Radical fanatic theocratic movements of 17thcentury and their religiosity have no
space in the postmodern developing world. This is same with any religious
groups like Islam, Hinduism and Christianity. Indian nationhood is based on the
diversity in relationship with language, religion, cultural ecosystem etc. Pluralism
is our watch word. If we try to eradicate pluralism, I am sure this will fail. This
is the reason behind an attempt to eradicate ISIS from this planet. This has
more relevance to the fast growing India under the Modi government.
During a training session people asked me, what it will take for India to be like China or US in other
words to become a world’s largest and strongest economy? In the population wise
we are heading forward to be the largest populated country in the world. In
relationship with the strongest working class and youth population we are heading
there. We are also going to have the largest human capital in this coming decade,
but how are we going to make use of our human capital and social capital is the question?
Raising the youths and making our youths with the mind set of terrorist or infiltrated
theocratic is not the solution for our problems. There are many challenges we face to become strongest in the world. The reality is that we don’t have national and international infrastructure and international connections like China or US. We have not reached to a level or influential enough to make our policies that will impact the global economy. Our non-residential or expatriate Indians come mainly from Kerala or few other states where Modi and the new Government has no much interest. Being out side of India for last many years force me to look back to India and see the potentials we have in many areas and the opportunities we are missing. If we want to be the manufacturing hub for the world we should have to develop the infrastructure for example the shipping trade route. The main issue is how we will produce good quality and cheap price consumer goods which is the slogan for the global manufacturing industry.
From China it takes only less than 30 days for a container to reach US whereas it will take more than 45 days or more to reach from India. The connecting shipment now easily takes place from Sri-lanka than Indian shipping routes. The Vizincham International container port has the largest potential than the mire strike by the unions and bad promotion of the employers strike. Every day strike and other political and communal issues have no place in the developing world. Why do we need Sri Lanka to carry 13% India’s import and export containers? No wonder why China developed and control the container port in Colombo. This also means that China and others control our growth potentials in the shipping industry. We have many Asian and other countries which needs "Made in India" products and has a potential to expand immediately. Internationally we have good quality slogan attached to our name but our price is not every attractive like China. We have quality products but we don’t have products that are fancy and attractive like China.
Another example is, Kerala was listed as one of the 10 paradises in the world by National geographic. Instead of becoming a Maoist supporter how many educated youths in Kerala thinks about innovation in the tourism industry. Kerala is an educated community but not very much innovative enough to develop entrepreneurs for our economy. We are only developing consumeristic society and its culture for the benefit of other nations.
Our laid back approach and policies of our politicians are not going to help. Some of us think China is going to have the older population and we are going to have the most working class so the jobs going to come to us. That is not true because we have Indonesia and many other small players even in Asia and in the world which will create a big competition for Indian dream to be a manufacturing hub.
India has more than 50 million small businesses, which are a major source of employment creation. These businesses are particularly important in creating opportunities for the backward and disadvantaged sections of the society. What is “our Indian dream?” An American dream is to have a good job, good education, House, good Cars and a safe retirement. Think how fast we need to go if we want to make the Indian dream for 1.25 billion people. Everything we see around us are built by people not smarter, influential or creative than us. We have hope even though it seems we are holding at the end of hope.
2014 was a year of killing innocent children, persecutions, re-conversion (Garvapasi) tragedies like missing planes, marginalization, exploitation, discriminations, corruption, and many other incurable diseases like Ebola etc. The natural tendency is to desire for the destruction of enemies. So let us take an effort to build our nation in the year 2015. Let this be an year of inclusiveness, an year of forgiveness, reconciliation, innovation and entrepreneurship. I wish you a very blessed and hopeful New Year.
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