Fifty-five years after Jawaharlal Nehru's Tryst with Destiny speech welcoming free India, is there much to crow about? The answer, despite the pessimists, is a resounding Yes, there is. And we have to be proud of India's achievements. There is nothing much to be pleased about population growth which was about 350 million around 1947 and is now over a billion. But life expectancy was around 29 years at the time of independence but is now closer to 65.
In the 1950s we were not growing enough food to feed 400 million people and were looking desperately for aid, especially from the United States. Presently we are a good surplus state and can export wheat. The Green Revolution did wonders but hardly anyone thinks of it. Just about a decade ago we are desperately in need of foreign exchange and and had to mortgage our gold reserves.
Today our reserves are close to $ 60 billion and rising. For years India's rate of growth was less than 3 per cent and some of our own intellectuals were describing it derisively as the Hindu Rate of Growth. India today has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $ 2,375 billion and is considered the fourth largest economy in the world.
The GDP of all the SAARC member states amounts together to about a fourth of India's. The biggest tribute came from the staid 'Economist' (June 29) which said that the average GDP growth rate of 5.4 per cent over the past five years, has been "among the world's fastest". And consider what Jairam Ramesh, an economist in his own right has been saying. Writing in a national paper, Ramesh noted that despite all that has been said about India's many troubles, the rupee has not collapsed, there has been no capital flight, stock markets have not plunged, credit ratings have not deteriorated and there has been no repeat of the 1990-1991 financial crisis. On the contrary, even as The Economist conceded, last year saw a record inflow of foreign direct investment. The fourth quarter of 2001 saw GDP grow by a scorching 6.4 per cent and even if, because of late monsoon rains, there may be a sharp fall in food production, there is no need to worry since we have a whopping 50 million plus stock of foodgrains.
In any event, unlike in previous drought years, the economy is now in such solid shape that the government does not have to panic over deficit rainfall. It is likely, of course, that rural incomes will fall, but the national economy is, unlike in the fifties, today dominated by services which account for nearly 50 per cent of the GDP. And services, like IT, Banking and Finance, media and entertainment and a host of others, continue to grow at a breathtaking pace, despite the global slowdown.
The Infotec Sector, in fact, is showing decided signs of a revival. The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has predicted a 22 per cent growth in IT service exports this year and a 65 year cent growth in the IT-enabled services sector.
The best tribute to Indian software was recently paid by Thomas L. Friedman, writing in The New York Times. He wrote: "Thanks to the Internet and satellites, India has been able to connect its millions of educated, English-speaking, low-wage, tech-savvy young people to the world's largest corporations. They live in India, but they design and run the software and systems that now support the world's biggest companies, earning India an unprecedented $ 60 billion in foreign reserves - which doubled in just three years. But this has made the world more dependent on India and India on the world than ever before. If you lose your luggage on British Airways, the technies who track it down are in India. If your Dell Computer has a problem, the techniewho walks you through it is in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley. Ernst & Young may be doing your company's tax returns here in India with Indian accountants. Indian software giants like Wipro, Infosys and MindTree now manage back-room operations - accounting, inventory management, billing, payrolls for global firms like Nortel Networks, Reebok, Sony, American Express, HSBC and GE Capital. GE's highest research centre outside the US is in Banglaore, with 1,700 Indian engineers and scientists. The brain chip for every Nokia cellphone is designed in Bangalore..."
What bigger tribute to Indian science and scientists can one get? India's professional standing army of 1.1 million is the second largest in the world after China's - and it is completely apolitical. India is on the top of the world in missilery and nuclear development.
Our Indian Institutes of Managements (IIMs) are some of the best in the world. IIM, Ahmedabad is the toughest Management School in the world to get into, ahead even of Harvard Business School, Colombia University, Spain's Instituto de Empressa and France's Insead.
It may sound un-related, but the dabbawalas in Bombay deliver nearly 1.5 lakh lunch boxes (dabbas) to Mumbai's citizens and it is said that their Efficiency Rating is 99.999999 or one error in six million transactions as rated by the American Business Weekly, Forbes Global. And think of this: The Rural Water Supply Programme in India has used more than 30 lakh Mark II pumps made in India and presently exported to Africa and Latin America. There are over 30,000 Indian doctors in the United States - indeed Indian doctors practically run the American medical field!
In the realm of milk production India has the world's largest milk production at over 78 million tonnes a year ensuring the livelihood of almost 11 million farmers in 96,000 village level societies across the country. Nowhere in the world has there been a man of the calibre of V. Kurien. These things would have been considered impossible in 1947 when India, burdened with an enormous inferiority complex, looked to the West for everything, whether in science, technology or engineering. Does anyone truly realise that Indian railways are about the biggest is the world? They run over one lakh (1,00,000) kms. and are serviced by 7,000 stations and over 11,000 freight and passenger trains a day carrying over a million passengers every 24 hours?
Then again, India with its 13 million bicycle production a year is second only to China. And to think that around 1947 India had to import bicycles and, for that matter, even safety pins? Sure, in cities the roads are dirty; everywhere one sees discarded plastic bags strewn at road corners.
But, according to one estimate India recycles 60 per cent of its plastic waste. The figure for Japan is 12 per cent; for China, 10.
According to India Today the Indian postal system is the largest in the world and works with fabulous efficiency, despite the multiplicity of languages and low literacy. Mail your letter addressed to someone in a Himachal Pradesh village at the street corner letter box in Mumbai but be assured that the letter would be unerringly delivered to the right address in a week's time. Who says Indians are inefficient? In 1947 India was known abroad for its poverty, snake charmers, fakirs lying on beds of iron nails, cows wandering in city streets etc. etc. India was considered an exotic land and nothing more. There were hardly any Indians living in the United States or, for that matter, in the United Kingdom, Canada or Australia. Today Indians constitute the highest income ethnic group in the United States. Indian businessmen are noted for their acumen, especially in the software field. Indian Americans constitute almost a third of the NASA workforce. Indian teachers are valued in American universities, colleges and schools. Indian doctors have established a veritable name for themselves. And it is difficult to believe that a 29-year old Indian has been appointed Assistant Secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services. Only two years ago he had been appointed President of the University of Louisiana System, one of the largest public university systems in the United States with nearly 100,000 students and a $ 450 million annual budget. His name is Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal and he is now the highest ranking Indian American in a federal government post. At the age of 26 he was Executive Director of a bi-partisan presidential commission charged with reforming Medicare, America's largest insurance system for nearly 40 million people. India has come a long way since 1947 though it may be argued that it still has a long way to go in practically all fields of endeavour right in India itself. Millions still live below the poverty line, literacy is still low by western standards, hundreds of villages hardly have any drinking water and health care is less than minimum. But that should not detract us from the successes which are stupendous.
There is hardly anything that India cannot indigenously build. Ships planes, cars, vehicles of all kinds and now missiles are all built in India with Indian labour and expertise.
A younger generation will take all these for granted but it is only an older generation that has seen India cower under western dominance that can appreciate the great changes that have come over Indian society.
On the strength of what India has
achieved in the last half a century one can confidentially assert that
within the next quarter century India will be a force to reckon with and
will be counted among the first three or four most powerful nations in
the world. That is not only a dream and a hope but something that will
be seen as a reality. Then indeed can any Indian say with truth and pride:
'Mera Bharat mahan'.