By the standards of post-colonial growth, India has achieved a lot. While the British try to act to like they were investing in India’s growth, they were doing nothing but looting and pillaging for hundreds of years . The prospects of India at her birth as new nation were grim.
“Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre & men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts . They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air and water would be taxed in India.” - Winston Churchill
We surely did much better than that. And look who’s bathing in the chaos of brexit now?! That said, India forked itself economically into 3 nations. We do have a bright spot, but our largest sub-segment is comparable to Sub-Saharan Africa . Many are sad that India didn’t live up to her full potential. The sadness stems primarily from comparisons with China who has whizzed past, making itself the factory of the world, and lifting 700+ million out of poverty.
A good example of this “I passed but didn’t come first in class” sadness is Andy Mukherjee, the Bloomberg columnist who writes about “Why I’m Losing Hope in India”. I encourage everyone to read that article and facts there are all true and embarrassing, hell I can even add some there! But should that make you sad? That you didn’t so well in comparison? No. This comes directly from my personal philosophy about comparison and failure. There’s no grief in being bad. Some get a head start, some fall behind, that is life . There’s definitely grief to taken up in being bad. If there’s a goal you want to achieve, but you’ve missed it a couple of times, what are you supposed to do? Get up and try again! Not wallow in self-pity and sadness . I think the same goes for civilisations and nations. Yeah, we fell behind, so what? The deadline for civilisational progress is infinity! There’s no rush! The development project is eternal . Come early, come late, nobody cares. Does the history care whether India reformed itself in Andy Mukherjees or Dalan Mendonca’s lifetimes? This is civilisational change, it will take time . Instead of comparisons, we should do benchmarking and prod each other into action. How long does it take to register a company? 45 days in India vs 2 days in Singapore . Bring that down. How long does it take to build city flyover bridge from approval to opening? 20 days in Korea vs 3 years in India. Bring that down.
I see no point in pessimism and cribbing. Yeah yeah, we missed our demographic dividend. Cry for a day but move on? Life’s going to be around for thousands and millions of years.