Why is India the way it is ?

India has much potential, and yet, does not seem to achieve it.

Why ?

Its part history, part apathy, part economics.

Historically, we have been looted for the past 1000 years. Ever since the Islamic inactions of India, it has been systematically looted to enrich nations and races beyond its borders. Even when the Muslims decided to stay and founded empires, vast amounts of gold were sent out to Arabia and beyond. After a while, the new locally born generations began to have less ties to the old world and founded roots in India. By this time, others were in on the act.

When the Europeans got in on the act, they too did the same. Unlike the Islamic invasion, the Europeans never really settled in India and never found their roots there. When East India Company first started to trade with India, it produced over 25 % of world’s manufactured goods. By the time the British Empire came to an end, India produced a tiny fraction of that. The British looted a lot more than all the previous invaders put together.

The pseudo secular, pseudo socialist governments of independent India were into protectionist policies. Carrying on various polices of the British and adding ideas from the Soviet block, they created an India that was inward looking, corrupt and closed. The Nehurvian policies of the early years left India with a “licence Raj”, where you needed a government “licence” to do any business. These licenses were sold to the highest bidder, often with under the table deals. This is what made India have endless ambassador cars and Tata ruled the roads. It killed off competition and bread corruption.

Those who were truly hungry for life, left and set up their own little Indias outside its physical boundaries. They took the entrepreneurial skills and survival instinct of India, and Indians to the world.

After nearly four decades of pesudo socialist policies, government polices brought India to the brink of bankruptcy. At the end of 1889 / begining of 1990's government was forced to change its ways and gradually, painfully, India opened up. It soon realised its potential. In the last 15 years, it has achieved a lot more in the global market than it did in the first four decades of independence. I am sure it will make itself richer as time goes by. I am sure it will get to grips with its population, literacy and health care issues. It all takes time, especially when you have a billion people to cater for.

India is a vast country. It’s a very diverse country. Within its physical boundaries, it contains a huge plethora of people. Countless races, religions, languages, histories combine to form the India we know today. It’s a remarkable country, if only because it is only one to survive so much destruction with so much intact. No other country has withstood the onslaught of both Islam and Christianity and retained its indigenous religion and culture. No other country has managed to retain so much of its past despite such determined efforts to decimate it.

It will be interesting to study how India survived it all. Maybe, just maybe, from India’s experiences, we can learn how the world could survive itself beyond its current mess !!

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