Sixty-eight years into Independence: Is India still remains in chains?

Devendra Kothari PhD

Population and Development Analyst

Forum for Population Action, Jaipur

Happy 69^th Independence Day!

History stands testimony to the fact that as the clock struck the midnight hour on 15th August 1947, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru spoke of India’s ‘Tryst with destiny’. And that was the end of era of subordination/subjugation and the beginning of a beautiful journey of India’s self discovery with independence. Since then every year new expectations are being set and new ideals are being formulated but has India really progressed in the last 68 years? Consider the following two news items which made headlines just few days before 69^th Independence Day, and answer the question.

On August 7, 2015, in a press conference, it was    announced that an Indian biographical movie entitled: Manjhi - The Mountain Man, will be released on August 21, 2015.  The film is directed by Ketan Mehta, and it is based on the life of Dasrath Manjhi, a poor landless laborer belonged to the lowest of the low in a caste-ridden society and denied the basics: water supply, electricity, a toilet, a school and a medical centre. His village Gehlor, located in the remote Atri block of Gaya District, Bihar, India,   nestled in the lap of rocky hills for which villagers often faced gigantic troubles for crossing small distance between Atri and Wazirganj, the nearest town to avail health, education and other services since a 300-foot tall hill – Gehlor Ghati – loomed between them and civilization.

First, he approached the local government for help. He knew his voice would not create any reaction in the deaf ear of the government; therefore, Dashrath chose to accomplish the Herculean task alone. Almost five and half decade ago in 1960, he resolved to end the difficulties of his villagers by shouldering a near impossible task of slitting a 300-feet-high hill apart to create a one-km passage. He sold his goats to purchase chisel, rope and a hammer. People used to call him mad and eccentric. Unfazed by his critics’ discouraging remarks, Dashrath hammered consistently for 22 long years to shorten the distance from 65km to 8km between his village and Wazirganj. The day came in 1982  when he stepped through a flat passage — about one-km long and 16-feet wide — to his dream, ‘the other side of the hill’. Manjhi died on 17 August 2007 at the age of 73 and he was given a state funeral by the Government of Bihar, and his legacy is visible on Google Maps.

The Mountain Man at work

On August 10, 2015, there was another fascinating announcement that India-born Sundar Pichai had been named as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the global Internet titan, Google, by the company's founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin. After that announcement, there was a big scramble among media personnel for background information on the man about whom very little was known on the personal side. Pichai, 43, a Chennai native who studied at the government schools and later went to IIT Kharagpur and then to Stanford and Wharton, was from a middle class family.

Sundar Pichai’s elevation is a milestone for Indian-origin CEOs, of whom there are at least half dozen in Fortune 500 companies, including Satya Nadella at Microsoft,  Indra Nooyi at Pepsi, Ajit Banga at Mastercard, and Sanjay Mehrotra at SanDisk.  First two ranked companies are now headed by Indians and there is a good chance that the third ranked Berkshire Hathaway too could be headed by an Indian (Ajit Jain strongly tipped to succeed Warren Buffett).  And most of them are in the early forties.

No doubt, achievements of person like Pichais are a cause for celebration that so many Indians have made it to the very top of some of the world's most valuable companies. At the same time, however, it should make us pause and ask an obvious question - why is it that they make their mark in the US and other developed countries but not in the land of their birth? Clearly, the conditions here are not ripe for the best entrepreneurial and managerial minds to achieve their full potential. And India remains at bottom of global indices in terms of ease of doing business, even as within organizations seniority, age and connections matter for more than merit. Given our demographics, this is an unsustainable state of affairs. What is needed today is a mass-scale politics of equality that is committed to merit rather than mediocrity. If meritocracy ruled here instead of mediocrity – punctuated by a few islands of excellence – India would have boasted a home-grown Google instead of just a home-grown Google CEO, as noted by the Time of India’s editorial.[1]  

Annually around 750,000 Chinese and 400,000 Indian students apply to overseas higher education institutions. The United States is clearly the favored destination among overseas Indian students, with close to 100,000 student-visa-holding Indians in the United States in 2012/13. It is found that a sizable number of Chinese students as compared to Indian students are returning to China to pursue their careers in greater numbers than before. Why do most Indians prefer to stay and work in the US after leaving graduate school, while many Chinese now prefer to return to China after completing their graduate studies?

Is there anything Indian policy makers can learn from this? Here the Modi government needs to play the vital role in creating the enabling environment in which they can thrive and create value for themselves and millions of others. Therefore, recognize and promote merit irrespective of class, caste and creed. Assist everyone to achieve their full potential. Abolish reservations in any form in time bound manner. Only then India will produce more, Nadellas, Pitchais, and perhaps Nobel laureates.

Dasrath Manjhi’s story, on the other hands, is of a man who did not just think. He decided, if those in power would not help his people, he would, so his people could avail basic services in time. Now that he has gone, his people are still poor. There are electricity poles, but no electricity; a tube well, but no water; no real hospital, no real livelihoods, little education. After all these 68 years of Independence, their fate has been sealed by another mountain: poverty, the inability to pay for a doctor, for getting the necessary treatment on time and even education for their children. Here, the system does not help to those who wants to help themselves but in many cases creates obstacles.  Successive governments have promised much on improving the quality of life, but sadly delivered at best a fraction of the promise

In sum, the 69^th Independence Day is a good time to pause, extend our circle of concern beyond day-to-day events, and reflect upon our nation`s journey over the past 68 years as a free nation. It appears that the country still remains in chains. We could not promote the enabling environment to make daily life seamless and enjoyable. In India we unendingly, and usually inconclusively, debate the big things – the macro economy, currency reserves, manufacturing and services, the roll out of huge social welfare programmes, secularism, socialism, planning, and the right to virtually everything, as argued by the Kanti Bajpai, an Indian academic-analyst and the former headmaster of The Doon School.[2]    But what is absent is a sense of self-confidence and clarity over the direction we are supposed to be headed. We rarely talk about and deliver the small things that quickly make a difference.

 

Here India can learn from countries like China, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia. During their initial stage of development, they focused in making life better by delivering smaller, more municipal things like primary education, primary health including reproductive health to stabilize population and sanitation. As such, we need to reassess at the national level policies which have thus far failed to meet the demand of a rising India. Here one would like to read my recent posts: First Anniversary of the Modi Government: Must meet the expectations of voters (Part B) at http://kotharionindia.blogspot.in/2015/06/first-anniversary-of-modi-government.html; Growth with structural transformation: A development agenda for India at http://kotharionindia.blogspot.in/2015/01/growth-with-structural-transformation.html; and India: Why population matters? at http://kotharionindia.blogspot.in/2015/04/india-why-population-matters.html.   

---

[1] For details, see editorial at: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-editorials/pitch-for-pichais-beyond-a-home-grown-google-ceo-dreaming-of-a-home-grown-google/ [2] Refer article, at http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/neat-and-nimble/

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam and his model of development

Dr. Devendra Kothari

Population and Development Analyst

Forum for Population Action

“He (Dr. Kalam) wanted India to leap out of the underdeveloped trough and eliminate the curse of poverty through inclusive economic growth.”

Narendra Modi 

Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen "A. P. J." Abdul Kalam became the 11th President of India on 25th July 2002. The country has never had a more beloved president. Active till the end, he left the world in mid-speech, as if to remind us that he still had something more to say. The shock of his sudden passing has left a nation bereaved. India mourns his death, but will long celebrate his life. He was an inspirational figure to millions of people including me. He passed away at the age of 83 on July 27, 2015.

Dr. Kalam always said, “Don’t stop trying”

India's "missile man", as he was dubbed in the popular press, Dr. Kalam was a rocket scientist who rose to prominence as head of the country's successful civilian space and missile defense programmes. He played a vital role in India's Pokran-II nuclear tests in 1998 and he was involved in India's space programmes and military missile development efforts. In addition, he took an interest in well-being of the country in the field of science and technology, during his tenure of Presidency and Post-Presidency. He also pioneered India Vision 2020, a road map for transforming India. 

  

In his life and his work, Dr. Kalam embodied the best of what India can be. He saw the future, and showed the way. His ideas are reflected in his writings, especially in the following books: "India 2020 - A Vision for the New Millennium", "Ignited Minds - Unleashing the power within India", “Target 3 Billion: Innovative Solutions Towards Sustainable Development”  and ”Beyond 2020: Vision for Tomorrow's India”.  These books have become household names in India.

In ‘India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium’, published in 1998, Dr  Kalam and his  associate Y.S. Rajan examined India's strengths and weaknesses to offer a vision of how India could  be among the world's first five economic powers in the year 2020. 

But in 1998, the book was surprisingly ahead of its times. So authors published another version of the book after seventeen years in 2014 and called it: ‘Beyond 2020: Vision for Tomorrow's India’.[1]  It focuses on India’s future progress in the backdrop of the existing facts and figures and the present-day situation in the country. The authors argue that a renewed policy focus is now needed to boost economic growth.

Dr. Kalam’s greatest faith was the nation and its youth. Even in the final two hours of his life, he was sharing his ideas with students of the Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management, Shillong as how to develop this nation. In fact, he was an eternal believer in the power of the ignited mind of the youth – which he termed as most powerful, on the earth, above the earth and under the earth. To quote him: “our demographic advantage is derived from our huge youthful population, on whose health the future of India rests.” 

As we know that India has already entered the vital window of opportunity with a growing labor force; how she uses this potential demographic dividend will have enormous consequences for its long-run economic performance. Recently, World Bank‘s county report noted “How India develops its significant human potential and lays down new models for the growth ----- will largely determine the shape of the future for the country and its people in the years to come.” [2] Can India take advantage of this demographic window in the next couple of decades?

Here “Beyond 2020: Vision for Tomorrow's India” provides some inking. The book argues that   one has to enhance the productivity. Productivity, a measure of the efficiency of the human capital, can be measured by per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP). [3]  To quote authors: “Instead of just looking at the GDP figures we should look at GDP per capita as well. That is an indicator of  how much a country has empowered its people in terms of their ability to produce high-value goods, how much  wealth the individual citizen of a country creates, which of course depends on the work environment, the technologies a person is equipped with, his/her knowledge  and skill, etc.” They further write: “The GDP per capita standings are the true indicators of how much India has been able to empower its citizens”. Table 2 makes it clear how much progress India needs to make to be on a par with Brazil, China and even Indonesia. India has become the tenth largest economy in the world in terms of GDP that is the sum of total production by all the people of a country; however, has a very low per capita GDP. The country placed at the 148^th position among the 187 countries, as per the World Bank. This is perhaps the most visible challenge. Table 1 shows that China’s GDP per capita value in 2013 was more than four and half times that of India.

            Table 1: Per capita GDP, selected Countries, 2013

Country	World Rank	GDP per capita (In US$)
1	2	3
Monaco	1	163,036
Norway	4	100,819
USA	13	53,143
Germany	22	45,085
Japan	28	38,492
South Korea	33	25,977
Russia	51	14,612
Brazil	65	11,208
China	84	6,807
S. Africa	89	6,618
Indonesia	119	3,475
Sri Lanka	124	3,280
Vietnam	137	1,911
India	148	1,499
Pakistan	152	1,299
Nepal	170	694
Somalia	189	150
World		10,472
Source:  World Bank National Account Data, 2013.

In sum, the main concern today is the impairment of human potential, which is not allowing India to reap its rich demographic dividend. Key human development indictors have stagnated.  

So what need to be done to unlock India’s potential? In other words, what should be agenda for human development?  No doubt, putting the economy back on track and reducing inflation should be the government’s first priority. However, for sustainable development it is equally important to focus on human capital. Central to the human development approach is the concept of capabilities. Basic capabilities valued by virtually everyone include: good health including reproductive health, access to knowledge, and a decent material standard of living. In my recent post, I argued that for far too long, India has been a chronic under-achiever relative to potential. Economic growth is not enough; it must be accompanied by structural transformation to unlock the human potential.[4]

It is high time that political parties and policy makers focus on improving people’s ability to earn more rather than dolling out subsidies that make people dependent on the political class and system. And that will be a true tribute to Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.

---

[1] Kalam and Rajan. 2014.  Beyond 2020: Vision for Tomorrow's India, Penguin Books.

 [2] World Bank. India Country Overview 2013

[3] The measure is especially useful when comparing one country to another because it shows the relative performance of the countries. A rise in per capita GDP signals growth in the economy and tends to translate as an increase in productivity.

[4] See post by author:  “Growth with structural transformation: A development agenda for India” at: http://kotharionindia.blogspot.in/2015/01/growth-with-structural-transformation.html.

First Anniversary of the Modi Government: Must meet the expectations of voters (Part B)

Dr. Devendra Kothari

Population and Development Analyst

Forum for Population Action

The immediate focus of the Modi Government must be two pronged – focus on human development and tone up the basic infrastructure aiming at improving the quality of life and productivity, thus, creating favorable conditions for the sustainable development.

Narendra Modi’s electoral victory was greeted enthusiastically by corporate as well as by the common people, but a year on, the euphoria seems to have largely worn off. The problem, as columnist Ruchir Sharma points out, is with the sky-high expectations that greeted the new man in New Delhi. The popular opinion now seems to be that he did not push the pedal hard enough, as he could easily have.[1] Indeed, the Delhi assembly election can be read in part as a confirmation of an electoral mandate for delivery on pragmatic economic and governance issues. [2]  This should be one takeaway from the Delhi election. And this post aims in this direction.  

Modi came in power on the basis of development agenda. In last one year, he has pushed an aggressive model of development with buzzwords like ‘Make in India’, ‘Jan Dhan Yojana’, ‘Swatch Bharat’,  ‘Smart Cities’, ‘Digital India’, etc. But they are seen as too incremental to satisfy hopes he has generated during the poll by raising slogan like Achhe din anne wale hain (English: Good days are coming). Any reasonable government can deliver incremental reforms and piecemeal growth. But when voters gave Modi the first majority government in 30 years they expected – and deserve – much more. It is because India’s voters especially youth are no longer impressed with such rhetoric. Indian youth today are neither deficient in motivation nor in aspiration. Influenced by global trends they demand better government services which help them to grow and participate in the national building. It is widely argued that gives them an enabling environment coupled with contributing infrastructure, and sees how they leverage their own potential. As such, it is critical for the Modi Government to focus on real issues.

There are four issues that need urgent attention. First, slogan ‘minimum government, maximum governance’, advanced by PM Modi,  is an expression of good intent , but administration yet to decide on the kind of government it wants to be. It is reasonable to assume minimum government refers to the need to limit the size of government. Maximum governance, while more difficult to fathom, could signal a focus on governance and accountability. For decades, we have had extraordinarily large governments while ironically the quality of governance has been quite poor. That may be the reason why an average urban household in the country pays around   Rs. 4,400 annually as bribe, while rural households have to shell out Rs. 2,900, a government commissioned study has revealed.[3]  Further, in the cities, an average of nearly Rs 18,000 was paid for securing jobs and transfers, while payments to traffic police personnel were at around Rs 600 a year. The report has also brought to light how on an average people running roadside vends and eateries pay approximately Rs 1,100 per month. According to the report, 91% of the respondents admitted to have paid bribe. This study confirms that bribes and corruption has become a very acceptable thing and all political leadership and bureaucrats enjoy this extra income as black money but common men suffer.  As such, the Modi government must provide corruption free governance to make life easy especially for poor and downtrodden.  There is a need to limit the government to providing high quality yet affordable public goods of health, education, infrastructure and law and order.

Second, India’s state capacity is today inadequate for an economy which is almost $2 trillion in size, with 10 million young people entering the workforce each year.  We need higher growth rates to create more employment for our huge population. Information provided by the Central Statistical office (CSO) show India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the total value of goods and services produced in the country (that is economy) -  grew 7.3 per cent in 2014-15 against 6.9 per cent in 2013-14.  Now question arises whether India will continue with this trend in coming years? Economists are more guarded.  There are concerns about the weak demand in the economy. "So, driving up demand remains the biggest challenge in the economy," said DK Joshi, chief economist at CRISIL. For this, PM Modi needs to implement fiscal reforms including tax reforms for faster demand generation.  The tax systems disproportionately burden the poor. Over 900 million people still live in poverty, as per the World Bank’s international  poverty line; India cannot relax efforts to provide more opportunities for its poor. India is a tax haven for the rich as they do not have to pay any tax on their dividend income. But the middle-class citizen has tax deducted at source even on the paltry interest received from savings bank accounts. In the last budget, the government increased the service tax from 12.36% to 14%. Let us hope that PM Modi provides the much-needed relief to the people of this country by enacting necessary modifications to the both direct and indirect tax laws.

Third, the fight against poverty in India cannot be waged through an improved investment climate alone. Growth will be more pro-poor if poor people have a higher level of human capital and an opportunity to shape the decisions that affect their lives.  For this, India has much ground to cover in catching up with other Asian countries in education and related indicators.[4] China, Indonesia and Sri Lanka all have higher literacy rates. Furthermore, literacy is an aggregate indicator, and behind the aggregates is great inequality in access to and quality of public education.  One is saddened to see the widening quality gap between India’s and the world’s secondary and tertiary educational standards. Despite historically strong intellectual traditions and growing Indian economic power, not one Indian university could make it to the top 100 in world reputation rankings recently released by Times Higher Education. In elementary education too, that only 48% of class V children can read a Class II-level text is an indictment of Indian education. In a country with the world’s largest proportion of young people, PM Modi has long talked about the demographic dividend but if large sections of these Indians remain functionally uneducated and unskilled, this demographic dividend can soon turn into a demographic disaster. At a time when the Modi government is focusing on a manufacturing push to the economy with its ‘Make in India’ slogan, the drag in education is a major constraint. As such, it is time to shift mind-sets, liberalise education and encourage institutional autonomy and creativity to keep pace with a rapidly changing world. It is a problem that needs immediate attention to unlock the Indian people’s potential. [5]

Lastly, another important slogan advanced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggests the path his government should follow: ‘sabka saath sabka vikas’ ('Together with all, Development for all'). The flip side of the coin is that after the Modi's landslide electoral victory in 2014, there was a notable upsurge in public rhetoric by some supporters of Hindu nationalism. This includes speaking out against love jihad, efforts to rewrite school textbooks, introducing Surya Namaskar in schools, and ghar wapsi campaign aimed at religious reconversions to Hinduism. Recently, several BJP ruled States have banned the consumption of beef and are said to be considering dropping eggs from school children’s midday meals — driven by fundamentalist agendas — even as sundry BJP ministers threaten to send those who disagree with them to Pakistan.

We should agree with Walter Andersen & Allison Berland of John Hopkins University that   “while Hindu nationalist issues remain politically salient for a portion of the electorate and are a component of the BJP's electoral base, two decades of economic growth have created a growing aspirational electorate that is largely focused on the pragmatic issues of development, good governance, and jobs”.  [6] Therefore, there has been a growing feeling that unless the PM Modi speaks out, in the long run the communal surround sound would undermine his agenda for the economy. He must draw a clear lakshman rekha between his own vision of India and of those who wish to drag the country back towards religious bigotry and social disharmony. There is an urgent to be more inclusive for the sake of economic development and political stability of the country.

In sum, Singapore literally travelled from third world to first world over the 30 years when Lee Kuan Yew was prime minister, demonstrating that Asian societies can do this if they are pragmatic about addressing challenges. Modi is said to be an admirer of Lee.  He should learn from the latter’s legacy and pursue systemic reforms which unlock the Indian people’s potential to ensure sustainable ‘acche din’. This will also ensure that Modi is elected for a second term in 2019.

---

[1] For details see: Ruchir Sharma’s article:  Which giant will Modi follow now? at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Which-giant-will-Modi-follow-now/articleshow/47323110.cms

[2] Delhi election verdict was a protest voting against Modi’s policies. For details see: Devendra Kothari’s post: Delhi election verdict: Is it a wake up call for Modi? At http://kotharionindia.blogspot.in/2015/02/delhi-election-verdict-is-it-wake-up.html. 

 [3] For the full report, logon to www.timesofindia.com.

[4] For details see: Devendra Kothari’s post: Growth with structural transformation: An agenda for India at http://kotharionindia.blogspot.in/2015/01/growth-with-structural-transformation.html

[5] Kothari, Devendra. 2014. Education in India needs intensive care, not a quick fix, RAEA Policy Paper No. 1. Rajasthan Adult Education Association, Jaipur. 

[6] For details, read: Walter Andersen & Allison Berland’s  Parivar gets a Modified lesson in pragmatism at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/all-that-matters/Parivar-gets-a-Modified-lesson-in-pragmatism/articleshow/46489682.cms.