Opinion
Real India
Dr Farrukh Saleem
Sunday, June 01, 2014
From Print Edition
Capital suggestion
Fact 1: There are 1.2 billion humans in the world who live in extreme poverty. Fact 2: Of the 1.2 billion, 33 percent of the world’s poor live in India. Fact 3: India has a population of 1.237 billion. Fact 4: Of the 1.237 billion Indians, 850 million earn $2 or less per day (that is 2 out of every 3 Indians).
Yes, ‘India Shining’ was a marketing slogan developed by Grey Worldwide, the New York-based advertising firm. Yes, the Vajpayee government spent in excess of $20 million promoting the slogan (and yet the BJP lost the 2004 general election). Yes, there was a time when India’s growth rate was among the top in the world.
More recently, the rate of growth has crashed. More recently, stubborn budgetary deficits are crippling the economy. More recently, the current account gap soared to 6.7 percent of GDP. More recently, the Indian rupee is in free fall.
Education standards are falling like nine pins. According to the Annual Status of Education Report: “By their fifth year of schooling, only half of rural pupils can solve a calculation like 43 minus 24. Barely a quarter can read an English sentence like “What is the time?”
India’s model of economic development is failing. According to The New York Times: “Structural problems were inherent in India’s unusual model of economic development, which relied on a limited pool of skilled labor rather than an abundant supply of cheap, unskilled, semiliterate labor. This meant that India specialized in call centers, writing software for European companies and providing back-office services for American health insurers and law firms and the like, rather than in a manufacturing model. Other economies that have developed successfully – Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and China – relied in their early years on manufacturing, which provided more jobs for the poor.”
Last year, The Economist covered the Indian economy under the following headlines: “Angry young Indians; What a waste; How India is throwing away the world’s biggest economic opportunity.”
Arundhati Roy, the Indian political activist and the author of ‘The God of small things’, believes that “India’s chosen development model has a genocidal core to it” and that “bloodshed is inherent to this model of development.” According to Arundhati, “now, we have a democratically elected totalitarian government.”
“I see the induction of religion in politics”, wrote Kuldip Nayar, the veteran Indian journalist, author and columnist. “India’s new language of killing,” wrote Praveen Swami of The Hindu. Subir Sinha of the University of London, in a 927-word article, explained ‘Why India’s new PM may bring disaster to India.’
According to the Association for Democratic Reforms, 186 members of the elected lower house of parliament, 34 percent of the total, are facing criminal charges of inciting communal disharmony, murder, kidnapping and robbery.
For the record, India is already the biggest buyer of arms on the face of the planet. A religious extremist at the helm of affairs along with a failing economy could be disastrous both for India and the region.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email:
farrukh15@hotmail.com
Twitter: @saleemfarrukh