One word that might describe the current situation in India is
“Chaos”. Be it on economic front, social front or political front, there is a
confusion of the highest order. While the country has seen each of these three
problems several times, this may be the first time since information revolution
that all three have struck and struck hard, at the same time.
I was in
school when the “India
shining” advertisement hit the screen. Since that time till my graduation, I
continued to believe that India
was not as bad as perhaps my ancestors would have lived in. But, today, when I
ponder on the lines of similar thoughts, a sense of negativity, uncertainty and
disgust starts developing.
The world may be in deep crisis. US may not
have come out fully from the 2008 crisis. Euro zone is faltering. Japan had
severe natural calamities. China
is slowing down. African and middle-east nations are in rebellious mood.
Perhaps, not the ideal kind of environment that would lead to outstanding growth.
But, even
in such dire situations what we fight over is a cartoon dating back in 1950s.
What is our solution to fuel hikes? Nation-wide bandhs! We want to tweak the
IIT entrance exam to reduce the stress on students. We do it by implementing
some very foolish criterion which will drastically reduce the quality of
students. We do not want to strive to make the environment conducive to
research and development.
Political
system has become more of a joke. We want to increase tariffs of railways so
that we can reduce it the next day to attain political mileage. We want to tax
a deal and thereby want to disobey the outcome in Supreme Court. We want to
cancel 2G licenses which have thrown out some giant telecom companies out of
this country. Telenor, the biggest Norwegian telecom company, is willing to
write-off its investment! Reebok India is being
scrutinized for massive frauds.
To create
jobs, you need to sell a product. Yes, services industry especially in IT,
pulled off spectacular growth for India. But, how long can we bank on
that alone? Having worked for 2 years in IT industry, I can surely say that
even in this field most people are doing the donkey work that most of the US counterparts
would not have the time to do. Which world-class products have originated from India? Cheap
labor cannot be the advantage that we can ride forever. Innovations need to
come. Research needs to be done. Creativity needs to be encouraged. And nothing
of this is going to happen in the short term.
And to that
the bigger issues. FDI in retail is suspended. Aviation industry is totally in
doldrums. Two of the biggest airlines have most of their flights grounded. A
leading newspaper stated India’s
national carrier is Emirates based on the amount of traffic it flows! With one-tenth
of coal reserves, we still have to import coal and are facing acute power
crisis. Lesser we talk about agriculture, the better.
Seeing
above factors, it seems a miracle that we attained 5.3% growth! It would be a
miracle if we grow at all. Ironically the country is headed by the same man who
brought this country out of the scariest crisis of 1991. As an economist he is
the best, leader not at all. It is because of his work as an economist that I
have a job. Perhaps, we will see fate reverse itself. Perhaps, it will be
because of him and his party, I will lose my job.
