And it's not just about the exchange of rupees. As Zaidi points out, “Trade normalization is likely to improve the overall atmosphere in which India and Pakistan address all contentious issues.” It is hard to disagree. The old cliché used to be, “If you want peace, prepare for war.” In today's world, it is time for a new formula: If you want peace, prepare to trade.
67. The Dangers to India's Future
“You're becoming known as a champion booster of the new India,” writes a friend. “But we all know nothing is perfect in our country. What do you see as the vulnerabilities that might throw India off course?”
FAIR QUESTION, BECAUSE OURS IS A COUNTRY where predictions are both ubiquitous and foolhardy, and where the future is never quite what it used to be. So in reply to that question, I ventured a quick “top ten” checklist of the major dangers that could still retard, if not scuttle, our country's confident march into the twenty-first century.
1. The Threat to India's Pluralism
Everyone in India, irrespective of the circumstances of their birth, must feel they have a stake in the country, that they can create a decent life for themselves (and, for that matter, attain the highest office in the land), regardless of which ethnic or religious or linguistic background they hail from. The whole point about being Indian is that you can be many things and one thing: you can be a good Muslim, a good Gujarati, and a good Indian all at once. I've celebrated that a country that is 81 percent Hindu has a Muslim president, a Sikh prime minister, a Catholic leader of the ruling coalition, and now, a Dalit chief justice. But ours is also a country where religious riots have scarred the face of our land, where untouchability still condemns millions to degrading lives, and where the dangers of a triumphant majoritarianism are ever present. The moment we allow the pettiest and most bigoted of our politicians to create an India that reduces some Indians to second-class status is the moment when we fail ourselves and betray our future. An India that is denied to some of us will one day be an India that is denied to all of us.
2. The Danger to India's Democracy
Democracy is indispensable to India's survival as a pluralist state. For all its flaws, the miracle of democracy, with its exchange of demands and promises, hopes and compromises, has enabled India to manage its own diversity and deal with the extraordinary challenges of growth and development. But India's democracy has largely been ill-served by its political leaders; with honorable exceptions, mainly at the very top, an indispensable and impressive system is today overrun by unprincipled and unimpressive operators. Corruption and criminalization have taken their toll on people's faith in our democracy. That 113 of our 543 members of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament, should have criminal cases pending against them is an abomination. Despite the encouraging entry of bright, educated young politicians into Parliament in recent years, the continuance in office of venal and violent men could gravely discredit the system by undermining people's faith in their elected representatives.
3. The Persistence of Poverty
Despite all the good economic news I have celebrated in this book, 22 percent of our population — some 250 million people — are still living below the poverty line, in conditions that are a blot on our individual and collective consciences. By poverty I don't simply mean the kind of poverty that economists refer to, measured in the numbers of people living below a dollar a day. Our poor cannot afford to feed themselves, but I am equally concerned about their lack of opportunities in our society, which prevents the complete participation of large masses of Indians in their nation's democracy, and in our country's governance. We must take the necessary steps to ensure that every Indian is given the means to live a decent life, to feed his or her family, and to acquire the education that will enable him or her to fulfill their creative potential. Failure to accomplish this will be a real threat to India's future.
4. The Strains of Overpopulation
Most Indians have tended to take as an article of pride rather than shame that we are a nation of 1.2 billion people who are likely to overtake China in the next three decades to become the world's most populous nation. There is little doubt that the larger our population, the more difficult it will be for our society and economy to sustain it. Indeed, the size of our population both reflects and underscores our poverty. I have often argued, echoing Mahmood Mamdani, that people are not poor because they have too many children, but that they have too many children because they are poor. For the poor, children are an asset (they can be put to work) rather than a liability (they aren't being expensively educated); and in the long term, they are a guarantor of their parents’ future, their only social security safety net, since only their own children will provide for them and look after them in their old age. So overpopulation needs to be tackled, but we have to tackle poverty, too. If we hatao garibi—“abolish poverty,” as the country was promised in 1971—people who are less insecure about their future will have fewer children.
5. The Risks of Unemployment
A major challenge amid our country's impressive economic growth is that of employing all those millions of Indians who come of age and seek to enter the workforce each year but remain without jobs. It is not only important that the economy grows at a pace that can absorb all the job seekers; it must also expand in activities that generate jobs, whether in manufacturing or in tourism (our fabled IT firms and BPO centers employ only a million Indians out of a billion). Those frustrated in their attempts to find employment and earn a decent livelihood are often those who turn to violence and terrorism. It is no accident that there are few Maoists in Gurgaon or Gandhinagar.
6. The Politicization of Development
It's unavoidable, in a fiercely contentious democracy like ours, that decisions on economic development are made as the consequence of a political process. But the great successes of our economy in recent years have lain where the government played no role at all (information technology), got out of the way after a bad start (cell phones), or eased stifling restrictions (television). When politicians intrude, development almost invariably suffers, as the half-complete overpasses of Bangalore and the saga of the Tata car factory at Singrur (whose construction has been blocked for months by protesting farmers and their political sponsors) testify. The great challenge for government is to strengthen or renovate our dilapidated infrastructure — rutted roads, choked ports, antediluvian airports, collapsing bridges, corroded pipes. Much of this must be left to the private sector, given the many limitations of our public sector. And this requires accepting that quite often a few may profit but all will benefit. That means politicians will have to resist the chronic temptation to put self-interest before the national interest and let results be delivered regardless of political or financial advantage to themselves. The chances of that happening, it has to be admitted, are slight.