Yesterday’s Failures are Today’s Successes

PM

``it could be argued that the socialist measures taken during that period (say `70-`90) were in fact the launching pad needed for India from which to catch the winds of this latest storm of globalization. ``

One who grew up in India during 80s and 90s would not agree with you. I know from my own experience that nothing is more disastrous than governmental interference in any endeavour, especially economic. With government comes the corrupt, unaccountable and inept bureaucracy. This govt induced endemic corruption kills any enterpreneurship of its citizens. You have to live in a socialist society to realize how utterly dehumanizing and hopeless the system is.


``You Indians want non-socialist, small-government, laizzez fair economics? Look immediately West and be caredul what you wish for! ``

This is exactly what I want - laissez faire and free enterprise. I am a minimalist when it comes to govt. role in economic activities. I belive in the innate superiority of market mechanisms over state-managed economy.

Dost-Mittar
``But most Indians view themselves generally in terms of their local, caste, ethnic, language and religious identities.``

I totally disagree with you. I donot know why you made that generalization. I am from south but i never considered myself first as telugu and then indian. I always considered myself first as Indian and then Hindu. When there were cyclones in Orissa, Earthquake/riots in Gujarat and when the soldiers were fighting on the Kargil Heights, me and my friends we all felt the pain of fellow Indian and donated/collected funds to help the affected people. We did this as Indians never as southeis. My friends include Telugu`s, kannada`s, Tamils, Keralites and Gujaratis. I always take pride in the achievements of any Indian not just people who are from Andhra. I can say the same about most of my friends. India is not a nation state it a civilizational state. You cannot expect the kind of cohession you see in a nation state. People in a nation state can have a single identity not in countries like India. There is nothing wrong in having multiple identities. It doesn`t make them any less Indian and it doesn`t mean their primary identity is not Indian.

dost-mittar #80
chowk has this tradition of using ethnic/religious/personal slurs as a substitute for hard facts. I guess I was disappointed to hear the usual derogatory comment about somebody or the other instead of learning more on the subject at hand.

FYI, there is this report on poverty in India 1974-2002 which bears out your point wrt poverty at least.
http://www.dec.org/pdf_docs/PNACR801.pdf

If you go to page 3, it has a poverty graph which shows that poverty increased from 1952-1965. Poverty began to decrease substantially only after 1974.

Apparently, India averaged an agricultural growth of 0.3% per annum 1901-1950. Glowing testament to British rule.

Dost Mittar:

I enjoyed reading this. I think it is a decent effort though my insight is a bit different on the language issue..more so in the details then the general thrust.

Anil Kapuria:

I enjoyed reading your insights. Please contribute more often on Chowk.

Ahmad Madani:

How are you getting such detailed information sitting in Pakistan? I know you value your anonymity hence the ``work in restaurant`` story but I find the depth of your knowledge about India (including the specific infrastructural issues we face) amazing. Is your educational background in macroeconomic planning or have you worked for your government by any chance?

Ahmed Madani:

``In long term Nehru and wajpai will be consider as continuation of change.(all others except MRs Gandhi werre forth to fith rate primeministers) ``

You feel that way about Narsimha Rao as well? The 1991 reforms were initiated under his watch.

re: Pankaj

Thanks for the reply.

Ciao

Ref macgupta #84

[Apparently, India averaged an agricultural growth of 0.3% per annum 1901-1950. Glowing testament to British rule.]

Chemical fertilizers and pesticides were practically unknown in India till the 1950s. Even in the West, chemical fertilizers were not possible until the synthesis of ammonia on a large scale (Haber Process - Fritz Haber got the Nobel Prize in 1918 for this) was available early in the 20th century.

The British also built the Upper Ganges Canal which partially diverted water from the Ganges near Hardwar for irrigation. The job was undertaken by the District Commissioner of the area at that time and took nearly 20 years to complete. The Government thought it was a waste of money and funded it with great reluctance but the project paid for itself through increased tax revenues.

The British also built all the canals in Punjab. Before that, Punjab was considered a jungle and land there wasn`t cultivated.

Farther south, the British built dams across several rivers and streams. The Mettur Dam was built to store seasonal flow of water and was the first modern dam across the Cauvery river.

They also built the Periyar reservoir {hey, Soysauce, this is NOT named for that idiot EV Ramaswamy Naicker whom you call Periyar (Big Man); the name of the nearest town is Periyar (Big River)}. The construction of that dam at a hilly location with no access roads and amidst malarial swamps was a most difficult undertaking. The chief engineer on the project -- a white man as was the wont in those days -- buried his daughter there when she died of illness.

The British civil servants did their job no matter what the hardships. One could argue that they were trying to maximize the revenues of the Government. But in the process, people did benefit. The civil servants did their jobs to the best of their abilities and far better than the minions of the Nawabs that they replaced.

#82 by silly on November 30, 2003 4:02pm PT
Dost-Mittar
``But most Indians view themselves generally in terms of their local, caste, ethnic, language and religious identities.``

But the same holds for any notion of IDENTITY and INDIVIDUALITY-
There are layers of IDENTITY- depending upon the layer of community in which you live.

THe nearest community of persons in which you live - i.e. the family of a person is what creates the primary IDENTITY.
As the layers of groups with which an indiviual gets associated increases, the more complex the notions of IDENTITY gets build up-
So, the more layers of identity gets developed at the level of your GAli, Colony, City, your imagined community of similar people (like my imagined community of musicians), the identity with layers developed by my workplace etc etc.

India is a real community of persons whose RULES OF COMMUNAL and COMMON LIVING is CONSTITUTED by the Indian Constitution and the legislations made by its parliament and NOT by some RELIGIOUS BOOK/s.

And this is what people who think of IDENTITY and NATION in terms of Religious notion of NATIONS, as it gets explicated in Books, cannot comprehend.

Re : dost-mittar # 78
“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.”

This is an amazing generalization of Indians, completely different from my experience. Most Indians I have met think of themselves as Indians period. They might belong to one part of the country and may live somewhere else or should I say their ancestors belonged to some other part of the country. Apart from this a lot of people have parents who hail from different parts of the country, this will be more true for people of the coming generation than my generation. For these people to think of themselves in terms of their local, caste, ethnic, language and religious identities will be even harder.

Regards,

Faruk

veeresh #64:
``The one thing that has changed in India since 1947 for the rural unlettered poor who are still in the Anrez Rani/thanedaar kotwal/road rangdari tax era is the railway ticket, now computerised at some of the smallest hamlets . . . ``
Computerised train tickets are not available in the ``smallest hamlets``... a few months ago I had to book a train ticket at the railway station of a small town, and they were still handing out the small cardboard tickets. Of course, it does not make economic sense to install computers in small stations, where the volumes are not there...

Faruk:

``This is an amazing generalization of Indians, completely different from my experience. Most Indians I have met think of themselves as Indians period. They might belong to one part of the country and may live somewhere else or should I say their ancestors belonged to some other part of the country.``

This is certainly true of my extended family. But I think this holds especially true of the members and descendants of central government employees. Millions of kids graduate from Kendriya Vidyalayas every year (I spent three years in three different ones) and they have NO identity but an Indian one.

sadna#83:
Thanks for providing a useful link, as usual, even when it supports the rival viewpoint. There is another interesting graph, which shows that while inequalities decreased during the Nehruvian era, the poverty levels increased; the opposite happened in the following period, namely, that the inequalities increased during this period while poverty levels decreased. There is a moral here for Angana Chatterjees, Praful Badwais and others: live with inequality and reduce poverty; or praise equality and let the poor starve (while you deliver your khutbas from your ivory towers!).

PM:
The link provided by sadna provides an answer to the question posed by you regarding definition of poverty, which I am reproducing below:
``Often conducted annually, the survey has used consistent poverty lines (49 rupees for rural areas, and 57 rupees, both in terms of 1973-1974 prices). The poverty lines were described by the survey designers as permitting a caloric intake of 2,400 calories in rural areas and 2,100 calories in urban areas.3 The NSS provides national and state-by-state data on average consumption, share of the population in poverty, and the distribution of consumption among the population, in the form of a Gini coefficient.``

silly, faruk, ballukhan:
``I am from south but i never considered myself first as telugu and then indian. I always considered myself first as Indian and then Hindu. `` (silly)
That is very nice to know. But you must be aware that at the election time, political parties in India not only appeal to narrower loyalties but also generally take caste, religion and similar narrower loyalties into consideration while choosing a candidate. This is true even of the modern, progressive leaders like Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh.
And when I refer to this group of noveau Indians having a primarily pan-Indian identity, I do not mean that they do not have other identity or identities.

ferozk#28:
``Nehru was an aristocrat and he ruled India in that mold of mind and when the aristocrats rule with the best of intentions, people suffer. ``

True! and it shows that it may be as unsafe to entrust a nation to them as to the feudals. Actually, one could perhaps argue that feudals are closer to the pulse of the masses, with whom they deal on a daily basis than the aristocrats. (the classic ``if they dont have bread, why dont they eat cake mentality!).
Nehru hated feudals and abolished zamindari, but did nothing to abolish the private schools, the breeding ground for elites/aristocracy. And he loved the darbari/sarkari thaat-baat of parlatial bungalows for the president, prime minister and ministers of his socialist utopia. Traffic on the streets in India was closed two hours before the savaari of Nawab Saheb to pass through it.