Abhijit Speaks :

When i woke up in the morning and logged in to gtalk, one of my friends spidya (aka GS) told me that Slumdog won 2 out of 2 so far @ the oscars. I offered him, may be they’d give everything to SMD Millionaire except the Best Motion Picture award. I was not so sure about my own not so RPOD. Then around 10.30am I switched on the Television to see whats happening at the 81st academy awards to find that I have switched it on just at the right time when the award for  the best motion picture was being announced. And then I was pleasantly surprised @ finding my own predictions coming true. I considered it just prudent to take this occassion to elaborate another thought and associated RPOD to offer thats been taking shape in my mind. Let me start with the RPOD first and then elaborate why I think it might just happen. So here it goes “This century might belong to India just as the 20th century belonged to the US”.

For people who know me and my position about India, this might come not just as a surprise but even a blatant claim  – and they would be left wondering what made the biggest pessimistic on India to turn  into larger than himself optimist on India?  I’d elaborate the thought process, what can go wrong and what can be done to realize the day-dream (well quite literally). First of all, before I say further, I do not think and would not want India to become SuperPower. People should read Dimitr Orlov’s articles here and here to find out what happens to the superpowers. I might even be taking the danger of suggesting an RRSesque picture of India where everything Indian is great and everything western is secondary. That is definitely not my point.

1. It might sound just as absurd to everyone to think that this century will belong to India when we are struggling with so many problems of our own – The internal security problem, the divided population largely looking inwards than looking outwards. But one must not forget that united states went through a Civil War just before the dawn of the 20th century. Perhaps it’d have been as absurd to think that the century would belong to the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century. But remember, the progress of United States started with then Industrialized economies investing heavily in the US.

2. The Global Recession is going to create new opportunities, new winners and will punish the erstwhile sinners. As it is evident now that all the major western “ism”s have met their fate, perhaps there’s a need for a new ‘ism’, which need not even be an ‘ism’ but broadly an outlook and a lifestyle that’d fit in the ensuing age of Globalization. I foresee in the future the World Population aligning itself to the best of the both schools of thought The Western thought (that analyses thing in details by breaking down into pieces) and the Eastern thought (that always looked at things as a whole than breaking them into pieces.) One of the best places to exploit this ensuing development is India, which still understands and appreciates the Eastern thought and has got a far bigger exposure to the Western thought, first Through the English thought and subsequently thanks to the Information Revolution and the Internet. Of course one must not be under the impression that being able to exploit the situation best does not mean its going to be the sole property of India, it is just that India is better positioned, whether it does or not depends a lot on its people. Before I leave this point – I must also mention the likelyhood of the emergence of new Reserve currency of the world – the Gold and India’s distinct advantage in having fifteen thousand tons of Gold.

3. One of the biggest Marketing departments of a society is its art and in the contemporary form Cinema is perhaps the best medium. An important reason why we see that the American lifestyle is so ubiquitous is thanks to its marketing department “The Hollywood”. You’d not make it to the top of the world without letting world believe that a person from an iron curtain country can be a super hero in your country without a medium as strong as this. India has got a potential medium that can serve as the marketing department of “Indian Lifestyle” – The Bollywood.  A delhi-6 jalebiwala selling Jalebi’s on the Time Square is perhaps the best fitting example of what I mean by “exporting your lifestyle”.

4. Demographics – A country is not made by the borders, the oceans or the rivers. It’s made by the people, what made America successful was the people and their attitude. In Indians that attitude is there – to welcome people, to treat them with respect – Indians were traditionally never xenophobic. It’s only during the past century or may be little more they have developed this trait (quite unfortunately). The time has come to shred that. The well known fact about the largest young population in the world being Indian etcetra can be a big advantage to India.

So far I have discussed what are the reasons why? Let me explore what challenges India faces

1. The arrogance – The Indians still live in the glorious past and are unnecessarily proud of their 5000 saal puraani sabhyata. While it is important we preserve the achievements of our previous generations, often we end up preserving their idiocyncrasies. While it may be true a great amount of knowledge was developed in this part of the human society, the claim that it is ours is incorrect. I find that attitude largely prevalent in every Indian. Our Vedas had this our Vedas had that. While there is nothing denying the knowledge and the wisdom in the ancient literatire, it is absurd nay arrogant to have a claim on that knowledge. While the Vedas were perhaps developed this part of the world, they do not belong to Indians, they belong to humanity, you are at best the janitors of that knowledge and not the owners, which puts an additional responsibility and further more humility to preserve it.

2. Investments (or lack of) – India needs to learn a lot to invest in right things. The single most important thing to invest is in education. One of the biggest problems of the current Indian society is lack of proper attention paid to the education. The definition of right education always changes in times. The right education does not get limited to providing a free and compulsory primary education to every child, but it goes way beyond that to establish itself as an education hub. One of the reasons why US became so successful in the twentieth century was that because it developed not just great universities, but all the allied systems in place to attract the best talent around the world. While there might be great universities in Europe and other parts of the world, it is far more difficult to get into those universities for a foreigner to get into. US snatched this opportunity and created a great ecosystem for technological developments. (This is in no ways a claim that no technology development happened outside the US.) The second most important thing is infrastructure – The inefficiencies that creep in as a consequence of lack of proper infrastructure (this includes social as well.) This has been a largely neglected area and a lot really a lot needs to be done.

3. Competition – Someone looking forward for the top spot cannot be ignorant about the competition and more so in the globalized world. The main competition would come from China of course which enjoys almost all the advantages that India enjoys and of course the United States – Never ever write them down. That country has shown resilliance (atleast in the past century) to come out of every difficult position time and again. To stand in front of such a solid competition is a daunting task in itself.  First, India needs to project itself as a place that welcomes talents from all parts of the world.  I’d want an American, a Korean, a German, a Kenyan and even a Pakistani to think that India is a land of opportunity and this is the place where they can come and realize their dreams. This is not so easy for the population, which still cant get rid of the caste system thats not just so deeply engraved on the society, but the psyche of its individuals. This alone can be the single largest hurdle for the Indians to be competitive, someone else might take this opportunity and move ahead and India will be left entangled in this problem of its own.

I’d like to conclude this about what I observe around – Are these the early indicators?

In the last few years I have seen things around me changing substantially (in a positive way), the generation is lot unlike their former generation, is open, confident and risk taking. The politics is changing in a big way – Omar Abdulla – whose very existence is solely a consequence of divisive politics is speaking about “development”. The leaders that put development on the agenda and deliver are elected again and again (Narendra Modi, Sheela Dixit) regardless of what the media thinks about them. Even the bollywood is finally out of cluthes of the standard “love etc.” movie themes. Emergence of people from less known places to the helm of a Sport that was dominated by Urban Rich. I can witness and experience  this welcome change. Will this change lead to a sustained, viable development that’d prove my not so RPOD? Who knows

May be it is written

(Note: some of the ideas in this essay might appear reflecting the same thoughts as those in Paul Graham’s essay about why startups Condense in America? I must admit, while I have recently read the essay, most of these thoughts I have arrived at independently myself. )