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Patrick French, writer and historian. Photo: Outlook India |
India is a vast nation now considered as a military and economic giant of Asia. In past fifteen to twenty years Indian growth story has changed the complete geopolitics of the region and how the rest of the world looks at this nation. Just recently until 1980s the country which was known as the country of snake charmers today the same country is ruling the software and service sector of the world with its mouse charmers “highly qualified engineers” making undisputed fast delivery services to the end users in US, Canada, Britain and other European countries.
India’s growth story is different than many others, India is largely diverse. Hundreds of languages and thousands of dialects, ethnic differences and variety in religions and food. Large number of riches, larger number of poors, and a big size of middle class population, India has somewhat managed to keep them all together in the growing path. Having so many people below poverty line and literacy rate 74.04%, if India can be one of the fastest growing country in the world, then what will happen if India improves its above statistics. All these gives us great lessons which the world must learn from India and implement.
This article is based on the views and the research done by award winning writer and historian Patrick French whose video is embedded in the end of the article for your reference. These are the lessons which he believes Britain should take from the good or bad conditions in India. Please note that any reference to any particular community, religion or caste is only for the purpose of example.
The growth story of India in the world outside India has become so popular that everyone in Europe and the US is attracted to India. However, on reaching India the first impression which it gives cannot support the argument that India is third largest economy by GDP (PPP). Unplanned infrastructure, damaged and dirty roads, shortage of basic amenities like water and electricity in some of the major cities gives a negative impression.
Indeed growing with the pace of 7% to 9% has changed a lot in the country which has generated world class economic regions like in Bangalore and NCR (National Capital Region), etc. Somewhere in the growing process nearly one third of the India’s poor population has been left behind who are still struggling to find their ways to eat two times a day. If India is able to check that in coming days, it can make progress smoother and faster.
Lesson 1: Idea of Managing and Dealing with Diversity
India is a country of Indians, but it is better to say that India is a multi culture, multi ethnic, multi lingual and multi religious society. People are ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse and still living in harmony since independence for past more than six decades. There have been severe conflicts around the world on ethnic and religious issues, and India too had to struggle when it was partitioned in the name of religion that resulted into religious violence during mass migration between a secular India and Islamic Pakistan. Once the formation of a secular India happened, the nation continued getting stronger.
Today religious practices and festivals are celebrated in India that encourages collective security and peace within communities. It is common to see Muslims and Hindus decorating and lighting their homes on Christmas, people of all religions celebrating Christmas in their office or in shopping malls. Similarly it is common to see people of other religion celebrating and enjoying playing Holi and Diwali which are fun filled Hindu festival of colours and light respectively. Celebrating Eid is a friendly gesture and wishing their Muslim brothers with a hug and then having delicious sweet at their homes made with vermicellis and milk is a wonderful feeling.
You are not only exposed to various cultures and customs but another interesting thing in India is that religious holiday of any religion is a public holiday and hence you get more holidays in a year to get a day off from work.
In the 21st century when people are leaving their religious and ethnic differences to grow together, there are instances where ethnic or religious hatred are creating problems resulting into wars, whether it is Israel or Palestine or Tamilians and Sri Lanka or North and South Sudan. The world must take this lesson from India for their benefit.
Lesson 2: Flexibility
Flexibility can be in anything, flexibility can be in time, in religion, in politics, or in society. Those who have done business in India or who have to deal with Indians always complain about time that Indians fail to be on time. Those who schedule meeting with Indians often experience delays. When most of the world has defined time limits and schedules and strictly bind to it. Indian believes in infinity, In the broader perspective, Indians will finish their work on time, but in narrow perspective how do they do it, what timings they follow, leave it on them. Importance of time and self discipline is taught in many religious teaching. The idea of flexibility comes very much from the religion that most of the Indian follows, which doesn’t prohibit you from alcohol or non vegetarian food, and leaves decision making ability and philosophy on you encouraging you to feel the god within yourself.
The concept of flexibility also comes from the centre. In the true sense, democracy is in India that involves nineteen to twenty two political parties based on different ideologies forming one central government in alliance in Delhi. It requires you to be very flexible in thoughts as you need to make and run a government that is formed of various ideologies. There has been times in India when communists and capitalists co-existed in the central government of India.
Dalit comunity of India, which is one of the backward community came up with an idea of learning and teaching English among themselves to improve the employment conditions in the community. For this they invented a new god, English goddess, showing the flexibility in the religion. They made temples around and encouraged dalit children to come and learn English that would give a better image and job for their community.
Lesson 3: Learning and Education
Indians have extra ordinary devotion to education and academic attainment. It is in their culture to compete not only with their batchmates in the school but also with their neighbours and also with their siblings and cousins. Often students in 10th and 12th grade prepare themselves to break the records set by their seniors or cousins may be 10 years back, it doesn’t matter. The seeds of competition are sowed in much early age of a student by the parents and other relatives in the society.
India is also one of the largest producer of first class internationally accepted degree holders like doctors, engineers, MBAs and lawyers. India is one of the largest producers of high quality resources that drive companies and economy around the world.
Again this dedication towards education has a religious impact. The idea of learning is considered as a social duty and service to the goddess “Vidya mata” or Goddess Saraswati.
Still there is a big population in India who are not even literate. India’s literacy rate in recent years has climbed to 70+ mark. If India’s education system can pump hundreds of thousands of engineers, doctors, lawyers and business administrators during current conditions, its result will be enormous if India can also give attention to the other half of its population who have not been much blessed with primary education.
Lesson 4: Environment
This is an important lesson to be learnt so that the rest of the world do not end up like how Indian natural resources and environment has ended up in pollution due to extremely fast growth. Those who travel to India are shocked by the level of public mess, garbage dumped along the roads and in the drainage, polluted rivers and deforestation in central India and Himalayas for farming or mining etc, although efforts of reforestation have also started on a big pace. Still in many Indian cities even if you are sitting indoors you might feel eyes burning due to pollution. Some cities like Delhi have made enormous progress in reducing air pollution by introducing Natural Gas for vehicles, cooking, and heating purposes. The city where just 10 years back eyes used to burn, today you can breathe freely.
Flora and fauna holds a great impact on Indian society. For thousands of years Indians have been worshipping trees and animals as they believe in collective society where not only humans, but trees and animals also have an important place. Often in the morning and evening women can be seen tying a kind of thread on the branches of peepal tree which sets up a kind of relationship with the trees who are the pillar of the life on earth. With high demand and improper infrastructure, forests are being destroyed for illegal construction and mining, a large number of endangered animals like leopard and tigers continue to be killed by the poachers increasing the risk of their extinction.
In a moment against deforestation in north India, famous as chipko movement, local people would hug a tree if the authority or industrialists would come to cut down the trees forcing them to stop. Indians also celebrate vanmahotsav festival where before the raining season everyone plants a sapling of plant. However, the popularity of such festival has gone down in recent years which needs a promotional campaign.
Lesson 5: Idea of Contradiction
When you will reach India, you will immediately notice two Indias moving forward side by side. One is a third largest economy by GDP (PPP), a military and space power, another is an India of poor and illiterate people, who do not get to have food even two times a day. There are nearly 300 million poor people in India and on the other hand some of the most richest people are from India. Presently the richest person in Britain is of Indian origin, Lakshmi Mittal.
India has a dynamic middle class, but a static rural culture, which has been somewhat ignored in the recent years, a large part of Indian agriculture is still based on the monsoon rains which highly impacts the outcome of the crops every year resulting into unreliability of Indian farm output due to high fluctuation in the rains.
India gave attention to some of the great sectors right after the independence but failed to give the required amount of attention to some of the basic sectors. For example, primary education was not made priority in the 50s and 60s, but India came up with the world class institutions like IIT almost during the same period. India’s advancement in the space can be seen from late 60s. India started importing early computers from IBM and Soviet Union. After the technology embargo on India as a result of nuclear testing, India was forced to develop and design indigenous supercomputer and supercomputing technologies. In 1990, a prototype was developed and was showcased at the 1990 Zurich Supercomputering Show. It surpassed most of the other systems participating, placing India second only after the US.
India, one of the richest country few century ago had to start again from the scratch when most of the western world was already in their later stage of development. With large number of resources, large population, rich history and cultural heritage, when the country is moving again with the fast pace, it gives us many lessons. Some lessons which should not be repeated and to be aware of, and some lessons which should be implemented. India gives many such lessons and is a model for other developing nations in Asia, Africa, East and Central Europe.