Looking Back on India

Calcutta Street Scene

I’ve left India but India hasn’t left me.  I keep thinking about this fantastic, infuriating and opaque country and trying to understand it.  One thing I’m sure of is that despite extremely impressive gains over the last decade it still has a long way to go to achieve first world status.  Yes, it has succeeded in lifting untold millions out of the worst kind of poverty and provided some level of health care, education and nutrition to many.  But there is still grinding poverty of a kind not seen at all in the developed world.  Huge shanty towns of squatters living in the most squalid conditions are prevalent in all the major cities.  I never really understood the line in the prayer books about having concern for those who sleep in the dust.  In India, you see people before your eyes who literally sleep in the dust as well as preforming all other functions of life there.  How these people will be raised to a decent standard of living seems a monumental problem.

Then there is the issue of caste and class.  Despite decades since the elimination of the official caste system all you have to do is look at the vast number of lighter skinned upper and middle class people and the dark skinned lower class to realize how difficult it is for those born to the lower castes to overcome this discrimination.

Then there is the corruption, government corruption, police corruption, crony capitalism where contracts and business are awarded to the same ruling class members who have run things since the time of the British control.  Yes, some outsiders have broken in but it’s still very difficult.  Some like the political gadfly Anna Hazere are trying to end the corruption.  He’s using Ghandi like tactics of hunger strikes and moral stands to try to get the government to pass anti-corruption laws and having some success but only around the margins so far.

The Indian newspapers are full of stories decrying the lack of infrastructure and that is also a real problem.  The roads are terrible, the cities garbage strewn and filthy, there are few sidewalks and only the poor walk anyway.  The transportation system is terrible.   The trains also are mainly for the poor and are slow and break down frequently.  The air transport system as we’ve discussed earlier is falling apart.  The government run Air India hasn’t paid its pilots in months and they are constantly striking. The private airlines started with great fanfare as entrepreneurial ventures are going bust.  Several are in bankruptcy or close to it.

And still I see reporters like Tom Friedman of the New York Times, who was there the same time we were, drinking the Kool Aid of the miracle of Indian progress.  Yes there’s hope for the future but the future looks a long way off to me.