India, China: ancient civilisations, different paths

I have new article in SO website by Centre for Civil Society.

My article on India- China's ancient civilisational roots and their social, economic and political paths looks what many commentators especially the strategic geo economic commentators tend to ignore the historical past, they go upto 1962 or the times of Nehru or Patel letters!

"If anything, India could do well to learn from Deng himself: “… political independence and economic independence are inseparable. Without political independence, it is impossible to achieve economic independence; without economic independence, a country’s independence is incomplete and insecure.” With such leaders at the helm, little wonder that China has reached the stage it has."

Interesting Read

The following are some interesting reading, i happen to read and ponder!

1. China’s opacity contributed to spiralling corona infections and deaths. Its geopolitical effects will be long lasting
2. UN, WTO and now WHO: Ailing acronyms all
3. Was Islamic Conquest of India Easy for Muslim Invaders
4. The saga of lockdown: India has shown extraordinary solidarity, forbearance and leadership skills
5. A perception battle too is going on

Read, well

Whether you like it or not, I strongly believe that one has to read between the lines to do things different in musings of once own. I simply follow as a matter of fact that unless you have something different to say or argue its better to keep mum and watch what's going around you. There are very good articles in today's newspaper/blogs etc. Here are some list:

Access to loos: Amartya Sen’s views fail the smell test

Let’s Shake Up the Social Sciences

Narendra Modi may end up making the Congress scion look less ineffective

Can China change course?

Barking up the wrong tree

The untold farm rebound story

"I said I too loved Hindi, which is my mother tongue, but that did not mean I should behave like a fool."

Trade, Naoroji and Poodbill

"...free trade areas should all be seen as building blocks of a liberal international order that could include and embrace China. China would obviously then have a right to shape that order, alongside Western powers, but its participation would also eventually help to move China domestically towards more openness, pluralism and rule of law, as desired by a growing number of its own people." More here.

"Naoroji, five-thousand miles away in London, only learned of his son’s death through a series of telegrams dispatched from Mandvi and Bombay. One can imagine the sense of shock, loneliness, and utter helplessness he felt after receiving these brief messages, knowing full well how impossible it was to avail of family support and solace in this time of grief. A telegram reading ‘console Dad’ provided the only fragile link with family members back home in Bombay." More here.

Illusion that was called pBill. "Putting aside for a moment the wide-ranging fiscal implications of the Bill, which are clearly negative, it needs to be evaluated under many non-financial criteria. There is a clear distinction between having needs and being needy. It is nobody’s case that the needy should not be protected. But is it fair to artificially pander to well above the majority of the population?"

Aspirations of emerging giants

That is the title of my latest column in the Pragati magazine out today. The special thing about the article are the below paras:

• The difference in fundamental comparisons between India and China are best encapsulated in the prophetic words of Wuttke, who said “Chinese educate for practical life, the Indians for the ideal; those for earth, these for heaven; those educate their sons for entering the world, these for going out of it; those educate for citizenship, these for priesthood; those for industrial activity, these for knowledge; those teach their sons the laws of the state, these teach them the essence of the Godhead; those lead their sons into the world, these lead them out of the world into themselves; those teach their children to earn and enjoy, these to beg and to renunciate.” Whether one agrees or not, it is difficult to better these words, which capture the difference between India and China in its ethos and antiquity. The economic, social and political developments in these two countries have to be seen through the words of Wuttke.
• On the similarities between the two nations, Chie Nakane, a Japanese anthropologist wrote in 1998 that “…their respective great civilizations were formed along the two great rivers: the Indus and Ganges in India, the Huang-he and the Yangtze River in China, all of which originated in the Tibetan Plateau. The modern capitals of both countries, Delhi and Beijing, are situated in the north. In the south-east are situated two large cities, Calcutta and Shanghai, each at the mouth of the great rivers of the Ganges and Yangtze, backed by the fertile and productive areas of Bengal and Jiangsu. Both cities received the first impact from the West, its citizens were earliest exposed to Western culture and the two cities become the centres of modern rich cultures. Similarly, the southern regions of both countries have a high population density: Tamil Nadu and Kerala in India, and Kwangtung and Fukien in China. Further, both countries possess rich granary regions in the inland area of the Punjab and Sichwan. It is interesting that the names of these two regions connote rivers- the Five revers and Four rivers. Both societies possess a certain similarity, being composed of wheat-producing areas in the north and wet paddy cultivation in the south…”

Some links

Interesting readings:

How far ahead of India is China?

Why Chinese capital outflows need to be watched in India

What I Learned From Reading Every Last Word of India Today

"Here is a moment for considerable serious reinventing of capitalism"

Stunning self-correction

Sentence to ponder over (Fixerpreneurship by Shekhar Gupta):

• If you draw a simple chart of the large companies that have lost the most value on the stock markets over the past three years, you’d notice that almost all of these were doing business on the same cusp of politics, finance and natural resources. To that extent, you have to admit that the market has been the first to sense the rot and has applied a stunning self-correction, severely punishing those responsible for it. Many of those who called themselves masters of the universe until just the other day, flaunting Bentleys, private jets, yachts, Swiss chalets and more, are now hiding from their bankers and shareholders and blaming the “system”. Obviously, there can be no sympathy for them or for their bankers. The small shareholder is always the victim of hype. So the markets, at least, have responded to this multi-layered crisis of governance.

Prof Ajay has very interesting post here discussing about the Indian capitalism and its wings of fire.

Sadanand Dhume point out that unlike India "Japan, South Korea and Singapore didn't start seriously expanding their social welfare programs before they were well into middle-income status—at which point growth had begun addressing the major woes."

New from the Takshashila

1. September Issue of Pragati "Gandhi won't Return" (pdf)
2. Demystifying India-China Trade Possibilities Should India sign a free-trade agreement with China? by V Anantha Nageswaran & Ritwick Ghosh, Policy Brief September 2011 (PDF)

Unleash it further India’s economic reforms

Paul Johnson has great article wherein he says:

• India. Having clung to democratic institutions and the rule of law, India offers a better role model, albeit a corrupt and confusing one. After gaining independence in 1947, India also missed an entire generation of growth. Gandhi and his followers wanted a primitive handcraft society. Nehru and his family dynasty practiced a form of socialism invented by Harold Laski at the London School of Economics in the dismal 1930s. Not until these twin formulae for perpetual poverty were shaken off during the last quarter of the 20th century did India begin to unleash its people's natural energies and thrive accordingly. Since then much has been achieved.

How free are you in this age of corrupt kingdom of media in India?

Prof.Sen says: 

• Not only is access to the Internet and world opinion uncensored and unrestricted in India, a multitude of media present widely different points of view, often very critical of the government in office. India has a larger circulation of newspapers each day than any other country in the world. And the newspapers reflect contrasting political perspectives. Economic growth has helped—and this has certainly been a substantial gain—to expand the availability of radios and televisions across the country, including in rural areas, which very often are shared among many users. There are at least 360 independent television stations (and many are being established right now, judging from the licenses already issued) and their broadcasts reflect a remarkable variety of points of view. More than two hundred of these TV stations concentrate substantially or mainly on news, many of them around the clock. There is a sharp contrast here with the monolithic system of newscasting permitted by the state in China, with little variation of political perspectives on different channels. 

See Prof Ajay Shah post! here.

Chinese Democracy

Nitin Pai has a nice piece in today’s BS exploring the possibility of China becoming a democracy, but it seems to be unlikely to change its attitude towards India even it become. Remember that in this blog I have posted in this January what Prof Kishore Mahbubani said in his address in New Delhi that Chinese Government is studying the democratic models around the world.

He writes: 

• It is harder for democracies to doggedly pursue the quest for power. As we know too well, there is often a disconnect between what is popular and what is necessary. Democracies are left with the complex, time-consuming task of reconciling this difference, often at the cost of losing opportunities to maximise national power. Authoritarian states, on the other hand, are less inhibited.

Who catches mice in the gym-Chinese or Indian?

The young libertarian Abheek writes:

"I joined a swanky gym and shelled out the extra dough for a personal trainer. Though my trainer is, yes, ethnic Chinese, I'm using the term "Chinese trainers" loosely. I know other trainers who qualify too. Whoever they are, these trainers have certain traits. For instance, they won't allow you to:

• Arrive late for a training session;

• Miss, postpone or reschedule a training session;

• Take a break during the session;

• Complain about not getting a break during the session.

What Chinese trainers understand is that no exercise is fun until you're strong. And to get strong you have to lift a lot of weights over and over again. We unfit, lazy sloths never want to lift weights on our own, but once we get the trainer's praise and see some results, our self esteem rises."

Societies: Open vs closed

On Saturday I attended the Distinguished Gust Lecture delivered by Professor Kishore Mahbubani. The topic was “Will China and India grow together or grow apart?"

No doubt, the lecture was good one. Because it was amazing in two ways: it was simple words but quite meaningful at large and it was also clear in layman language. Among other things which had discussed, one very interesting thing (at least to me) was he said China is sending different teams to study the functions of democracy in different parts of the world. This is something new to me and I wonder what would be the china’s take on Indian democracy?

I was lucky to get a copy of his 2008 book The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. It is very interesting particularly the first chapter. Read the book reviewed by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray.

But two things remains unquestioned, no matter minor or major that may be.

Mr.Kishore writes in his book and also he has written elsewhere that:

• Indian political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta once compared India and China by saying,  “India is an open society  with a closed mind; China is a closed society  with an open mind.”

But I read and heard several times the same words as below:

According to Brahma Chellaney:

• Henry Kissinger once said China is a closed society with an open mind, while India is an open society with a closed mind…

The other question which I consider was not at all touched during the lecture was the planning process adopted in china vis-à-vis in India especially during the process of economic reforms in these countries. Because what makes different to masses is the more realistic and decentralized planning process rather than other way around.

Glimpse of reading

National Skill Development Corporation's CEO says “.....vouchers for trainees may become the big government innovation of this decade.”

The chairman of Teamlease Services Mr.Manish Sabharwal says “Unfortunately, 2010 saw the activation of the poisonous Right to Education Act that will lower school capacity, increase corruption, raise costs, lower competition and increase confusion. It represents a license raj of the 1980s, while education needs a deregulation of the 1991 kind. A bad school is better than no school. The most expensive school is no school. The good is not the enemy of great. An education and training system that does not produce employable children amplifies to low productivity informal employment because it produces low productivity people.”

Bihar Chief Minister Mr.Nitish Kumar says “I believe that direct cash transfers are the way forward. Give money to the people and give them the choice to buy what they want from the market…. My policy will be to provide mostly cash transfers in state schemes in the future as well.”

Mr.Soli J. Sorabjee writes Chinese sex education: The Chinese have hit upon an innovative way of sex education which allows boys and girls to peep into each other’s bathroom in order to understand gender roles and observe what behavioural differences there are between the two sexes. According to Zhang Meimei, a sex education expert, the bathroom of the opposite sex can be a mysterious place. “I have known a lot of third and fourth grade boys who would sneak into the lady’s room just to see what it is like. Therefore, visiting the bathroom can be a good technique in teaching gender codes to students.” One wonders what is the take of our dynamic Education Minister Kapil Sibal on the Chinese method.

Prof Mehta writes “R-squared variances will replace the close reading of the Mahabharata and Montaigne as the only way to understand human psychology and it is not clear this will be for the better. The kids will be smarter, but perhaps none the wiser.”

Mr.Subroto Bagchi writes “What are the chances that you are an 11-year-old reading this article right now? I would give it one in a billion. And if you are not an 11-year-old, you would not know what it would mean to be 20 in, 2020. As you try and decipher the many strands of thought I have presented in this article, the 11-year-old is stalking the enemy on his device. What he is using will vary from a Nokia cellphone to the X-Box,

Top Noam Chomsky Lies

The Top 200 Chomsky Lies Compiled by Paul Bogdanor

From Prof.Jagdish Bhagwati Blog!!

Yes, he now blogs @ The American Interest

First, while authoritarianism can accelerate reforms, it can also be a serious handicap. Years ago, when both Mao and Zhou Enlai were alive, Padma Desai, the Columbia University expert on Russia, was asked about China’s future growth prospects. She answered: it depends on whether Mao dies first or Zhao dies first – her point being that in a top-heavy system, growth paths can become unpredictable, and thus subject to volatility.

From his post on India or China?

India’s open political system and closed economic system

Indian democracy’s weakness is that it hasn’t been effective in enforcing accountability from the state. A once-in-five-years election, he says, for example, is too blunt an instrument to enforce accountability in the delivery of public services. How exactly the political economies of the two states evolve is as likely to determine the future of India and China as are their respective integrations with the global economy.

The economics of plenty

Rajiv Shastri writes:

• Or we can discard these policies and adopt the “economics of plenty”. This would position us as a nation of 1.2 billion consumers, not 1.2 billion hungry mouths and necessitate a strong currency which increases our purchasing power. Yes, it would increase our current account deficit but, coupled with the right policies, increase demand for the rupee as an asset in itself.
• In our current policy framework, India competes in other markets for a share of their business against players who have set the rules. True progress will lie in changing the rules, in becoming the market others want to compete for. In an environment where major markets are shrinking, or growing at a snail’s pace, India’s emergence as a market will be welcomed by the world. In changing its policies to favour domestic consumption over exports, India will have to change the way it thinks. And the first change will need to be our currency policy.
• India’s future lies in this choice. India will grow regardless, probably faster than most countries in the world. But, in the former we will need other markets to grant us our progress. In the latter, we will drive it ourselves.

Don't Ignore India

Marc Fabe on India

Some warbite at Chindia dynasty

Prem Shankar Jha writes in Tehelka:

• “In the Chinese worldview there is only one viable concept of the State – unitary, culturally homogeneous and necessarily authoritarian. Far from being a hangover from Maoist communism, the roots of this worldview go back two thousand years to the doctrines of Confucius and his disciples, as fused into a philosophy of state-society relations during the Han dynasty 2,000 years ago. It is now hardwired into Chinese thought. Communism only created a different set of sacred texts for the new mandarins to master, a new jargon to interact with the people. That is why its collapse in Europe found no echo in China. After crushing Tiananmen, all that Deng Xiaoping had to do was banish the imported texts and restore a modernised version of the originals.”

The present controversy raised from the translated article published on “China Should Break Up The Indian Union'”

Also read "Not Lost In Translation" by B.Raman