had a flourishing and indigenous textile and jute industry and the level of imports was not more than 1-2% of GDP. In fact, India even produced steel at that time and had its own airlines, both in the private sector, a feat accomplished by very few countries back then.

sadna#75:
``Do you have any figures for this? ``
Not at my fingertips but I have seen relevant figures.

The statistics you present are comparing the present with the situation at independence, not at the end of 70s. But I know that these statistics registered significant improvements even during that period. The question is not of absolute but of relative improvement. We improved but not as much as our other Asian competitors. To illustrate by an example from a totally different field, our hockey game might have improved since 50s but we used to get an olympic gold medal in hockey before and we dont do now because others have improved more than we have.

``Why drag Hindus` religious practices into this? ``
Sorry for the offense. I was somehow under the impression that hindus are more thick-skinned about these things. Perhaps, I was mistaken.