A Tale of Two Indias With One United Goal

 

16 June 2011.

 

 

16 June 2011.

[quote] “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” – Charles Dickens from A Tale of Two Cities [/quote]

It has become rather cliché to describe India as a land of contrasts. After all, in a land of more than 1.2 billion people, with hundreds of languages, and a history that dates to over five thousand years, there are bound to be contrasts that have emerged along the way.

Still, India is often characterised by the degree of contrasts that exist within the country. In fact, the government and the people of India have come to accept, and even embrace this profile. As one Indian netizen puts it, India is a “country with unity in diversity…all are undoubtedly united by one sole feeling of ‘being an Indian’.”

Here at EconomyWatch.com, we’ve also gotten a sense of how diverse and passionate our Indian readers can be when it comes to issues related to their homeland. From the comments left on our India-related articles to our social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter (Follow us on Facebook and Twitter) our Indian readers have always shown a willingness to share and express their opinions – often displaying a keen interest to learn as well as to educate our non-Indian readers about Indian topics.

Another thing that we’ve noticed about our audience from India is, regardless how diverse or different individual opinions may be, there is one common factor that binds these opinions and represents “unity in diversity”: a desire to enact positive change.

Few countries in the world exemplify this spirit as much as India. Unfortunately, very few countries in the world can also claim to exhibit the level of financial and economic disparity that India has.

In major population centres across India, the rich and poor live in such close proximity to each other that it almost feels as if they were deliberately promulgating the disparity that exist between the social classes.

India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, for example was recently criticised for building the world’s most expensive house in Mumbai named Antilia. Antilia is a private 27-storey building – valued at more than US$1 billion to construct – that towers over some of the city’s poorest slums.

Related: Reliance “Family Tower” Highlights Mumbai Wealth Gap

According to Dean Nelson of the Telegraph, the number of multi-millionaires in India is also expected to triple in the next five years together with a “fivefold increase in net worth” for this elite group of Indians.

At the same time, India has one of the highest levels of poverty in the world. According to the CIA World Fact Book and EconomyWatch.com’s Econstats Database, 25 percent of India’s population live below the poverty line. However, there has not been a uniform measure of poverty in India and other studies seem to indicate a far higher level of poverty. The Arjun Sengputa Report for example states that 77 percent of Indians live on less than US$0.50 cents per day. The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative also estimated that there were over 645 million poor people living in India.

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Palgummi Sainath, the rural affairs editor of The Hindu, describes the situation as being one that highlighted two completely different stratospheres. “The urban poor are rural poor who have migrated. We are pushing people to cities but not designing cities to accommodate them. Those who come from the villages are neither farmers nor workers. They are the in-betweens, domestic servants and the like. It is no longer a two-nation divide, it’s two planets. Vastly different lifestyles, vastly different living standards, and vastly different levels of stress and distress.”

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Poverty in India

Though there are many reasons for poverty in India, one of the biggest problems that the country faces is a government that is unable or unwilling to assist in developing policies and infrastructure that would help to alleviate the situation.

This problem is a nation wide issue that affects all social and economic classes in India. India is expected to be one of the major centres of economic growth in the next few years, though the lack of modern infrastructure has threatened to stunt the nation’s growth.

Dan Herman, a former program director of nGenera Insight’s Government 2.0, points out that “unlike my (his) experience in China where I (he) saw very broad and quite spread out development across both major and minor centres, India’s development is much more ‘spikey’ and seems to have completely neglected non-urban centres.”

Chris Morris, a correspondent for BBC News, also emphasised a new irony that had arisen in India – where rapid economic growth was being tampered by a slow, inefficient and corrupt government.

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“India’s economy is booming, the rich are getting richer and the poor are able to dream – but chaos and corruption are still everywhere you look.

As with many things in India, I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Aruna Asaf Ali Marg.

This was the road on which I drove, or was driven, from home to work and back, most days that I was in Delhi.

All life was there. A little bit of everything.

There was the India of progress and increasing prosperity. The new hospital on the corner, the South Asian University, the National Institutes of Immunology and of Plant Genome Research.

There were wedding halls and restaurants. Students going shopping and workmen building bridges.

But there was also – how can I put this politely – one hell of a mess.

Shortly after I joined the commuters on Aruna Asaf Ali the council knocked down a whole series of buildings, which had encroached on to public land by the side of the road.

Well, they did not knock them down completely, they just knocked down enough to make them uninhabitable, to concertina one illegal floor on to the next.

It looked a bit like the aftermath of an earthquake.

Never fear, I thought, this will soon be part of the new India. India shining.

But then nothing happened. There were legal disputes. Presumably no-one told anyone else what to do with the buildings, so they just stayed there, falling to pieces by the side of the road. Every day, for the next three years.”

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Fighting Corruption in India

Along the way however, a new wave of optimism has managed to infect the country and its citizens. To put it simply, the people of India are starting to fend for themselves rather than to rely on the government for any assistance.

Three years after the series of buildings were knocked down by the government on Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, “little by little, people, families, and businesses started moving back in to the ruins.”

The tale of Gurgaon – a city located 15 miles to the south of New Delhi – is even more incredible.

Relatively unheard of barely two decades ago, the city of Gurgaon is now seen as “a symbol of a rising new India” according to the New York Times.

A shiny metropolis that boasts twenty-six shopping malls and seven golf courses, Gurgaon is an example of what the private sector can do “to overcome the inadequacies of the government.”

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“To compensate for electricity blackouts, Gurgaon’s companies and real estate developers operate massive diesel generators capable of powering small towns. No water? Drill private borewells. No public transportation? Companies employ hundreds of private buses and taxis. Worried about crime? Gurgaon has almost four times as many private security guards as police officers.”

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Yet, there is only so much that the private sector can do. Without any proper central planning to determine the scale of development in Gurgaon, the city has now become an “unmanageable city” bogged down by a endless stream of reckless private expansion.

Still, some citizens of Gurgaon are contented.

“I’m certain that if it goes to the government, it will be worse,” said Santosh Khosla to the New York Times.

Other Indians are determined to push for reforms in the government so as to see positive infrastructural changes through the entire country.

One of the biggest issues that Indian citizens are hoping to tackle is the problem of corruption in the government.

Related: Seize Corrupt Indian Assets: Proposed Lokpal Bill

Related: The Cost of Corruption in India

EconomyWatch.com reader Parag Nimishe commented, “Nobody knows what shape the final Lokpal bill would take or what would be the outcome of Baba Ramdev’s initiatives. Therefore, it is too early to comment on its effects. However, I am happy that something is being done and people are woken up against the corruption. Now what rests on our shoulders is to ensure that the people’s anger does not die down in the absence of any immediate noticeable effect. The struggle must go on and the spirit against the corruption must get more and more intense. In the process, a large number of sincere people would be required to sustain the struggle.[sic]”

The Rise of India

In the meantime however, the Indian economy is expected to continue to grow “in spite of the government” said Vidya Srinivisan, who oversees logistics for Genpact – one of Guergaon’s biggest outsourcing companies.

The private sector is expected to spur this growth through the empowerment of Indian citizens.  An example of this is the Mahindra group, which is one of India’s largest multinational conglomerates. Mahindra group recently revealed a new corporate branding position – Mahindra Rise – that promises to drive positive change.

““Rise isn’t just a word – it is a rallying cry which enables people to unify around shared ideas, values, principles, a way of life or a common goal. It is a call to see opportunities where others can’t and to set an example for the world,” said Mr. Anand Mahindra, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Mahindra Group, Mahindra is many companies with just one purpose: Enabling people to Rise.”

Backed by a determined population and a responsive private sector, the Indian economy appears to be on an upward trend. According to EconomyWatch.com’s real-time Consumer Confidence Index, India is presently the most confident nation among the BRICS. The Indian economy is also expected to replace Japan as the third largest economy in the world by the end of 2011 according to GDP (PPP).

Related: Comparing India to the World

However, if Indians want to see sustained economic growth in the long run, they will need to heed the warnings of Charles Dickens from A Tale of Two Cities. “Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.”

Raymond Tham,

EconomyWatch.com