It’s Morning in India | Hacker News Reader

It’s Morning in India

nytimes.com

93 pointsjesseendahl48 comments

One of the great American foreign policy mistakes for the last fifty years has been the decision to keep India at arms length, while embracing Pakistan and China. It goes back to Cold War politics - India was suspiciously socialist and non-aligned, whereas Pakistan and China were willing to act as bulwarks against Soviet Communism. However, the West has far more in common culturally and economically with India than it ever will with Pakistan or China.

In strictly utilitarian terms, a strong India is far more to our advantage than an empowered China. Pakistan is a crucible for radical Islam and a haven for terrorism, while China is chronically autarchic and mercantilist. I fear that neither is ever likely to integrate well with the existing group of first-world nations. So far, India appears much more compatible.

Fortunately, it seems like attitudes have been changing in recent years. Liberalization and outsourcing (not without its own problems, obviously) have opened India to the west, while people are starting to realize the westernization of China and Pakistan isn't as inevitable as was once claimed.

Don't discount that Pakistan and India have much more in common than is obvious to someone not from the subcontinent.

True, I don't want to downplay the distinctiveness of Indian culture or its ties to Pakistan. But speaking from a western, utilitarian foreign policy perspective, the aspects that are desirable about India are the parts that are distinctive, or if they exist in Pakistan are undermined by the political realities there.

As an Indian, I can tell you some fundamental differences between India and Pakistan:

- India is usually very open to debate, on just about anything. - Radicalism, though exists in India in pockets and in different forms, is not a chronic national disease. - People understand the language of development now (to a large extent) - Knowledge and Education is very deeply valued. Its a part of how most Indians think. - Corruption is rampant, but media is becoming extremely vigilant. We have a Right to Information, which has been used to great effect recently to curb corruption and malpractices. - Lastly, we are a democracy in the true sense of the work. 80% of Indians are proud of it.

We are chaotic and corrupt and crippled with hundreds of problems, but at the same time, we're enterprising, hard-working, mostly ambitious, and mostly open-minded.

I'm Indian too (with ex-Pak immigrant parentage), and I can't say most of those things, except for the recent innovation of the Right to Information Act, are all that different here than in Pakistan.

Perhaps we shouldn't argue over what we cannot quantify.

Precisely why I'll not debate this any further :)

Tl;dr: As an Indian, I can tell you that India is better than Pakistan.

Not very helpful.

There are 17,000 cults in India. http://goo.gl/CvDz They're destroying India because they literally hate each other.

People tend to think of India as one single entity, which is a mistake.

As a South Indian, there are not many things common between me and a Pakistani.

Agreed that India is not a single entity, and I'd add that Pakistan is not that integrated either. Those Pashtuns in the North-West Frontier Province do take great pains to distinguish themselves from the Punjabis in the East, and the Balochis and Sindhis in the South. I suppose I shouldn't leave out the Kashmiris.

Now as to not having things in common, I have to disagree. There is a distinctive desi-ness to our affairs, which in my eyes still binds 'Maula Jatt' and 'Endhiran' as belonging to more or less the same culture. Just my opinion.

The westernization of China still looks pretty inevitable to me. What's changed?

Heh... that has been said many times in history.

You can't whatevernize China. China is just waking up from a 100 or so years of slumber (or catharsis) into its rightful place in the world.

Becoming first world seems inevitable, but westernized? Not necessarily.

The adoption of capitalism and participation in international institutions doesn't imply that China has westernized. By 'westernize', most people mean that they expect China to adopt democratic, individualistic consumer culture and a political system similar to Continental or Anglo-Saxon democracies. I believe this is extremely unlikely. Radically 'unwestern' states have always coexisted with industrialized capitalism: Tsarist Russia, 2nd Reich and Nazi Germany, etc. Not to mention that most Asian democracies like Japan would hardly be recogzable to a Briton or American. The best-case scenario for an emergent China is probably a state that looks a lot like Singapore, Taiwan, or Japan. IMO, China fifty years from now will probably fall far more toward the authoritarian end of the spectrum.

This sounds like a press piece by NASSCOM and Indian IT majors.

At the moment Indians are cheap labor for US consumers, at some point Indian consumers become the market and the US becomes irrelevent.

Riduculous of course - just like the idea that those Japanese could ever make cars as good as Americans, or motorbikes as good as the British or cameras as good as the Germans.

The US outsources to India because it's cheap. We get 4 support people in India for the price of one in the US.

When India is really up to the standards of the US, it's not going to be cheap anymore.

That is exactly the point. Why resort to protectionism. Let the market forces play themselves out. Protectionism is just the opposite of what the US preached to the world.

Indians are sufficiently entrepreneurial - especially given the constraints they work under. I am quite confident that Indians would figure out a model that will continue to work.

Actually, IT labour is not cheap in India. It is quite common for IT workers to expect 15% minimum yearly increase in salaries and not less than 30% hike in salaries when switching jobs.

The Rupee-Dollar arbitrage is the biggest advantage Indian IT companies are enjoying right now.

No, it's still very cheap. People in the US aim for 30% when switching jobs.

Well, there is a hidden externality here. Traditionally helpesk and tester roles have been a "feeder" for sysadmin and developer roles. They are entry level jobs that are easier to get, a company gets to see who is talented and ambitions and they "move up" to more complex and technical work. If that pipeline disappears because helpdesk and testing have moved offshore, then the Western IT firms lose the ability to hire capable people that for whatever reason haven't gone the CS degree route, and those people lose the opportunity to get into the industry too.

Penny wise, pound foolish.

The reason why, every Indian IT majors are trying to stop america from going into protectionism mode is their 90% of the revenue comes from US. Yes the labour is "cheap" here - 24$ per hour.

Currently Indian IT majors have no or very low focus on local Indian consumers.

> Currently Indian IT majors have no or very low focus on local Indian consumers.

India's largest software exporter, TCS get its almost 10% revenue from domestic clients. One of the major client is Government of India ofcourse.

The IT majors have looked beyond US to de-risk their portfolio. IIRC, Infosys' dependence on US market is < 50% of their revenue. They are expanding aggressively in Europe etc.,

Isn't it sort of silly to compare manufactured products to labor talent?

Like... that you can somehow craft a process that will take any given human being and make them into an excellent worker, free from abnormalities and flaws?

I mean the Americans feel threatened by cheap Indian labor and so set up protectionist policies to stop Indian workers having access to their economy. All this does it force the Indian economy to grow to the point where the consumers for Indian goods and services are Indian - and the same for China.

I'm not saying I agree that Japanese products can't be better than another country's, but... isn't crafting a better production process the result of labor talent in the first place?

You are all probably too young to remember when Japanese imports were dismissed as cheap copies.

Rather like Chinese products or Indian software is now.

I disagree. Outsourcing overshadows everything else when it comes to India. What everybody doesn't know is this. Just walk into any departmental shop and you will find more American brands than Indian (the only possible exception to this is fresh food and other food raw materials.) Only in the last few years have Indian consumer brands became well-known and competing against foreign brands. Take any category and the top 1-2 brands are probably American. India supplies a huge amount of consumers for American brands (for that matter any good quality products).

Yes, but I would still agree with the core thought, which is, America, which thought world about free market, is afraid of loosing its jobs to outsourcing.

>which is, America, which thought world about free market

What? They may have taught the world about debt but certainly not free market. Adam Smith wasn't even American.

As an American that has spent time in India, I can say that India will be a next major economic world power. Democracy + creativity + entrepreneurship + skilled work force + Indian optimism + excellent English skills = huge potential as a major economic driver in the world economy. China IMO lacks Democracy and creativity (to some extent, why are all the major Tech startup in China simply knock-offs of US companies? Baidu, Youku which are willing to comply with their Gov demands).

The best quotation from this:

"The U.S. seems sadly unprepared to take advantage of the revolution it has spawned. The country’s worn-out infrastructure, failing education system and lack of political consensus have prevented it from riding a new wave to prosperity."

Ironic that this commentary should come from India, which is improving despite the country's worn-out infrastructure, failing education system, and lack of political consensus.

Never underestimate the effect of growth, or lack thereof, on the public attitude.

The difference is, India is clawing it's way out of those conditions. We can only go up.

this is a genral concensus but there are some very strong under currents that are taking india away from this...

the number of infrastructure projects in and around major cities are growing exponentially. new airports, busniess parks, highways you name it... to add to this, india is not just out-sourcing.. yes it is a 70 billion dollar industry but there are lot many things going on in india.

yes given the beaurocracy things might not be apparent but india is coming into its own slowly but surely

98% revenue for Indian IT companies comes through selling consulting to US customers.

Selling software != Selling consulting

why do people link to these? I'm always asked to login and I don't have the patience to do so..

For some reason, I do not have to login.

why do people link to these? Friedman is a cheesy, uninsightful, mostly bogus commentator.

New York State law requires that one out of every five Thomas Friedman columns make some sense. This one bags his quota for the month.

Not so fast. The very first sentence is wrong:

the French government's decision to raise its pension retirement age from 60 to 62

That's the early retirement age they're raising, to the same 62 as the US has. The normal retirement age is being raised from 65 to 67, 1 year later than the US at 66. Oopsies.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/more-comm..., confirmed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement

Despite it all, I enjoy reading Friedman. Even though his job description is apparently "be professionally wrong about everything for the New York Times", there's something cozy and comfy about his writing. His tone communicates that the world makes sense and the moustache will explain it to you. What's interesting is how nice it makes one feel, even when one knows the probability of any sentence being bullshit approaches 1.

Edit: Friedman also has the merit of inspiring the greatest smackdown review of our time. There aren't nearly enough laughs of this calibre in this world:

http://www.nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html

I agree, but the first part of the first sentence is very very true. As a french university employee, i can confirm :/

So there we have it: part of one sentence is true. It was known to be theoretically possible, of course. :)

Actually, Friedman gets a bit of a bum rap because he's so fun to make fun of. As long as you ignore all the (pseudo-)facts, some of his insights are pretty good.

Edit: It is interesting to consider how some of this stuff makes it past editors at a leading world newspaper, though. If people like us can google these things in our limited spare time, what the hell are they doing?

Man, not so long ago early retirement meant 55 in Canada.

Friedman is a cheesy, uninsightful, mostly bogus commentator.

I could not have put it better myself.

China prospered without India's dummy democracy and casteism. Indians are brainwashed to believe that (casting a vote in elections == democracy) and a solution to all problems.

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