Faced with the venality, greed, small mindedness of Indian politics should drive India watchers to despair. The saving grace is the ordinary citizen’s robust scepticism which prevents asinine pontifications – save from a lunatic fringe – on the country’s ‘exceptionalism,’ of a city standing on a hill, as a light unto the nations. That, mercifully, appears to be the copyright of American politicians and their mainstream media, driven by the stubborn delusion that their country is adored rather than abhorred, detested and despised for its persistent crimes against humanity across continents.
While the political end of India’s kaleidoscope makes discouraging viewing, there are images of hope, encouragement and dare, one say, even of inspiration. A tour d’horizon of the country reveals statistical truths of states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka who have, or are, approaching the GDPs of mid-sized countries. The Maharashtra economy – India’s largest – has exceeded $400 billion. With the other above mentioned states in the $200 billion bracket. Kerala, with near 100 per cent literacy and advanced healthcare is an exemplar of welfare development including better gender equality than its peers. Agriculture is approaching new levels, thanks to technological inputs in seeds and expanding irrigation systems.
Substantial poverty reduction in the eastern states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh – once derided as India’s ‘bimaru’ [sick] states are now making economic progress on a variety of fronts. The hill state of Himachal Pradesh is India’s fruit orchard; dairy products, thanks to the milk revolution has made India the world’s largest milk producer, have exploded across urban and rural domestic markets, their once scarcity a receding public memory.
‘$100 billion achieved,$1 trillion next,’? was a question posed by a business columnist in the wake of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) breaching the $100 billion market cap barrier – the first Indian company to do so. He then quoted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remark of a year ago, that India’s winning formula into the future would be ‘IT + IT + IT which put into common speech reads, ‘Information technology, Indian talent = India tomorrow.’
What made the TCS achievement phenomenal was the company’s listing a mere 14 years ago. This success was rooted in the power of compounding which becomes reality over a sustained period. On a macro level, India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) demonstrates a good pace of growth going forward; add to this the country’s current GDP of $ 2.5 trillion and the crystal ball will reveal a potent mix for a compounding effect that could propel the Indian GDP to $5 trillion by 2025 and arguably to $20 trillion by 2040.
Looking across the panoramic sweep, one must marvel at the paradox of a country so lacking in daily discipline carrying out a military air exercise, over a fortnight, of exacting precision and daunting scope involving 3000 aircraft of every type and 10,000 ground staff coordinating every move and tactic spread from the Strait of Hormuz in the west to the Strait of Malacca in the east, the choke point from the South China Sea to the Pacific Ocean.
The Chinese media hitherto more noted for their scorn of things Indian were clearly gob-smacked. One of its organs commented: ‘In terms of scale, magnitude, timeframe, geography and complex activation of every component of the IAF’s fighting machine, ‘
“Gagan Shakti 2018” is a monumental one where the entire range IAF’s assets including light, medium, heavy variants of various aircraft are being used.’ Retired Indian Air Vice-Marshal Kapil Kak noted: ‘It is clearly the simulation of a swift, intense, short two-front conflict.
From this forbidding scene to one more agreeable: Australian, English, New Zealand and South African commentators at the Indian Premier League were awed by the wealth of young Indian cricketing talent on view: Prithvi Shaw and Subnam Gill as teenagers played with staggering maturity and skill beyond their tender years, performing superbly on an international stage before vast crowds. Time was when India ranked with the sport’s no-hopers.
The cricket revolution is integral to India’s social transformation, bridging the urban-rural divide.
Key FDI applications cleared in 40 days
Ease of doing business in India has improved considerably over several years and elicited praise from the World Bank. Maximum Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) applications in critical sectors like telecoms and defence receive security clearances from India’s Home Ministry within 40 days, down from the nine months it took earlier. These investments originated from China, the UK, US and Mauritius.
According to the Ministry, some 5,000 applications had been cleared in the past four years. The operational policy is determined by 15 parameters which require approval from security agencies. Once these are obtained, Home Ministry passage is accomplished in around 4 to 6 weeks. In 2015, 1,201 proposals were passed, in 2016, rose to 1,263, in 2017, it was 1071, with another 543 proposals passed by the automatic route through revised policy guidelines. In addition to the countries mentioned above as sources of investment, Germany, Italy, Israel, Netherlands and Switzerland have now been added to the list.
UK ambivalence on Commonwealth
The brouhaha over the Commonwealth during its recent summit in London and the ground realities Britain’s bespeak ambivalence towards the institution. With looming Brexit, there was much talk from Whitehall of increased bilateral trade and investment between Britain and the 53-nation Commonwealth, with India the most populous market and the fastest-growing economy among large countries playing a key role going forward. That said, the implications of this envisaged closer relationship requires unfettered movement of capital and less obstructive movement of labour. There is something odd in welcoming, say, Indian investment in the UK and frowning upon the presence of skilled Indian labour, such as software engineers, in the country.
A rigid immigration regime is an impediment to the development and success of British business, as the Confederation of British Industry and other UK trade bodies have repeatedly made clear. Their voices have been robustly dittoed by the by the Confederation of Indian Industry to little effect, it would appear.
Immigration is the elephant in the room. Immigrants from the Caribbean were welcomed after the war to help run transport services at a time of acute labour shortage; the Caribbean experience was complemented by immigration from the Asian subcontinent. The services of these Asian newcomers were sought in both transport and health sectors.
The once young men and women who came from the Caribbean on board the ocean liner ‘Windrush’ appear to have outstayed their welcome in their old age on account of their papers gone astray. Diane Abbot, the Labour Party spokesperson on Home Affairs during a debate in Parliament highlighted the scandal of Britain’s ‘hostile’ immigration regime on Britons of Commonwealth origin that refuses to die down. This is the issue that has resonated across the Commonwealth…There is a whole series of Commonwealth migrants ,who, unless the Home Secretary does what it takes, will suffer the same humiliation that the “Windrush” generation did.’
Much of the plight of the Britons of Commonwealth descent has been caused by the loss of documents by the British government, yet many men and women are being penalized for not having the correct documents – a truly Kafkaesque situation from which there is apparently no refuge. Some of these people have been unable to work, others have been denied healthcare under NHS rules, still others are unable to return to Britain.
According to the Oxford Migration Observatory, an estimated 57,000 UK nationals arrived in Britain before 1971, including 13,000 from India. Many have documentation to prove their status and thus have no problems with the authorities. The new Home Secretary Sajid Javid has pledged to introduce a raft of measures for greater transparency in the review process, which is welcome, but the hostile immigration environment meanwhile has sown avoidable discord and mistrust across the board.
Diane Abbot again: ‘The problem with the hostile environment is that it has swept up perfectly legal British citizens. Its treatment of the “Windrush” generation is not an aberration.’ The debate comes amid more and more disturbing revelations about the great and good. In a recent article in the London-based Evening Standard, the former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne [in the David Cameron government] tells of then Home Secretary Theresa May’s decision personally to veto calls for the relaxation of visa regulations to let in doctors needed by the National Health Service. The immigration debate is destined to run.
