How India Became America
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
1. Propaganda by affluent and successful Indians claiming the country is as successful as they are.
2. Westerners overstating Indian progress to feel more comfortable that there is a friendly and reliable challenger to China from the developing world.
I don't know, I may be wrong on both counts but the reality is that we are a dirt poor country with not just deep institutional problems, but also moral and psychological ones.
I was searching for the words to express this for more than ten minutes before I read your comment. The key here is 'moral and psychological problems'.
To cite just one example, there was a lot of ruckus about the 2G Scam and the Lokpal bill recently. We believe that the guy who got 17200 Crore rupees in kickbacks is a corrupt SOB and should be punished to the maximum extent, but when it was revealed that a leading anti-corruption crusader was actually stealing money from the sponsors who invited her for talks, we dismissed it as a 'small amount'. This kind of 'it's not a crime if its done at a small scale but it's a crime if its done on a large scale' mentality is present among nearly everyone.
Also, another huge problem with Indians is that we as a people do not wish to risk anything. As a result we will never fight for something that should be rightfully ours (like a Government that does it's job). Urban voters are generally brainwashed by the charisma of our politicians or are bought wholesale with a few thousand rupees and a bottle of liquor. Rural voters don't really care who they vote for. As a result we keep alternating between the same two sets of thugs. Will we get out on the streets and protest for better governance like the arabs did? Never.
So, the West can paint many pretty picture and call it India, but this is a country in massive disarray, and the fact that it hasn't already collapsed is purely by chance.
Why would anyone be motivated to take risks after such a deal ?
Also, no government can solve India's problem. 600 people (few uneducated, several underqualified and some with a shady past) to make decisions for a diverse 1 bn population? That doesn't scale in any way whatsoever.
And all the while the conditions of the real poor are in fact getting worse. And as someone whose family/ community falls into the capitalist class I see condition of most of the employees degrading first hand. The so called middle class is in some sense living in a bubble, working semi-coolie jobs for MNCs (for the most part) and thinking that their more hip lifestyles are in some ways representative of a sea change in India.
The middle-class attitude to not risk much is also something we should not blame Indians for -- remember that most of the middle class (that's in the 'service' sector) is actually Bramhin, which means that it's a step down in status from what their ancestors enjoyed. And when you look at the looong way down you can fall in India socioeconomically... it's hard to blame someone for being risk-averse.
Also, why should I not blame middle class Indians for what they are (not) doing? The middle class in India is a huge section of people. If you want something you should be prepared to risk everything and fight for it. If you are not willing to risk it, then you deserve what you get. Imagine the benefits we can reap in future if we are willing to duke it out now.
Also, this risk averse attitude is the reason why we were ruled by the British for 200 years. Only once people started risking everything they had did we get the Independence we deserved. Why should fighting inept politicians who are ruining my country be any different from fighting a foreign aggresor?
I mean, prioritize.
Many other countries with corruption problems see a huge increase in skilled worker outflows..namely Russia with a 2 million outflow every 10 years..
Is India also facing a killed worker outflow due to corruption conditions? Outflow in the sense that the number is higher than the net difference between the birth and death rates.
Out of curiosity, is this a robust thing? Is corruption a good indicator of 'brain-drain'?
- India's population id 4X that of America
- More than half the population is below the poverty line
- India is amongst the most corrupt nations in the world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_perception_of_corrupti...
- The level of very basic Infrastructure (Roads, Water, Electricity, Sanitation) is non-existent in Villages, poor in most cities and tolerable in the so-called "Metros" (top 8 cities) - 6 hours of power cuts are common in summer in the Metros
- There is more stress on "Exam taking" than on "learning". Sports is limited to Cricket - a nation of a billion people boasts of 1 -2 Gold medals in the Olympics. Mediocrity in everything.
- Indians by and large "play it safe" in everything. The level of innovation is very low (witness the number of international awards won by Indians IN india -Nobel Prize, Fields medal etc is next to zero). A very twisted shortcut based method of "Jugaad" is praised so he who discovers the best method of beating the system is rewarded.
I despair for my country. We are headed in the wrong direction and keep accelerating. <rant-off>
Well at least its not zero.Rabindra Nath Tagore got it for his brilliant work - Geetanjali, Amartya Sen got it for his work on poverty and famines, C.V Raman got it for discovering what is now called the Raman Effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_of_India
Also there have been notable achievements that perhaps have not been acknowledged with an award.For example J.C.Bose was the first to use a semiconductor junction to detect radio waves.
For example between 1961 to 1972 he was at the Delhi School of Economics, where he completed his work Collective Choice and Social Welfare
If you're an Indian businessperson, you have two options - copy the US and make a good ROI, or risk everything on creating a new product for a potentially better ROI. The choice is obvious - it's far cheaper (and more beneficial) to play catch-up than innovate.
The question is - why is India still playing catch-up?
I don't know that much about India. I'm guessing that corruption is one part. I've heard Indian culture can be anti-business. Perhaps politics are more sectarian than policy-based - they don't vote for a party because it has good policies (or seems to have good policies), but because they identify with the candidates (same religion, caste, region, family, whatever). Democracy doesn't seem to work when elections are fought on sectarian lines.
I do not know if there is a bigger proportion of Chinese/Russian/Egyptian businessmen, but I do know that the amount of social stigma attached to leaving a well paying job to do a startup is significantly higher in India than in most other countries.
Growing up in Calcutta my Mariwari and Gujrati friends were always excited to talk about business. It was clear how their parents encouraged it. I was clearly taught business is a strict NO-NO. Get a stable job and settle down. When I look back, in a class of 60 odd people in my computer science undergrad class 95% "settled down". Only two dared to kick their job and go for a startup.
One such example of a party(there are many) is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattali_Makkal_Katchi [From wikipedia] >Ramdoss had earlier worked with the Vanniyar Sangham (Vanniyar Union) founded by him in 1980. PMK is based amongst the Most Backward Class Vanniyakula Kshatriyas community.
Vanniyar is a caste in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu
Perhaps its because of this that innovation and research are very limited here.
Another fundamental difference is the constitution and the laws. Atleast on the book, the American constitution provides far more rights to the citizens than the Indian constitution. India as a country is far more regulated by the government. This means there are more avenues for corruption to happen since you need the permission of the authorities for almost everything. I feel the entire country is moving towards an authoritarian state with so much power vested in government institutions.
There are just too many things to list that its overloading my head when I try to list them out.I hope that the nation moves forward in a direction of its own, taking in the good values while discarding the propaganda.
Americanization of India is limited to metros and big cities, and there too you see a mind-boggling mix of poverty and abundance.
So does America. The point of the article is that there are some very uniquely American things - consumerism, fast-food, Starbucks, etc. - that have infiltrated Indian culture. I interpreted it as an observation independent of a value judgment.
But the NYT isn't going to make money with a headline like India still getting slowly westernized in rich areas
Yes there is still poverty,religious stupidity,corruption etc etc.
But at least the minds of the bravest and the brightest are now filled with thoughts about entrepreneurship,technology and change.(which the author claims are american values)
Think about what the predominant themes on Indian minds were a few decades earlier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_r...
Also, people in India are more likely to take a relative view of things, given that they see things from an historical perspective as well. As it states here[0], the literacy rate last year was 75%, which is an enormous improvement over the 12% at the end of British rule.
“A Nation’s Greatness is Measured By How It Treats Its Weakest Members.” Mahatma Gandhi
Everyone on this site should be considered an "elite" for the purposes of this discussion.
I find your argument strange if you don't recognize the magnitude of India's poverty compared to the U.S. and Western Europe. My beef with the article is that it in no ways recognizes this problem.
"Be not afraid, for all great power throughout the history of humanity has been with the people. From out of their ranks have come all the greatest geniuses of the world, and history can only repeat itself. Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvelous work." - Swami Vivekananda, a founding father of modern India
poverty and human suffering is a burden that must be shared by everyone who is aware of it. Americans owe their prosperity to many historic factors, including a near virgin land and colonising a native population, apart from the American spirit.
Having said there is no doubt Indian elites must do more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_India
2) Poverty
India has been free for 65 years. This was after 200 years of Britain stripmining India of its resources. Our politicians were at fault to go into a socialistic cocoon for nearly 45 years before liberating India's potential. And look at progress that has been made in the last 20 years. The poverty has fallen by 10 percentage points, while the population has increased by ~ 30 percentage points.
I don't necessarily agree with the writer's views, it looked more like an anecdote than an actual analysis / story.
But to quote numbers without actually analysing them is just plain bad.
The big problem was, they used "divide and conquer". The British were masters at it - find a minority in a region, and give them guns and military assistance. The minorities can now be relied on to keep the rest of the population under control, and they can't rebel against the British for fear of a reprisal from the majority.
The problem is, it leaves a real mess when the Brits leave.
(It was in the interests of the British to force India to sell them raw materials at low prices, feed it to industries in Britan, and sell it back to India as a finished product. In those days, gold was money, and India had a lot of gold.)
The filty rich, people dressed in filty clothes, and "people in between" co-exist in India. The first experience of India starts right where the airport ends - the crowd of touts and cabs fighting for your attention will come as quite a shock if you haven't faced it already.
The divide between rich and poor will become more profound once you leave the airport and enter the city. One second you are in a neighourhood rivaling the most plush cities in the world, another you are standing by a heap of garbage, watching children in rags hunting the trash for recyclable objects which they sell to earn their living.
India, specially the big cities, are complete chaos, owing to their large population. Someone from a quite neighourhood will be a bit taken aback when he is subjected to insane amounts of traffic accompanied with honking. For the most roads, you will have to jaywalk. However, don't concern yourself too much, as this is standard practice and drivers are used to it.
Apart from the traffic, cows and other animals roaming the strets isn't uncommon. They are big, but mostly harmless.
As far as society goes, the Indian society takes pride in being closely knit and valuing familial values. You will find people living with their parents, which is very uncommon in the west. Also, people don't display intimacy in public - even married people generally keep distance. On the other hand, boys with hands over other boys' shoulders, and girls holding each others' hands is a common sight.
Also note that the Indian states differ in culture at the macro level, and the country loves to fragment itself at both macro and micro levels. People from the northern part of India(believed to be Arayn descendents) and people from southern India(believed to be Dravidian descendents) are an example of culture difference at a macro level, and Tamil(South Indian) brahmins differentiating themselves from Non-brahmins is an example at a micro level.
India, as a country, has a different sense of privacy and personal space. People will ask all sorts of personal questions, without meaning any offence. It's just the Indian version of small talk, and they feel delighted if the same questions are asked of them.
Talk about programmers - you will find the bell curve at work. But since the number of people who are supposedly programmers is large, and you mostly come across the middle of the normal distribution, it's easy to get the impression that most people are incompetent.
More importantly, I was pointing out India as a country fragments itself at all levels. You know what will change if the Aryan invasion was a myth - nothing as far as the north indian and south indian fragmentation is concerned.
1. Poverty is not a virtue. 2. There was evil in the old days too
1. Because it wanted to - We grow up n stiff competition knowing the holy grail is to crack the IIT entrance exam which is really an assurance for your trip to the promised land. The uncle and aunt staying abroad are a constant source of inspiration, who _defined_ "success" and would return home once every 2 or 3 years like war heroes with loots in the form of Lindt, Ghirardelli or board games that had a strange smell of, well, "happiness"!
2. MTV - MTV India was launched sometime when I was in standard 5 or something. Indian youth till then had seen only two channels which where sacred entertainment came in the form of "Mahabharata", "Ramayana", "Krishna", "Chanakya" - all epics or history heroes, mythical heroes - mind it none at the same time - often years apart. "Chitrahar"/"Rangoli" had some hot sauce - songs from our Bollywood movies - which featured middle aged angry young men dancing with a troupe on a massive drum in a forest. And then there was MTV - a breath of fresh air, new GODS, new way of dressing, and a better glimpse of the promised world. This was followed by the explosion of cable tv - HBO, Star movies, Star World - streamed in streets of New York, Chicago directly to our living room, and engraved it in our hearts.
3. Movies - Some argue Bollywood and cricket can change governments in India. Our movies soon caught up with the cable and MTV - and in no time the colleges depicted in movies started looking more like a school in the US (For any Indian reading this - these are Shahrukh Khan & Yash Raj brand of movies). They defined what is cool. Soon there were fake american brands available in every footpath stalls.
4. Broadband - Internet changes everything. Soon we were talking on chatrooms, downloading pirated mp3-s of Pink Floyd, watching more of Hollywood (yeah - sweet p2p baby). Our regular vocabulary has been enriched by the f-word, Kurt Cobain T-shirt was a must have. Even Indi-porn - which primarily featured voluptuous females taking bath had adopted the new tricks of the trade.
5. Final blow - IT, outsource and call center. This is the only part where America had a direct hand - you Bangalored your overpriced jobs and provided the jet pad we needed to take off for the american dream. Easy money => more american brands + worst_of_both_worlds_accent => Cool. With more purchasing power young college graduates _with_ a job in Wipro, TCS, Infosys etc. were looking for places to spend - and this is what led to mushrooming of shopping malls all over the country. So where did the design inspiration for these malls come from? Well, to cater to the needs of the customer oriented the architects looked West ...
That in a nutshell how India is becoming America. Nothing is good or bad, its just the way it changes.
I'm not being anti-tradition or whatever. Panchayats routinely carry out horrific human rights violations against women and lower casts. This barbaric system has to be replaced by actual courts.
Separate from that, there is a whole system of local governance based on panchayats. These bodies play a very important role in letting the local people participate in decision making process for things which are going to affect them. Members of these panchayats are elected through proper electoral process and are not "old fucks" usually. It is a form of decentralization of power which is sanctioned by law and is a good thing.
I've never lived in a village, my perception of Panchayats was wholly informed by the news.
But there are several caveats.
America doesn't have huge pockets of the population isolated in illiteracy, poor sanitation, lack electricity/clean water and such like.
Societal transitions-wise, it faces many of the challenges that America did in the 50's and 60's with a few more complexities. The opportunity exists for a great story provided there is no major war or natural calamity that depletes or hijacks its course over the next couple of decades.
One thing you can be thankful for is that the democratic system, and people power, continues to thrive as proven in this weeks elections in the state of UP. Powerful governments, bullying party organizations and divisive agendas were voted out and people with the message of development and unity were voted in (of course, whether the people campaigning this way follow through is another question)
Notice I didn't mention corruption. A relevant challenge, it is another discussion for another day. Though India's corruption challenges exist starting right at the grass roots level, even America hasn't found a way to effectively take it out everywhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh_legislative_assem...
The gist of the article is that anything other than Socialism is 'American'. Since when houses with concrete roofs, foreign brands, shopping malls, office buildings and being optimistic represent only America? The author needs to travel other parts of the world.
Articles like this which draw parallels between two countries often do disservice to both the countries. America is not all about consumerism and India is not all about a poor imitation of America.
The urban Indians did drift considerably westward during the last two decades, while most villages and towns regressed economically and never adopted Western values (hence the growing "red corridor").
The last two decades were marked by the rise of the Indian Middle Class in urban India (encouraged by the Indian PM Manmohan Singh and his Neo-liberal agenda), and middle classes all over the world seem to share similar values and perspectives. The author might benefit from researching some more, and relying less on his personal impressions and his obsolete (even colonialist) hermeneutic.
The "good old days" bit at the end was a bit obtuse. Clearly life expectancy and quality of life has gone up. People are less likely to die a horrible death. Even if there are more violent crimes driven by new money and disparity between classes, if it isn't just increased connectivity and a huge amount more news making more people hear about violent crime more often, then people are still better off.
But it seems like everywhere people are driven by their crappy human risk assessment system. The west has been inundated with the stats about crime rates going down but the "fear of crime" going up (seems like the fear is more correlated to the news cycle than the crime rate but that's besides the point).
So the irrational "good old days"/out of proportion fear of rare events thing seems be another common American and western trait. I guess he's inadvertently supporting his premise with this misunderstanding as well.
(1) The research University.
(2) The second act: tolerance for failure
After a boom of 10 years, we now have really good highways in most part of the country. However I saw at least one bullock cart, some stray cows and people trying to cross a 4 lane US Interstate like Highway. Also the entries to highways were ill-planned. Traffic regulations and speed limits were not updated in light of recent developments.
Tamil Nadu, one of the growth engines of Indian economy gets 10 hr power cuts everyday because the chief minister refuses to open a newly constructed nuclear power plant.
Engineering colleges in India track their students round the clock and report to parents on their activities. Someone I know goes to a school where they conduct "aptitude" classes 3 saturdays+ one sunday a month for preparing students to attend Infosys(Wipro, TCS)( All three have the same business models, body shops) interviews. Kids literally buy their thesis(project) from companies that have a ready made project for them, so they could focus more on getting into one of the Body Shops.
Also I just read that many of the companies that got into "emerging "(Airlines, Telecom) Indian economy are either running on losses or never made a profit.
I think it is a much better analysis and look at the underlying issues that plague India as it struggles to deal with modernization and globalization. The article in this post wasn't quite an analysis but more of a description or summarization of the what is happening. The article from last summer, while it doesn't exactly cover the same scope and exact subject matter, focuses on many of the same phenomenon. Definitely worth checking out.
I'm wondering if the author is naïeve or if it's deliberate propaganda. If the latter - which groups would promote such views and are they dominant in India?
You can't make statement like "India Became America " based on 5-10 cities in India.
As majority of India doesn't have
- Basic Education
- Basic Health services
- Electricity
- Minimal Infrastructure to grow (including Road, Housing)
And yes, India is far from being U.S.
"She leads a simple life (impoverished even, by American standards), but she is immeasurably better off than she was a couple of decades ago. She grew up in a thatch hut. Now she lives in a house with a concrete roof, running water and electricity. Her son owns a cellphone and drives a motorcycle. Her niece is going to college.
"But not long before we talked, there had been a murder in the area, the latest in a series of violent attacks and killings. Shops that hadn’t existed a decade ago were boarded up in anticipation of further violence; the police patrolled newly tarred roads."
that crime will increase when "Americanization" happens to a society. I think that is a mistaken conclusion. I have lived overseas, for two three-years stays, in Taiwan, both before and after Taiwan's democratization. Reduction in crime seems to depend crucially on both effective law enforcement and on a civil society that builds cohesion and community norms against crime. Rapidly transforming societies--in whatever direction they are transforming--seem to suffer a breakdown of social order and an increase in crime rate. That's just what was happening in the United States as I grew up. But today crime rates in the United States are actually much lower, for nearly all types of crime, and especially for violent crime, than they were in my early adulthood. My Minnesota neighborhood and the whole large suburban municipality surrounding it is essentially crime-free, with almost the only life-threatening form of crime being driving while drunk. My whole family, including my young children, can walk or bicycle anywhere within more than a five-mile radius at any hour of day or night and have no fear of any kind of crime. I have urban habits formed in childhood of looking the door of our house every evening, but it's no worry if we ever leave the house without looking it up, and possessions like bicycles and skateboards and patio furniture can be left outdoors unattended for days on end with no one stealing them or damaging them.
More generally, in view of the many interesting comments here, I think India has a much brighter future from today than, say, China. India has a great many problems, according to every person from India I know, but India has a free press and moderately fair elections and a great deal of openness about talking about societal problems. China, by contrast, does not permit such open criticism of corruption, political favoritism, and police inaction against crime as is routine in India. Both because India has a government that must be accountable to voters and a free press to watch the government, and because people from India have access through the English language to the consequences of different political and economic systems around the world, I expect India to fix more of its problems more smoothly over the next few decades than China, and ultimately to be a leading example for countries around the world in how to build a cohesive, diverse, and thriving society with much freedom to choose the best of the traditional and modern.
At this point, I'd happily like to point out that my country - Australia - weathered the GFC better than pretty much anyone else and has an exceptionally strong currency, low unemployment, and is generally up near the top on any quality of life measure. Starbucks came here, opened nearly a hundred stores... and failed horribly - they were too shortsighted to see that we already had a quality coffee culture (born of our Italians, Greeks and Turks) and their shitty coffee made no inroads here.
(an aside - the one and only time I've had anything from starbucks was an iced chocolate in LA on a hot day - and it was gritty)
So I read this article and wonder if they've totally misread another market. Whatever the case may be, having Starbucks is not a sign that your country is successful.
In the heart of Hanoi there's a KFC (there's a few throughout VN, at least in the tourist areas) and the Vietnamese economy is booming... in Vietnamese terms. They're still incredibly poor with a 30% inflation rate, and the KFC is charging Vietnamese prices, not western prices. KFC may have plonked some stores down and localised them a bit, but that doesn't mean that the locals have anything like a western quality of life.
I found it interesting that although the food in the KFC was different (though still fowl), it was the same experience in terms of disinterested teenage staff, overloud music, and grimy plastic seating...