After finishing Imagining India by Nandan Nilenkani, I was highly influened with the concept of India being seen through the evolution of ideas and it’s an interesting way because in an open democratic society whenever ideas are rooted then comes the change . Ideas turn into Ideologies and Ideologies lead to action and this is how things start going. This blog post is the gist of this book with the concern about the Ideas changing India.
In 1930 Great Depression happened which led to all the ideas of the establishing the state and that of social security. In the 1980s we had yet another change, which was of deregulation. And today, after the global economic crisis, we have worked out and are devising new set of ideas to deal with it next time. So ideas are linked with changes.
As Nandan Nilenkani expresses in his book that India is governed by four kind of Ideas. The first is what is mentions as "Ideas that have arrived." These are the ideas which have brought together something which has made India happen the way it is today. The second type of ideas are "Ideas in progress". These are the ideas which have been accepted but not implemented properly. The third set of ideas are called "Ideas in battle" i.e. ideas in which we have arguements, an ideological battleabout how to implement the things. And the fourth kind of and the most important one "Ideas to anticipate" when you are a developing country in the world then you can see the problems of the other countries and anticipate those other countries did differently and successfully.
" Ideas that have arrived "
Nilenkani believe that there are six ideas which are responsible for India where it has come today. The first is the notion of people. In early decades after Independence India considered people as burden, as a liability. Today the scenario has drastically changed ; we talk of people as an asset, as human capital. And this change in the mindset has been one of the fundamental changes in the Indian mindset and it is linked to the fact that India is going through a demographic dividend. As healthcare improves, as infant mortality goes down, fertility rates start dropping which India is experiencing right now. India is going to have a lot of young people with a demographic dividend for the next 30 years. And what’s unique about this demographic dividend is that India will be the only country in the world to have this demographic dividend or we can say it will be the only young country in an aging world. If you take a closer look at demographic dividend in India there are actually two demographic curves. One that describes South and West of India, which is already going to be fully expensed by 2015 because there the fertility rate is almost reaching to that of a West-European countries then there is the whole North India, which is going to be the bulk of the future demographic dividend. But a demographic dividend is only as good as the people are getting education, have good health, have roads to go to work, they have lights to study at night only in those cases can you really get the benefit of a demographic dividend. Simply you can say if you don't really invest in the human capital, the same demographic dividend can be a demographic disaster and India is at a critical point where either it can leverage its demographic dividend or it can lead to a demographic disaster.
The second thing in India has been the change in the role of entrepreneurs. When India got independence entrepreneurs were seen as a bad lot and as that group who exploit. But today, after 63 years, because of the rise of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs have become role models and they are contributing hugely to the society.
The third big thing that has changed India is our attitude towards the English Language. With the arrival of globalization, with outsourcing, English has become a language of aspiration and a strategic asset which was considered as a language of imperialists.
The next thing is Technology. 40 years back, computers were seen as something which was forbidding, intimidating, something that kills jobs. India is a nation which sells more than 8 million mobile phones a month, of which 90% of those mobile phones are prepaid as mass consumers don’t have credit history. 40 percent of those prepaid phones are recharged at less than 20 cents at each recharge. That is the scale at which technology has liberated and made it accessible. And therefore technology has gone from being seen as something forbidding and intimidating to something that is empowering to each section of society. Two decades back when bank computerization was to be implemented, the reports never had quoted a Computer as computer rather it was mentioned as ledger posting machines because policy makers didn't want the unions to believe that they were actually computers. Similarly for more powerful computers they used advanced ledger posting machines in reports. So we have travelled a long way in reaching a point where the technology has become an instrument of empowerment and really has changed the way India thinks.
Next is that Indians today are far more comfortable with globalization. Again, after having lived for more than 200 years under the East India Company, Indians had a very natural reaction towards globalization initially taking it as a form of imperialism but today as Indians come and go abroad for working, they have gained a lot more confidence and have realized that globalization is something they can participate in. As we are the only young country in an aging world, makes globalization all the more attractive to Indians.
And finally, India has a depth in its democracy. It came as an elite concept. Today the masses have realized the benefits of having a voice and the power of vote. So democracy is become embedded in our culture.
" Ideas in Progress "
The next type of Ideas are Ideas in progress. Among them the one with utmost importantance is the question of education. For some reason, may be lack of money, priorities etc primary education was never given the focus it required. But now we have reached a point where it has become very critical. Unfortunately the government schools don't function well, so majority children are going to private schools. today. So there is a big challenge in getting the schools to work and being a young nation it is very necessary that the idea of primary education should be implemented properly.
Similarly, infrastructure. For a long time,it was not a priority but now it has something which is agreed upon and which people want to implement as it is reflected in the political statements. 20 years back the political slogan was, "Roti, kapra, makan," and today's political slogan is, "Bijli, sarak, paani," and this is a change in the mindset where infrastructure is now accepted. So I do believe this is an idea which has arrived but simply not implemented.
The third thing is again cities it's because Gandhi believed in villages and because the British ruled from the cities and therefore Nehru thought of New Delhi as an un-Indian city. That resulted in neglect of citites and that is reflected in the kinds of situations that you see. Today after economic reforms, and economic growth, we can count cities as engines of economic growth and innovation. So the drive to towards improving our cities has is to be driven along highway.
Next the notion of India as a single market because we have a situation where every state had its own market for products. As an individual state can’t live just on it’s own so the flow of resources from one state to another must be in free form. It is a form of internal globalization which is need to be focussed as much as external globalization.
" Ideas in Battle "
Next type of ideas are Ideas in battle. Among them ther are our ideological issues. Our historical background has motivated caste system and many have been left out in the coldbut the worst is a lot of the politics is played which deals mostly with all unsurcupulous motives which results in reservation quotas and related techniques.We have sufficient left and right ideologies that too need to be concensus.
Next is the labor policies which create problems for entrepreneurs to create standardized jobs in companies. 93% of Indian labor is in the unorganized sector. They have no benefits or social security,pension or healthcare. This needs to be fixed we will never be able to achieve a formal workforce which is franchasied. New set of labor laws are needed to create more and more jobs.
The third thing is our higher education which needs to be completely regulated. Recent reforms have been escalated by Govt. as per on Yashpal Committee and gates for foreign universities have been opened now though we need to be in pace with India's demands. That is leading to a lot of problems which we need to address.
" Ideas to Anticipate "
Finally ideas that need to be anticipated. We can always have a look what is happening in the World and figure out what best can be done. Best thing is that we are getting comfortable with technology and can use it for governance and many other issues of direct benefits.
The second thing is, the health issue. In fact India is in a state of replacing a set of poor country diseases with a set of rich country diseases which we need to rethink the whole way we look at health that need to put a new strategy to achieve a status of healthy nation.
Next India has responsibility towards environment too. Now why does these matters? Why does what's happening 10 thousand miles away at Ice caps matter to all of us? First of all we represent more than a billion people i.e. 1/6th of the world population. If we really want to come to a point, we really want to put a cap on our carbon emission. We want to really lower the use of energy. It has to be solved in countries like India. You know if you look at the development in the west over 200 years, the average growth may have been about two percent. Here we are talking about countries growing at eight to nine percent. And that makes a huge difference. When India’s growth rate was about 3.5%, the population growth was 2% and per capita income was doubling in every 45 years. When the economic growth goes to eight percent and population growth drops to 1.5 %, then per capita income is doubling every 9 years.
Certainly India is fast forwarding the entire process of a billion people going to prosperity and we should have clear strategies to classify what is important for India and what is important for world; and have a equal concern for them.
