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India – breaking the paradox of positivism - Part 2 »
03 08 2007

India – breaking the paradox of positivism - Part 1

Posted by: shashank in ABRY, Entrepreneurship, India, Infrastructure, Institutes, Jagriti Yatra, Social Entrepreneurship

‘Is the glass half empty or half full? Depends whether you are pouring or drinking’ said Bill Cosby’s mother in a conversation that reminds me of India in this 60th anniversary year.

On the fiftieth anniversary of India’s independence, in 1997 we organised a national adventure – the Azad Bharat Rail Yatra. Two hundred young Indians participated in that Yatra and have since remained in close contact over the years. This is an extended family forged by the memories of twenty-two days of exhilarating, non-stop travel on a special train that covered 7,000 kilometers of India. We keep in touch through a web-based forum, and at heart; we simply remain attached to India. As I write this, these participants are planning another Yatra – the Jagriti Yatra with the theme of awakening entrepreneurship. 

Our aim for the Yatra was to discover the other India, an India beyond the English language. To me, this India was in the smaller towns where I had grown up as the son of an army officer; it was in my town of birth, Gorakhpur, and in Barpar, our ancestral village in the Deoria district of eastern Uttar Pradesh. During our travels we found more than one India. But the central theme that dominated the journey was India integrating with its own genius. By doing so will we build a country that is different and therefore able to compete and prosper in the new world. Only if we understand who we are and are comfortable with it, will we live lives of integrity. Participants discovered this first hand. They celebrated the integrity they saw amongst those they met during our travels.

The journey was layered by what I call the ‘paradox of positivism’. The more we celebrate India’s achievements, the less inclined will we be to strive for more. And yet, if we do not applaud our achievements, the positive energy necessary for that forward movement will remain absent. During the journey we tried to break this paradox by looking at India as a ‘glass half full’. We saw the many, seemingly insurmountable problems India faced. We saw cities and villages that could easily be classed as underdeveloped and poor. We saw the enormous challenges posed by a rapidly growing population and the many divisions India faced across the different regions we visited. But we also noticed the enormous progress India had made in the first half-century of its freedom. The miracle of a billion strong democracy was worthy of applause. Our blossoming higher education system, even then, was a modern day success story. The judiciary kept our national spine erect. And yet, as we looked ahead, in our fiftieth year of Independence, it was clear that our national task was far from complete.

Ten years down the line, in its sixtieth year of Independence, the ‘paradox of positivism’ remains. Headline growth rates, the acquisition of international companies by Indian companies, a leading IT service sector, a climbing sensex, astronomical rise in property prices and a growing entrepreneurial culture all reflect India’s growing prosperity. But the paradox should remind us of the dangers of national hubris. The average per capita income even now remains barely above that of Africa. Large parts of India suffer enormous power shortages; our corruption index fails to decline, our infrastructure continues to be patchy, and our institutions are still immature. Yet certain sections of India seem to have declared victory in just the first few stops of this national journey.

The Yatra explored, and my book argues that while we have to applaud past success, we have to prepare ourselves for a national journey that has just begun. Another twenty to thirty years of forward movement is required before we can call ourselves a truly developed nation. During our own twenty-two-day journey we recognized that we have to be brave, be willing to take risks, build institutions in order to succeed but, above all, have the courage to be original. In an era where computers, networks, bio-technology, agri-business, environmental issues are re-shaping the global developmental agenda, copying an industrial developmental model is a poor recipe for success. Each leg of the journey brought out such themes - whether it was the developmental models discovered in Tilonia, our discussions around China during the visit to Bodh Gaya, the focus on institution-building in Jamshedpur, or the cultural debate in Aurangabad. These themes were brought to life by the participants who led these discussions, and brought their perspectives from different parts of India. As I recall our discussions, I find those themes still fresh and surprisingly relevant to India today. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise. These discussions took place amongst the young of India, the future of our country. Then and now.  

But the relevance of these discussions now extends beyond India. As globalization and technology have made India more visible, so has it offered us a historic opportunity to contribute. In an India where, the pursuit of knowledge is equated with the pursuit of wealth and happiness, its ideas have new meaning. As large parts of the world are beginning to suffer from the first signs of an ‘industrial hangover’, can India bring in a new developmental perspective? The developmental path we saw being taken by some of the original Indians we visited during the journey is bearing fruit ten years down the line. These social, economic and even cultural entrepreneurs are using an original approach to build new institutions, a new India. The emphasis on sustainability and environment, empowerment of locals, a strong service ethos, grassroots entrepreneurship, offer new modes of thought and action. Can these developmental models show a different path to others? The spirituality and knowledge mindset of India combined with the bustling confidence of a 1.1 billion strong democracy can reshape the global debate on development. Another yatra, planned for early 2008 will be a poetic milestone to mark this new era of change.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 12:06 am and is filed under ABRY, Entrepreneurship, India, Infrastructure, Institutes, Jagriti Yatra, Social Entrepreneurship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “India – breaking the paradox of positivism - Part 1”

  1. Digvijaya K Rau says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 8:43 am

    Hi Shank,

    Thank you for a beautiful article. It brought back all of the nostalgia of the Yatra. I hope this new yatra works out and works well for the participants as the first yatra had done for us. Though I am unable to help out myself for the yatra, I wish the organizers all the best in doing a great job

    Vande Mataram
    Digvijaya

  2. Chavvi says:
    August 13th, 2007 at 4:28 am

    hi!
    have already registered for the yatra…but after reading the blog, i truly hope i can be part of this experience (directly, not vicariously)..
    i’m glad that there are so many young people who want to see beyond the glitzy city - and without the touch of oh-so-arrogant sympathy..
    i feel it’s important to watch not only maa tuhje salaam video but the vande mataram (shit version) to know the ‘real’ india as some like to put it..it’s painful to see issue such as caste still plaguing the country..
    have been a traveller myself - a month in gorakhpur, 2 weeks in rural orissa, 2 weeks in ladakh, a week in rural kerala..
    i highly recommend that we meet some dalit activists while in mumbai (eg. sambhaji bhagat)..
    and i do hope i can be part of this amazing journey - i feel am made for it! because i too feel that the way to ‘development’ now is to create more decent & productive jobs (apart feom universal access to education)..

  3. youth focus groups says:
    June 27th, 2008 at 11:14 am

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  4. sandeep saini says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:38 am

    dear shaashank,

    there is something strange about our nation which amazes me. we are a society which expects too much out of our environment, a nation which likes to be served on the platter . may be its an instinctive habit in the middle class, governmented, indian who takes a back seat when it comes to nation building, enterprise and entrepreunership. may be its the legacy of a huge, mammoth past and the burden of carrying a history too deeply in our conciousness that stops us from venturing into unknown territories! the same iit bred indian when crosses the seven seas earns a name for himself by setting up some of the most respected entrepreunerial ventures! i guess too much of past can sometimes hamper a nation’s growth.there is a bit of a nehruvian -socialistic instinctive salary man in all of us indians. but i guess we can make the most of the situation by doing what the west has realised after a period of democratic governance which we as a society have to yet pass through..that “entrepreneurship” is the key to a prosperous and civilised nation’s growth.

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