Do you really believe that India has the potential to become one of the superpowers of the world and can she realize it? Especially juxtaposing with Chinese strength and capacity. I have heard Mr. Friedman say this umpteen times, “Chinese roads are smooth now but there lies a big bump on those roads, that is social equity and stability, how they’ll land after hitting this bump will decide their future and for India the road is full of potholes without even footpaths along it, but on a distance it looks smooth and widens into a freeway of prosperity! Just the thing to worry is if the picture is a mirage or a reality. Reason behind this is that India has already setup a good social structure with democracy and a sound judicial model.”
What I would like to request Mr. Friedman is to reconsider his extra optimism about India’s social stability and democratic structure. If he could come back to India and this time not to Bangalore or Bengaluru as it is denounced to be. Well, for example this is our mentality, there oxford adds ‘to be bangalored’ as a new phrase in their dictionary and here we kill the brand that has fetched us most income. The IT story of India is too much different from the core reality of rural and non IT urban population. Including Bangalore we still haven’t figured out any solution to India’s crumbling infrastructure. The most advanced and arguably the richest state of India, Maharashtra is facing 6-12 hours of power cut daily as we just don’t generate enough electricity to fulfil the demand of our industries and our populace. The roads in the country are not even mentionable as Mr. Friedman himself has explained it better.
The things about the infrastructure that he did not consider is the state of our education in the country. We have at least a million engineers and more than 50,000 MBA’s passing out of our universities, still our best of the companies are facing talent crunch, simply because the depth and practicability of the education we provide here is abysmal. The crème class of engineers that get admissions in the IIT’s is just 7,000 and in the IIM’s it’s just 2,000. No wonder these are the most sought after institutes. With simple statistical analysis will tell that the seats available in these institutes are far below the minimum requirement. As if these problems were not enough our horrid government lead by congress, who had been sucking blood out of the subjects of the country, are still not done with it. Now we have passed a resolution in our parliament where 50% of the seats mentioned above will be reserved for so called oppressed class of the society . If you ask anyone in the cities now, the real oppressed class since the freedom has been the so called upper cast, as they have been most neglected by the political parties, though they have been fetching the maximum revenue for this country. What this means that not even 99% of the marks in the competitive exams for these institutes can fetch a seat for you if you belong to the so called upper cast. While for the reserved students the scores are abysmally 40-50%. Now wouldn’t this explain the talent crunch we are facing. As if this is not enough our good for nothing politicians are proposing to bring reservation in jobs also, which will undoubtedly kill our profitability.
The state of our democracy is such, that there is so much intervention by the government in the mundane life of the populace that we cannot imagine a life in a developed country like US or any country in Europe. This is the reason that started the brain-drain from India. Now as the picture started changing with the reverse brain-drain back to home, we have started ruining our future. The politicians are making sure that our poor remain poor even below poverty line so that they will have someone and something to control and manipulate. A common man being literate and knowledgeable is not in their favour, as who will vote for them in such condition. Our learned class doesn’t believe in voting as they know, no matter who becomes the ruler the policies are going to be so called minority oriented.
With given conditions, I would like to ask you Mr. Friedman, does our political and social structure still seems stable to you? Because, if you ask me there are more chances of revolution taking place in India as compared to China and as the history has shown that the only winner that emerges from a revolution is communism or a dictator, which is pretty much the same, taking into account the outcome for the populace. I have another strong evidence backing my claim up. Which party seems to be driving the policies of this country? Which party seems to be growing in confidence and in power? Undoubtedly CPI(M) – Communist Party of India (Marxist), who now are adopted by the Chinese communist party. They call for strikes more regularly than ever. They are stopping any and every reform that will make this country progress through capitalism, liberalism eventually to prosperity. They feel proud about the abysmal era of socialism, brought to you by Pandit Nehru and sponsored by the red army of USSR, the KGB and Stalin. Even though the Russians got rid of that red monster eating their lives, we are getting closer day by day to adopting this monster. Especially when the other nationalist parties like Congress and BJP are in complete disarray, they are the ones seem to be taking control of the situation and as always our businesses are sitting, doing nothing, just waiting for the day when we might be free of this political oppression.
This grim scenario points towards nothing but a prelude to a revolution which will take us Indians back to bleak age of socialism and make us live the miserable communist life for few more years at least. So kindly add this angle to your vision and try to see the picture we fear is just round the corner. If we miss that turn then I see what you are trying to show us, but this turn is imminent and unless we speed up fast enough to miss this turn we might catch the freeway of success and prosperity.
