business journalists on india-china comparison

November 4

A new benchmark in the race between India and China

http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/04/bloomberg/sxmuk.html

If these guys think Manmohan and co are going to improve the business environment, they must be smoking some high-quality stuff. Yeah, especially with the Marxist monkey on their shoulders. I guess all the propaganda about Manmohan being the 'father' of liberalization has made the difference. (Like Nehru is the 'uncle' to all children. In fact he hated children.) And of course there's P Chidambaram who successfully brought down the rate of growth to the Nehruvian Rate of Growth of 3% in his last stint.

I was most entertained to see the following from Chidambaram, though:

UPA finance minister P. Chidambaram allows that Nehruism wrought havoc on India. A report in the Asian Age dated 8th September 2004 (“PC blames Nehru”) appears to suggest the unthinkable, that Nehruvian Stalinism has been an economic crime against humanity: an idea for which I regularly get abused by the Old Left and their running-dogs. Amazing that Chidambaram should say this publicly, considering that he is beholden to the Dynasty for his job.



Anyway Chidambaram pulled no punches, it appears, and I quote:



“Colossal damage was done in these 30 years [the first 30 years post-independence when Nehruvian Stalinism ruled unchallenged – Ed.] as the heavy hand of state intervention destroyed all sense of responsibility and private enterprise, specially among the rural people.”



“The disappearance of individual enterprise resulted in the people losing their sense of responsibility and pride in attending to development work in their villages. They, instead, look for State intervention at all levels, even desilting a village pond. The effect of this attitude of alienation, particularly among the rural people, contributed significantly to Indian poverty as a majority of its billion people lived in villages.”



“We paid a heavy price for this. It will take 200 years to wipe out poverty.”



Amen to that. He was of course referring to the 2-3% growth in GDP, the Nehruvian Rate of Growth. The result? 250 million Indians condemned to remain below the poverty line: this is otherwise known as the Nehruvian Penalty.

Rajeev