India's Growth Paradox

A former president of New Delhi's Foreign Correspondents' Club liked to startle newly arrived American and British journalists by telling them to begin work on their big India book at once. If they protested that they had just landed and would need at least a year to write a book, he insisted that they had got it exactly wrong. "The first day in India," he would say, "every foreigner is convinced he can write a book about it. After a year of living here, he realizes he can't write a meaningful sentence about it."
Fortunately, Edward Luce was not put off by this advice. The South Asia bureau chief for the Financial Times from 2001 to 2005, Luce is the author of In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India, a recently published work that is the latest in a line of tomes seeking to explain how the erstwhile land of snake charmers and flying carpets has become the world's newest economic power. It is also, far and away, the best.

Like many foreign observers of India's economic emergence, Luce starts by laying out the basic problem: the "curiously lopsided" way in which India's economy has boomed. Why does a country that is home to advanced high-tech and manufacturing companies still have about 400 million illiterate people and high unemployment? In so many aspects of its economy, Luce notes, "India finds itself higher on the ladder than one would expect it to be," yet "most of its population are still standing at the bottom." Many articles and books on India end here, but Luce explains the reasons for India's interminable paradoxes, arguing they are the logical outcomes of illogical polices.

Since the country's independence in 1947, Luce notes, India's policy planners have invested limited resources both on universities and on primary schools. That's produced a class of English-speaking engineering graduates who can compete with anyone in the world. But the flip side of diverting a big chunk of the education budget to create and run sophisticated universities is that millions of Indians have been left without basic education. Another puzzle is why only 7 million Indians?as opposed to 100 million in China?are employed in the formal manufacturing sector. A major reason is that state laws make it very difficult for factories to lay off workers, Luce explains. As a result, Indian capitalists invest in advanced, efficient manufacturing facilities, which allow them to maximize production while minimizing employment. This is good for profit margins, but not for the millions of desperate job seekers.

Luce is strongest on economics, but he's also a savvy observer of the social and political environments that alternately nurture and throttle India's growth. With equal aplomb, he tackles topics such as the surging political power of India's lower castes, the rise and (apparent) decline of Hindu nationalism and the decline and (apparent) resurgence of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty. Luce also takes a stab at explaining the big regional differences in economic development within India. For example, a senior bureaucrat in the southern state of Tamil Nadu candidly tells Luce that about 30% of public funds meant for promoting literacy, roads and electrification in his state are "diverted"?embezzled by bureaucrats?versus 70% in the north. The result: half of Tamil Nadu now lives in cities, where the standard of living tends to be higher, whereas 90% of the population of the northern Indian state of Bihar still lives in villages. And if you're wondering what life in an Indian village is like, Luce describes it vividly: "The tubercular hacking cough is as common a sound in the north Indian village as the lowing of the cattle or the ringing of the temple bell."

Luce offers some remedies for India's pervasive poverty and uneven development: fix labor laws, improve rural infrastructure and social services, and preserve and strengthen democratic institutions. India also must stop the spread of AIDS, he says, and protect its environment, which is decaying fast as the economy heats up. This is all perfectly sensible, but not all of Luce's arguments are rock solid. For example, he laments the stupidity of labeling all of India's diverse Muslim groups as fundamentalists, yet he brushes off the threat from Islamic fanaticism too casually. Its reach may still be miniscule within India, but it is spreading, and the terrorists who blow up trains in Bombay are at least as great a threat to India's economic future as any that Luce lists. For the most part, though, In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India is an exceptional book, and that's because its author is unusual: he's a foreigner who gets India.

From the Novemeber 27, 2006 issue of TIME Asia

Made Like a Gun (re-post)

The first motorized vehicle that I owned was a brand new, black, 1993, Yamaha RX 100. I can still remember the day. It was September 13, 1993. I was in 12th grade, and like every other guy of that age, in Punjab at that time, had long wished for a motorcycle. No, a scooter wouldn't do ! Before that, I used to ride a BSA Mach 1, a sports bicycle. A few years later, while at medical college, I decided to graduate to a bigger motorcycle, one which I had longed for much more than I had for any other. It was a metallic silver, 1998, Royal Enfield Bullet 500. Though, I don't remember the exact date, I bought that brand new in January 1999.

All the three bikes that I owned, including the BSA Mach 1, had a special place in the existing young, urban, Punjabi culture of their times. Owning each one of these, put one in a different class of pride, prestige and personality. Though, the Mach 1 and RX 100 were popular amongst a particular age group, at a particular time in history, and were limited to the urban population, it is the Royal Enfield Bullet which, for long, has transcended these boundaries.

The first chapter, in the story of the "Bullet", as it is popularly known in India, started in mid 19th century in the tiny village of Hunt End, near the town of Redditch, Worcestershire, England when George Townsend & Co. opened their doors as a firm specializing in sewing needles and machine parts. A few years down the road, during that period of industrialization in Europe, the firm ventured into the trade of pedal-cycles, and was soon manufacturing its own brand. It was in 1893, that their cycles began sporting the name "Enfield", and the trademark "Made Like a Gun". Little would have they realized, that it was the beginning of a legend which would transcend centuries and borders.

The first Enfield motorcycle arrived in India, in 1949, when Madras Motorcycles won an order from the Indian Army for the supply of motorcycles. The motorcycle was the 350cc Bullet, and the beginning of the second chapter in the story. Over the years, several models were introduced, including a Mini Bullet, one which you might have seen in several Hindi films of the 70's and 80's, and the world's first diesel motorcycle to go on production line, the Taurus. However, the design and mechanics of the original Bullet remained pretty much unchanged until the turn of the century. The Bullet 500 that I owned was first introduced in 1993, and went on to become the most desired, a green in the eye.

In context of its role in the culture of Punjab, the Bullet can best be regarded an icon. The "dugg, dugg" of its engine is just as much part of Punjab and the lives of its people as "lassi", "makki di roti","saron da saag", "gidha", and "bhangra". Ever since the urbanisation of Punjab, a "dodhi" or the milk vendor has been integral to the very existence of life in Punjab which had earlier been a predominantly farming state, and 90% of its urban population can trace their backgrounds to some "pind". People might have moved on to live in towns and cities but there is still a vital link that keeps them connected to their roots, and that is the "dodhi", and the unmistakable "dugg dugg" of his Bullet.

Punjabis belong to a strong, robust, machsimo race which is crumbling to the unhealthy eating, working, and living conditions of urbanisation. A Bullet, for these urban Punjabis, is the best reflection of their lost personalities. For some others, it is a stamp of authority. For some, it is sign of being macho amongst peers. For a few others, its a "magic wand" when it comes to winning over girls ! Above all, whatever their respective reasons, every Bullet owner prides in owning a piece of history, and the respect it commands !