Happy Independence Day one and all!
Of course India is shining. Just ask the guy who is raking in the moolah from his BPO company. Or ask those who are buying all the electronic gizmos from the mega stores in the mega cities. India,defined strictly as those people at the top of the heap who make a flashy living because the supply of people at the bottom of the heap is so abundant that they work for next to nothing. India is still bracketed as being among the nations where the average person lives on less than $1.50 a day.
It's useless arguing against the statement that india is shining but only for 2% of the population. Multinational corporations have an "India centric strategy" and not a day goes by when international publications like NY TIMES ,WALL STREET JOURNAL run an article on india. I have personally come to believe that this feel good factor about india shining never dies down in indians. Conversing with a friend who had recently returned from a trip back to his hometown in india,i asked him , how are things back home. Pronto came the reply "they have never been better". Everyone he knew had a TV set, washing machine, mobile phone, cd player ,car. India had prospered beyond his imagination.
India has always been shining for some elite group or the other. If you neglect the hopeless 970,000,000 and just concentrate on the 30 to 40 million who have it all — from PCs to cars to foreign vacations — India is shining like a crazy diamond.The loopholes and potholes are however exposed in a big way.BPO and callcenters notwithstanding, when you see 120,000 people show upto apply for 40 job openings, you know that sooner rather than later, it is going to sink. When you hear that 40% of India’s childrenunder the age of 5 are malnourished, you know that the future is bleak. When you know that the vast majority of Indians don’t have high school diplomas, you also know that in the coming age of a global knowledge economy, Indians will not be able to compete against literate nations.
What is wrong in believeing India is shining even if its for a select section of people, asks my friend? I tell him, that in 58 years we have been following our own footsteps and also our neighbours footsteps , believing what is all hunky-dory and neglecting hard issues which will have a telling effect on the future of India as a global economy. If we need examples we need to look no further than South Korea, forget about population, land area,resources and other issues, South Korea has emerged from scratch to be one of the economic superpowers in Asia.This has been done by focus on economic growth without neglecting the growth of people. Our strength is in our people , unless we focus on development of people ,economic growth will have no meaning in the long run.
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