Reflections on India: India is a mess

mar 12th, 2010

the guy is right. 

except in that it has nothing to do with conservatism, all this is the fault of the fraud comrades who call themselves liberals. they have committed a crime against humanity by forcefully preventing 500 million indians from climbing out of poverty. that is of course intentional, because as soon as anybody claws his way out of poverty, he ceases to be seduced by the siren-song of the rogue comrades. 

he's also wrong about kerala. superficially kerala looks less polluted, but a large number of the inhabitants have polluted minds, addled by the comrades and addicted to alcohol and mammon.

update: on second thoughts, this fellow comes off as a superficial kid. i once complained about yanks who transit through bombay airport and have, in the usual american way, suddenly become 'experts' on india. prime examples are the execrable barbara crossette who lived in india for a few years, but whose entire circle of acquaintances consisted of JNU ass-kissers who thought she, as a white woman who hated india, was god's gift to mankind -- the usual syndrome of dogs seeking morsels from the table. another example is stephen cohen. i once humiliated him before the entire panIIT gathering by asking him whether his prescription for 'peas' was india giving kashmir to pakistan. he hemmed and hawed, and it was evident that that was the only answer he had. others include the astonishingly dense james astill of the economist, who blabbered about his love for pakistanis, and in a recent podcast was heard putting words into the mouth of a pakistani colonel, encouraging him to claim indian currency and arms were found with taliban.

god save us from such 'experts'.

yet, the fact of the matter is that india would have done much better had it not been for the nehruvian stalinist dynasty who have ruined the country, much like other two-bit dictators such as marcos of the philippines, kim jong-il of north korea, and the peronists who have run argentina into the ground.

anyway, this sean asked me not to post his entire blog. i'm afraid i have to, because here's a detailed rebuttal of his arguments by an academic. it's at the end of the post. the juxtaposition is important.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: sri 

http://www.seanpaulkelley.com/?p=620

Reflections on India

If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who's being honest with you and wants nothing from you. These criticisms apply to all of India except Kerala and the places I didn't visit, except that I have a feeling it applies to all of India, except as I mentioned before, Kerala. Lastly, before anyone accuses me of Western Cultural Imperialism, let me say this: if this is what India and Indians want, then hey, who am I to tell them differently. Take what you like and leave the rest. In the end it doesn't really matter, as I get the sense that Indians, at least many upper class Indians, don't seem to care and the lower classes just don't know any better, what with Indian culture being so intense and pervasive on the sub-continent. But here goes, nonetheless.
India is a mess. It's that simple, but it's also quite complicated. I'll start with what I think are India's four major problems–the four most preventing India from becoming a developing nation–and then move to some of the ancillary ones.
First, pollution. In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians. I don't know how cultural the filth is, but it's really beyond anything I have ever encountered. At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump. Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all to common experience in India. Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter was common on the streets. In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight. Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality. Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be how dangerous the air is for one's health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads. The only two cities that could be considered sanitary in my journey were Trivandrum–the capital of Kerala–and Calicut. I don't know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India's productivity, if it already hasn't. The pollution will hobble India's growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small 'c' sense.)
The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: roads, rails and ports and the electrical grid. The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India. Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for. With out regular electricity, productivity, again, falls. The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like. Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand, much less Western Europe or America. And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit. There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three. A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old, if not older. Everyone in India, or who travels in India raves about the railway system. Rubbish. It's awful. Now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004 it was decent. But in the last five years the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses. At least fifty million people use the trains a day in India. 50 million people! Not surprising that waitlists of 500 or more people are common now. The rails are affordable and comprehensive but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the overutilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit. Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel and the US I guess.
The last major problem in India is an old problem and can be divided into two parts that've been two sides of the same coin since government was invented: bureaucracy and corruption. It take triplicates to register into a hotel. To get a SIM card for one's phone is like wading into a jungle of red-tape and photocopies one is not likely to emerge from in a good mood, much less satisfied with customer service. Getting train tickets is a terrible ordeal, first you have to find the train number, which takes 30 minutes, then you have to fill in the form, which is far from easy, then you have to wait in line to try and make a reservation, which takes 30 minutes at least and if you made a single mistake on the form back you go to the end of the queue, or what passes for a queue in India. The government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners, too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way shape or form. Take the trash for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don't have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job. Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead.
I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don't think anyone in India really cares. And that, to me, is the biggest problem. India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way. Mumbai, India's financial capital is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam, or Indonesia–and being more polluted than Medan, in Sumatra is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan!
One would expect a certain amount of, yes, I am going to use this word, backwardness, in a country that hasn't produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, imminent economists and entrepreneurs. But India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them? Nothing. The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in stasis. It's a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I'm far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime.
Now, have at it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that. But remember, I've been there. I've done it. And I've seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia, have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does. And the bottom line is, I don't think India really cares. Too complacent and too conservative.

============== rebuttal ==============

Rajeev: While agreeing with your assessment of the "comrades," please read this response to Kelly by an American academic. Ram 

‘Judging India from an American Context’ The day before yesterday I received yet another email about my recent writings on India. Kim, the author, has graciously agreed to let me post the letter in toto. He makes some excellent points about India and my perception of the country, or rather, he points out some of the faults in my perception of the country. Here it is: 

Sadly, embarrassedly true. BUT—and here’s where you are quite myopic—you’re judging India from a narrow American point of view. You equate cleanliness, good infrastructure, lack of bureaucracy, etc, with progressiveness. And, from some perspectives, you may be right. But that’s just material/industrial progressiveness (on the other side of which is a myriad of damaging problems—fractured communities, gaps between haves and have-nots, an exploited environment, etc.). And that’s not the entire story. 

First, it’s not true that Indians don’t care or are complacent, as if that were a cultural genetic problem. The majority of us do care. Hindu philosophy preaches cleanliness next to godliness. The problem is that the task appears too gargantuan to handle in the middle of our attempts to survive. Anyone who has lived in India (as opposed to visiting India) knows that it’s like going to war everyday as we fight our way from dawn to dusk—dealing with traffic, bureaucracy, overcrowded workplaces, poor salaries (so you feel unappreciated), rising prices, etc. It is mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting. This isn’t an excuse. 

It simply means that this is the kind of society most of us were born into—we inherited it. It’s easy to praise the British legacy of railways and bridges and forget that they ignored rural India (which is the largest part of the country). That lack of emphasis created a massive influx into the major cities, thus exacerbating and even causing most of the problems. In the U.S, for example, you could live quite comfortably in a town of 50,000 to 100,000—good universities (therefore decent fine arts performances, global speakers, and other educative programming), car dealerships, malls, Thai restaurants, parks and recreation events, good doctors, hospitals, etc. In India, that’s little better than a village and everyone wants to get the hell out of Dodge and head to Mumbai or any of the other metropoli! In other words, it isn’t easy to find an incentive to clear up the mess, which would take a herculean effort (no exaggeration)! 

BUT—we should make that herculean effort, no question. And the largest impediment to that is the lack of education. For all the Nobel Laureates, scientists, philosophers, etc. that India has produced the sad fact is that millions of Indians are impoverished and uneducated. Here are some depressing statistics from a few years ago: 

 average number of students per teacher: 220 

- people partaking of higher education: 1 person out of every 14,000 

- number of pupils at the City Montessori school in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, 2002: 26,312 pupils (world record) [GBoWR] 

- number of Indians going as students to Britain: 17,000 per year 

- number of Indians going as students to the US: 14,000 per year 

people below poverty line: about 260 million (acc. to AB Vajpayee feb 04) - poor living in India: one quarter of the world’s poor [BBC Aug 04] 

- people living on less than 1 Euro per day (50-55 Rs) 2004: about 30 % of population 

- * number of people in India living on less than 50 pence per day: about 300 million [BBC News Night, Oct 2006] 

- number of people living in slums: 150 million [BBC 15 sep 2004] 

- people in Mumbai living in shanty towns, open spaces, or on pavements: 50% of Mumbai’s population [BBC, Nov 2005] 

- world’s largest slum: located in Mumbai; Dharavi, 432 acres 

- number of inhabited buildings declared as dangerous or dilapidated in Mumbai: 19,000 [BBC; Sep 2005] 

- number of children in India who die before the age of 5: 63 out of 1000 according to UN report [BBC; Sep 2005] 

- children under 3 years of age in Orissa severely malnourished: 21 % (Feb 04, acc to National Family Health Survey); or 3.8 % (acc. to data collected by the state) 

- tribal children below the age of six who have died of malnourishment-related causes in 15 districts of Maharashtra: 9,000 (between Apr 2003 and May 2004) 

- number of street children in Delhi: 150,000 estimate [BBC; Sep 2005] 

 Now, before you think this is an excuse (and before you suggest that these problems were caused by complacency), I’d like to inform you that it isn’t easy to locate the sources responsible for these facts. It is also a fact that India is trying. There have been significant improvements to the numbers of people being offered education opportunities, but it is difficult to overcome centuries of tradition and ignorance. 

We had recycling systems among ALL levels of society (most of them because it was profitable to do so) long before the term became popular. We have three times the number of people in less than a third of the space than in the U.S., but guess which country has caused more harm (BY FAR) to the environment??! So although America’s streets may be cleaner, relatively speaking, its greenhouse gases and carbon footprints have rendered the environment less clean than almost any other country (and this despite the smog of Mumbai and other cities). 

 There are free hospitals and comparatively low healthcare costs in India, which isn’t true in the U.S. And which country has exploited sweatshop opportunities in so-called third world countries (thus adding to the problems—young women and children should be in school, not seduced into low-paying sweatshops just so Americans can wear Nikes)??? You see, there are many ways to define the causes of the so-called “mess.” 

All this isn’t to suggest that the British are solely responsible for the situation, but it does contextualize the problem, whereas your gut-reaction betrays a lack of deeper understanding and sounds like the analysis of a freshman social psychologist! You claim you’ve been there, done it. What—a few weeks or months (whatever) in a subcontinent as vast, complex, and vibrant as India and you feel empowered to make snap judgments?! We who have spent lifetimes in India still don’t understand much of it. 

And, yes, we’re embarrassed by the mess. You would argue that then we should have done something about it. But India is still a young nation, barely 60 years old as an independent republic. It will take time, patience, and education to reverse the situation. And, yes, it will not happen in your lifetime—of that I too am certain. As if that’s some kind of hallowed benchmark—your lifetime!! 

 Why do Americans want everything NOW? And in the drive to acquire it “now,” American societies care little about the long-term effects—witness the economic, cultural, and environmental mess. Everything they do suggests that they think of Time as an opponent to be attacked, diced into slices, and controlled so they can apportion and assign tasks to every minute of the day–the American work ethic, they say. It seems to be different in countries with ancient cultures–they have a more friendly perspective of Time, are more willing to meander along with it. They don’t see it in terms of hours and minutes or even days; after billions of yesterdays they know there’s always another tomorrow. It is no accident that Americans have the least national holidays of any country, less vacation time than most, and are constantly fiddling with Daylight Saving Time like children afraid of the dark! But India will emerge from the age of Kali. How do I know? Because, despite your derisive characterizations of it, there is a renewed sense of vigor and energy in the country, which will continue to grow because the pride of Indians is growing now that the world community is taking notice. 

Whether or not you believe it, India is a world player if only for the fact that the world community thinks it is. Once you raise the level of expectations, people rise to meet it—any kindergarten teacher will tell you that! It isn’t a coincidence that the Kerala you praise so much also has the highest literacy rate in the country. And that’s how I know—because eventually the next few generations of Indians will become better educated and they will eventually carry India into a new society. 

 There is something else, which is the other side of the story that I referred to at the beginning. As in all things Indian there are two sides to every coin—tradition, which can sometimes be an impediment to new ideas, can also be a unifying foundation for change. Indian societies (one almost has to use the plural in India for it is many things all at once) are built on a firm base of mythology, religion, and community. Sometimes they cause fissures but eventually they shift back into solidity. These force fields invigorate the national conscience (and collective unconscious) because they are cultural bonds; people feel connected to one another—uneasily sometimes, but connected all the same. There’s strength in numbers and in the knowledge that we are not alone. 

American societies draw their strength from pride in individual pursuits, which is why Americans treasure privacy among all other things. Once their tenuous communal moorings are cut they become alienated, lost, and disaffected; probably why you left your business behind to wander the world in search of cultures to criticize! And, of this I am certain—it will take India less than 100 years. In 225 years as a nation the U.S. is doing what? Fighting wars on several fronts; endangering the environment more than any other nation; existing complacently while more than 40 million people have no health insurance; claiming improvements in race relations in the midst of hundreds of examples to the contrary every day, as if the presence of a black president is a magic wand to dispel decades of appaling racial hatred! Is this what you call “America living up to its ideals?” These are American ideals? Greed which has caused its financial systems to run amok? Arrogance that it can build other nations into its false image of democracy (where elections are stolen and career politicians use cheap fear-mongering tactics to hold on to power and where a political party gloats because it now has the one vote that will allow it to be an obstructionist)? These are American ideals? Where homelessness and poverty lurk in the fringes of the richest society in the world? 

It’s just a façade, Mr. Kelley, this so-called ideal state that you feel gives you the right to criticize others. So Mr. Sean Paul Kelley, in response to your disingenuous invitation to call you “a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that,” I will do precisely that! 

Sally K. xxxxxx, Ph.D. 

Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine

other details withheld for the sake of privacy