India - 60 Years!

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

Happy Independence Day!

 

Let us savour the considerable achievements including the precocious feat of sustaining a democracy in the inhospitable terrain of low levels of income and literacy and a highly fractured society. In the post-war period, only a few other developing countries, (for example, Mauritius, Botswana, and Cost Rica) have sustained uninterrupted democracies, but they have been much smaller than India. The more common chronology has been growth first and democracy (maybe) later as the experience of East Asia has shown.

 

The fact is that there are many Indian economies within geographic India and some of them do resemble developed economies: in being endowed with educated and entrepreneurial people, in being well-connected with the outside world, and in having access to capital. They are probably also too well " connected " within India.

 

But there are enough other Indias that should temper any triumphalism that the achievements of the precocious Indias might tempt us into. For one, poor India rather than precocious India is still the rule. And the very fact of defying comparative advantage means that India's abundant resource — its unskilled labour — has been afforded limited opportunities for economic and social advancement.

 

So, at sixty, let us savour the achievements by all means, but always remembering that precocious infants can be maladapted ones, and also that they do not always grow into successful, happy, or even, normal adults.

 

{Adopted from a beautiful column by Prof Aravind Subramaniam of John Hopkins University, USA}Warmest Regards RR___________________________R Rajagopal,Partner,ARAVIND LABORATORIES, New No 11, Old No 7,Chakrapani Street,Chennai 600 033.INDIAPh: 9144 2483 8585 - (Office) 9144 2249 1971 - (Factory) 9193850 50002 - (Mobile), 9194440 57848 - (Mobile) ___________________________

 

-- Warmest RegardsRR___________________________R Rajagopal,Partner,ARAVIND LABORATORIES,New No 11, Old No 7,

Chakrapani Street,Chennai 600 033.INDIAPh: 9144 2483 8585 - (Office) 9144 2249 1971 - (Factory) 9193850 50002 - (Mobile), 9194440 57848 - (Mobile) ___________________________