In praise of the "Indian Model" in development

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Take a good look at that photograph of India's newly elected prime minister, Narendra Modi, shaking hands and having a conversation with his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif.

The one in the photo below is Modi's Twitter BFF--Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe

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And, finally, the president of China (PRC, not that other China!) Xi Jinping playing host to Russia's Vladimir Putin:

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Notice that the leaders of Pakistan, Japan, and China are all wearing business suits, despite their own respective country's rich history of male attires?

As much as I hate do not care for Modi's views, I am delighted that his passion to execute a Chinese model of economic development in India did not lead him to switch to wearing business suits too.  Or that his bromance with Abe did not result in contacting the Japanese leader's tailor.

Of course, India has a long history of charting its own path, even when it comes to its leaders' outfits.

When that wonderful son of Gujarat, who is rarely ever remembered anymore, inspired India through his words and action, he systematically mentored his juniors, particularly Jawaharlal Nehru, to ditch the Western style of clothing in favor of a desi presentation--though he was the only half-naked fakir.  What a powerful statement that was to align his words and actions even in the clothing that he wore. I would have loved to meet with him, and worked with him.

Later as the prime minister, Nehru ended up making  his eponymous jacket famous in the Western countries that he visited.

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What's the big deal whether they wear a business suit or the local cultural outfit, you ask?  It is a matter of personal preference, yes, in what I expect from a leader.  And, hey, be happy that at least in this context I am praising Modi!

But, of course, I am not fooled by what people wear; I am old enough, even if not wise, to know that clothes do not always make a man.

Only Modi can go to Pakistan. Will he?

At the carefully chosen auspicious midnight hour in 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru famously spoke on India's "Tryst with Destiny."  Sixty-seven years later, it does have the feel of yet another tryst with destiny, with the election of Narendra Modi to the office of the prime minister as a mere formal act that is pending, after the thumping victory in the recently concluded long-drawn election.  (Modi will become the first prime minister who was born in independent India.)  

Such is the margin of victory, and such is the magnitude of loss for the scions of the Nehru family, that the Congress Party might not rise again. Finito as they say in the Congress Party's president's old country. Coincidence it will be if Modi gets sworn into office on the anniversary of the death of the last of the Nehru-clan's prime minister--Rajiv Gandhi.

No doubt about the gravity of the political development. It is a marker in history.  What might be in store?  Que sera sera is not what we bloggers and commentators say. We attempt to read the tea leaves. We express our excitement and concerns. In this case, given my long track record, like here, of anything but a Modi sympathizer, concerns are in plenty.

A friend, in/from India, reminded me about Khalil Gibran's poem, Pity the Nation

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave
and eats a bread it does not harvest.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice
save when it walks in a funeral,
boasts not except among its ruins,
and will rebel not save when its neck is laid
between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting,
only to welcome another with trumpeting again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years
and whose strongmen are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments,
each fragment deeming itself a nation.
Khalil Gibran (The Garden of the Prophet - 1934)

The concerns about Modi are about the very traits of the leader and the country that Gibran notes: " the bully as hero," whose statesman is a fox," the nation divided into fragments" ... And the poem itself, therefore, serving as a contrast to the wonderful dream that Rabindranath Tagore dreamt for an independent India, Where the mind is without fear:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Of course, Gibran's poem was the later one and could easily be his response to Tagore.  Both the mystical thinkers were expressing similar sentiments about countries and their leaders.  The biggest worry of mine is about the fragments and that Modi, even if not a uniter, might end up being even more divisive.  A future where the walls narrow, the minorities live in fear, and the neighbors get even more ready to push that red button.

Yet, I hope against hope. After all, human existence over the thousands of years has been propelled by hope, if nothing else.

The hope is this: Modi will become India's equivalent of Nixon going to China.  With his long documented association with the RSS, Modi bleeds more saffron than anybody else can. Thus, if he were to engage in opening up relations with Muslims--internally and with Pakistan--his supporters will not have the slightest doubts about the strongman, the Hindu, that Modi is.  Modi will not be accused of treason by his fanatical followers. The huge parliamentary majority that Modi has, which is such that there might not even be a formal Leader of the Opposition, means that Modi does not have to try to appease any coalition partner and can go about mending fences with Muslims within India and with the ummah.  

For now, good luck, Mr. Prime Minister!  And good luck to my old country!

August 15th marks a personal tryst with destiny!

August 15th is India's Independence Day.

In marking the transition from the British rule to freedom, India's first prime minister referred to the moment as "tryst with destiny."  Salman Rushdie provided a magical realism treatment of this midnight hour with a literary gem that won the "Booker of Bookers."

I, too, have my own stories to tell of the 15th of August.

In Sanskrit, the word

dvi|ja, twice born, could mean a Brahmin, for he is born, and then born again when he is initiated into the rites of his caste; it could mean ‘a bird’, for it is born once when it is conceived and then again from an egg; but it could also mean ‘a tooth’, for teeth, it was plain to see, had two lives too.

It has been more two more rebirths for me, both on August 15th.

August 15th marks the anniversary of my own "tryst with destiny."  Make it two different anniversaries.

In 1987, the Singapore Airlines flight that I was on took off from Madras (as Chennai was known then) a little before the midnight that made made the transition from the 14th to the 15th--similar to India's birth at midnight.

As the US immigration stamp from that old passport shows, I landed in Los Angeles on August 15th, 1987 and since then have only been a tourist in the old country where I had my wonderful formative years.

Though it took me a decade-plus to formally become an American, there was no doubt in my mind that when I left India on the night of that August 14th, I was leaving to make myself a new home. I looked forward to the new identity that would result.

Coming to the US took a whole lot of planning--from thinking about what I wanted to study to where I wanted to study.  Los Angeles was, thus, no simple accidental happening.

But, of course, as much as we plan, well, life unfolds in its own cosmic way.  The unpredictability of life that makes it exciting and depressing, depending on the events.

A few years into my citizenship, I made a trip to India. In the summer, which surprised people there, given my inability anymore to deal with the heat and humidity. I planned the trip, yes, but it was to announce yet another re-birth: to begin the transition to the divorced life.

It was a brutal summer.  Brutal heat.  And brutal on the heart.

A few days prior to my departure from Chennai, I got an email from the airlines in which I was booked to fly back home. Home in the US of A.  Because of scheduling issues, I had been automatically re-booked with a new departure date of, yes, August 15th!

When we watch such coincidences unfold in the movies, we dismiss them as melodrama that could have been avoided.  But, I suppose there is no better fiction and melodrama than real life!

So, there I was, re-enacting the whole August 15th rebirth.  Once again leaving India for the United States. To lead a life that would be very different all over again.  It has been one hell of a tryst with destiny!

A note to the cosmos: enough with the melodrama already! :)

On Mandela, Nehru, and Washington ...

Given the news about Nelson Mandela, here is a re-post from a few months ago:

Every year, it seems like I always end up remembering that November 14th is Jawaharlal Nehru's birth anniversary.  It is etched so deep in my memory that it can never get erased perhaps?  Maybe it is also because it comes only days before the birthday of my closest friend from high school?  

When India became independent in 1947 and, became, thereby, the world’s largest democracy, Jawaharlal Nehru became the first prime minister.  While India continues to function as a democracy, there is a distinct possibility that Nehru’s continuation in that office until his death in 1964 precluded a natural growth of leadership and made possible, though not by his design, the family dynastic politics which characterizes the country now.

Nehru, his daughter—Indira Gandhi—and grandson, Rajiv Gandhi, have all together governed India for 37 of the 65 years!  Nehru’s great-grandson, Rahul Gandhi, is currently being actively groomed for the premiership even as his Italian-born mother, Sonia Gandhi, serves as the party chief.

But, at least, throughout all these, India plods along in its experiments in democracy.  India’s sibling, Pakistan, has had more years under military rule than as a free society.  In the years since the end of the Second World War, which rapidly terminated European rule over colonies in Asia and Africa, very few countries have had democratic governments.

In contemporary times, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela does appear to be a rare founding president.  In 1994, Mandela became the president after the collapse of the apartheid regime that had imprisoned him for almost three decades.  With all the national and local goodwill behind him, Mandela, too, could have remained in office for a long time.  Yet, he opted to exit the stage in 1999 after serving only one term.  Mandela’s shine becomes infinitely brighter against the backdrop of the likes of Mubarak, who was the president of Egypt for 31 years, and Ben Ali’s 24-year reign over Tunisia! 

As we scan the rest of Africa, half the sub-Saharan African countries are authoritarian regimes.  The most notorious among the rest is Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who has been the country’s leader ever since he successfully led the country to its independence in 1980.  In the process of cementing his rule, Mugabe has managed to convert what was the breadbasket of southern Africa into a living hell. 

The fact that democratic governance cannot be taken for granted even a decade into the twenty-first century, is quite a reminder of how much the eighteenth-century thinking of the framers of the American Constitution was way ahead of its time. 

America was an untested political experiment in the final decades of the 18^th century.  In a world that was defined by kings and queens who claimed that divine right granted them the authority to rule over people and wage wars, America was setting up something completely different.  

Even in this setup, in a time period when victorious generals automatically became kings, George Washington, as America’s general who led the war to secure its independence and firm it up, made it clear that he would be no king. 

As if that much trailblazing was not enough, Washington, unlike his contemporaries who died on their beds as kings, unless defeated in wars, voluntarily walked away from the presidency even though there wasn’t any real threat to his office.  When Washington officially retired, it was not only from the presidency but, for all practical purposes, from politics itself. 

Washington's farewell address is a testament to his humility that comes from strength; he notes that he might have made mistakes, which were unintentional, and hoped that “after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.”   

Awesome!

I wonder how India's story might have been if after completing two terms, in 1957, Nehru had walked away from the office of the prime minister and from politics itself. Given that he was a serious student of politics, I wonder why Nehru didn't draw that lesson from Washington.

If only Nehru had been a Washington?

Every year, it seems like I always end up remembering that November 14th is Jawaharlal Nehru's birth anniversary.  It is etched so deep in my memory that it can never get erased perhaps?  Maybe it is also because it comes only days before the birthday of my closest friend from high school?  

When India became independent in 1947 and, became, thereby, the world’s largest democracy, Jawaharlal Nehru became the first prime minister.  While India continues to function as a democracy, there is a distinct possibility that Nehru’s continuation in that office until his death in 1964 precluded a natural growth of leadership and made possible, though not by his design, the family dynastic politics which characterizes the country now.

Nehru, his daughter—Indira Gandhi—and grandson, Rajiv Gandhi, have all together governed India for 37 of the 65 years!  Nehru’s great-grandson, Rahul Gandhi, is currently being actively groomed for the premiership even as his Italian-born mother, Sonia Gandhi, serves as the party chief.

But, at least, throughout all these, India plods along in its experiments in democracy.  India’s sibling, Pakistan, has had more years under military rule than as a free society.  In the years since the end of the Second World War, which rapidly terminated European rule over colonies in Asia and Africa, very few countries have had democratic governments.

In contemporary times, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela does appear to be a rare founding president.  In 1994, Mandela became the president after the collapse of the apartheid regime that had imprisoned him for almost three decades.  With all the national and local goodwill behind him, Mandela, too, could have remained in office for a long time.  Yet, he opted to exit the stage in 1999 after serving only one term.  Mandela’s shine becomes infinitely brighter against the backdrop of the likes of Mubarak, who was the president of Egypt for 31 years, and Ben Ali’s 24-year reign over Tunisia! 

As we scan the rest of Africa, half the sub-Saharan African countries are authoritarian regimes.  The most notorious among the rest is Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who has been the country’s leader ever since he successfully led the country to its independence in 1980.  In the process of cementing his rule, Mugabe has managed to convert what was the breadbasket of southern Africa into a living hell. 

The fact that democratic governance cannot be taken for granted even a decade into the twenty-first century, is quite a reminder of how much the eighteenth-century thinking of the framers of the American Constitution was way ahead of its time. 

America was an untested political experiment in the final decades of the 18^th century.  In a world that was defined by kings and queens who claimed that divine right granted them the authority to rule over people and wage wars, America was setting up something completely different.  

Even in this setup, in a time period when victorious generals automatically became kings, George Washington, as America’s general who led the war to secure its independence and firm it up, made it clear that he would be no king. 

As if that much trailblazing was not enough, Washington, unlike his contemporaries who died on their beds as kings, unless defeated in wars, voluntarily walked away from the presidency even though there wasn’t any real threat to his office.  When Washington officially retired, it was not only from the presidency but, for all practical purposes, from politics itself. 

Washington's farewell address is a testament to his humility that comes from strength; he notes that he might have made mistakes, which were unintentional, and hoped that “after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.”   

Awesome!

I wonder how India's story might have been if after completing two terms, in 1957, Nehru had walked away from the office of the prime minister and from politics itself. Given that he was a serious student of politics, I wonder why Nehru didn't draw that lesson from Washington.

Are you with us, or against us?

If the title led you to think that the post would be about George W. Bush's insanely Manichean view of the world, well, it is not.

"Are you with us, or against us?" was apparently pretty much the question that President Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles asked India's then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Nehru was a champion of maintaining an identity that was not always allied with the the US or the USSR--the idea that later became the Non-Aligned Movement--and was actively encouraging the newly independent countries to join him in that flavor of international relations.  And given Nehru's influential standing among the leaders of the post-colonial nations, it is easy to understand why Dulles was trying his best to get Nehru over to his side.

So, what was Nehru's response to this question of "are you with us, or against us?"

Get this; his reply was "yes."

In a Book-TV airing--a repeat from five years ago--Shashi Tharoor described this and more from Nehru's life.  Tharoor explained what Nehru meant by that "yes": there was not going to be any wholesale siding with the US, but that on a case by case basis India would decide whether to support or oppose America.

The US decided it could not count on a democratic India as its ally in the Cold War against the evil Soviet empire.  And, therefore, it sided the neighboring country that went about systematically gutting any trace of democratic institutions.   Realpolitik!

Anyway, back to Nehru.  He had his flaws--personal and political.  But, there is no denying that if not for his efforts, democracy might not have taken a strong hold in India. 

Like George Washington here, Nehru had an overwhelming support--not only soon after independence, but for years later too.  But, again, like Washington he rejected any notion that he had any divine right to rule over the country.  Thus, while Pakistan fell to military generals, and many other newly independent countries slipped into the hands of dictators and maniacs, Nehru went about his business of cultivating democracy--even to the extent of growing an opposition when there was none.

Back in India, my father still retains with him an autographed photograph of Nehru--a symbol of how much Nehru was loved.

Too bad that even Nehru's daughter, Indira, would later ditch the ideals that Nehru and Gandhi fought for. Worse, she pretty much cleared the path for opportunism and cheap electoral victories that have nothing to do with any vision of principles. 

Of course, opportunism and cheap electoral victories is the story of American politics too :(

The modern temple at Rourkela failed Orissa?

The fall term is coming to an end and the results of the learning are evident right in the questions in class.  Like the one in the introductory course, from Mike, who, with his usual loud voice, asked from all the way in the back row, “so, how do things get going then?  How does a poor African country also get rich?”

This is, after all, the question that the world has been grappling with, particularly since the end of World War II, when newly independent countries were born with immense challenges of economic development.  Mike’s genuinely interested, and yet puzzled, question is the latest along this global struggle to figure out a formula for development. 

Since its independence in 1947, India has been a living laboratory to test out various hypotheses with the hope that the best solution would be found.  One of those was a rather simple idea—if only the government could accelerate the process by systematically investing in modern economic activities.

That certainly was the case behind the planned industrial township of Rourkela, in the state of Orissa, which is one of the economic laggards in India—then and now.  I should note here that Orissa was not always poor.  Its history is rich—materially and culturally.  Perhaps an easily demonstrable example, as I wrote in a column a few months ago, is the word “juggernaut” in the English language, which owes its origin to the Jagannath Temple located on Orissa’s coast along the Bay of Bengal. 

It was in Rourkela, located more than a thousand miles away from his home town in southern India, that my father pretty much began his engineering career more than fifty years ago.  Soon after getting married, he joined a German firm, which was advising the Indian government in the construction of one of the largest industrial projects at that time—an iron and steel factory. 

India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, referred to modern enterprises like the Rourkela steel project as “temples of modern India.”  It was more than rhetorical, in the sense that these new temples were expected to deliver tangible miracles to India’s millions.  In the academic and policy language, these were “growth poles” that would catalyze economic growth in resource-rich but economically backward regions.  Thanks to such initiatives, currently, Orissa accounts for, among others, about a tenth of all the steel produced in the country, and leads in the manufacturing of aluminum. 

After spending the first three-plus years of married life in Rourkela, dad took up a job in yet another “temple”—this time a thermal power plant complex in Neyveli, which also, incidentally, had German advisers.  The move brought my parents and my grandmother back to their “home” state of Tamil Nadu. 

Post-retirement, the city of Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, has been home to my parents for almost thirty years now, and the city’s sobriquet, “Detroit of India,” is an easy clue about one of its major, and fast growing, economic industries.

In contrast to states like Tamil Nadu that have surged ahead, others like Orissa always seem to be playing catch up forever, despite their tremendous natural resources.  The heavy industrial progress has not been matched by comparable advancements in the rural areas, which is where nearly 85 percent of the population lives.  Estimates are that of the nearly 37 million people in Orissa, about 46 percent live below the poverty line.  In some parts of the state, incidence of poverty exceeds 70 percent!

It is almost as if most of the Oriyas, as the people of Orissa are referred to, are still waiting for the payoff from the massive investment in places like Rourkela.  As a recent report from the United Nations’ World Food Program pointed out, “there is a major concern with the failure of that growth to translate into a somewhat proportionate reduction in poverty and malnutrition.”

Though I am disappointed that a field trip to Rourkela won’t be possible, given the more than 200 miles distance from the conference venue in Orissa’s capital city—Bhubaneshwar—at the end of it all, I hope to be able to offer a lot more to students like Mike. 

Has India lost it on Kashmir? The intifada rages on ...

Looks like even the Israel-Palestine issue might be settled before peace returns to Kashmir.

If I were an athlete preparing to compete in the upcoming Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, I would rather stay home, consistent with the advice from some of the countries.  With Kashmir exploding, Maoists threatening the inland, and Islamic militants always eager to blow themselves up, it might just about be safer to stay home. (editor: don't forget the threat of Dengue Fever too)

Kashmir is an unresolved issue all the way from 1947, and now we have youth who have known nothing but protests and massive Indian military and paramilitary presence.

Such a tense situation means, and to no real surprise, that the news of Quran burning in America became another rallying cry in Kashmir.  And, as protesters often do throughout the world, the American flag and an effigy of the President were burnt.  Like Obama or the American government had anything to do with the nutcase pastor of a flock of forty.

According to the BBC:

In Monday's protests, thousands of people defied curfews and took to the streets, chanting anti-India and anti-US slogans and burning effigies of US President Barack Obama, our correspondent says.

An angry mob set fire to several government buildings and a Protestant-run school, as well as attacking a police station, he adds.
Police fired live ammunition to break up the demonstrations, and confirmed that 18 civilians had been killed.
Several of the deaths were reported to have occurred in Budgam district, with others reported in the village of Tangmarg, where the school was burned.
One of those killed was a student aged 12 or 13, our correspondent says.

 One might wonder why the Protestant-run school had to be burnt ... But, a mob does what a mob does.

As eager beaver teenagers, my friends and I debated about Kashmir and my views haven't changed much: I don't understand why a territory and its peoples ought to be subjugated under military force if they don't want to be in the union. But, even then I was in the minority--the rest couldn't let go of Kashmir.

Perhaps India's approach to the Kashmir situation would have been different if Jawaharlal Nehru had been from, say, Bihar or Andhra, as opposed to hailing from Kashmir?  (Yes, Nehru was born in Allahabad, but was one of the Kashmiri Pandit families.)

Well, one can't re-write history. But, at this moment, it certainly looks like the Indian government and politics have completely lost any control of how the rest of the Kashmir story will be written. Let us hope that a lot more lives will not be lost, and not a lot more property will be damaged.

Photo of the day: India's Independence Day

From my favorite Indian newspaper, of course. 

The moment of birth, 63 years ago, was characterized as the "tryst with destiny" by Jawaharlal Nehru.

In that historic speech, Nehru remembered, and reminded everybody, the siblings who now became citizens of another country, Pakistan:

We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good and ill fortune alike.

For India and Pakistan, it has been two very different tales right from their births.  I often wonder what the story might have been had there been no partition.  Or, what if Kashmir had become a separate country, like Nepal. And, later on, what if the states had not been created based on the prevailing majority languages spoken.

Such counterfactual questions aside, it is quite an achievement, indeed, that the country has been largely successful with its experiment in democracy--except for that brief period of darkness that was the "Emergency" imposed by the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi.

I have my own version of Salman Rushdie's marking of the I-Day in his life; it was on a August 15th that I left India for the United States decades ago in order to pursue graduate studies at USC.  It is also, in a way, my own independence day :)

Religion matters not

a group of Muslims in eastern Uttar Pradesh told a colleague: “Sixteen major banks have failed in the United States; not a single Indian bank has folded up; all because we have had Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister.”

Profound implications in that quote in this report from The Hindu. India's prime minister is a Sikh--a small minority in India. A much larger minority, the Muslims, is happy with this Sikh as a prime minister, in a country dominated by Hindus.

Which is why I keep reminding my students and anybody who asks me that religious differences do not trigger violence in India. It does not mean that there are no prejudices--that is in plenty. But, quite a peaceful country though, given such immense differences.

Am glad that the BJP did not win. Yes, the Congress has a long history of playing communal politics. But, BJP is in a dangerous league of its own.
However, I don't think the prospect of Indira Gandhi's grandson being projected as Dr. Singh's successor is a healthy sign. Returning to an adoration of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is not something to be proud about. On the other hand, Rahul Gandhi seems to be one hell of a hard working guy--at least, it will not be handed to him on a golden platter as it was the case with Indira and later with Rajiv Gandhi.