Received via Email:
Financial Times has published an interesting debate between historian Ramachandra Guha and strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney, along with 50 odd comments by readers, on the subject "INDIA IS TOO CORRUPT TO BECOME A SUPER POWER."
EXCERPTS:
Ramachandra Guha:
"Yet the truth is that India is in no position to become a superpower. It is not a rising power, nor even an emerging power. It is merely a fascinating, complex, and perhaps unique experiment in nationhood and democracy, whose leaders need still to attend to the fault lines within, rather than presume to take on the world without."
Brahma Chellaney's response:
"India’s economic and military rise is threatened neither by corruption nor by its ethnic diversity. India has demonstrated that unlike the traditionally homogenous societies of East Asia, a nation can manage diversity – and thrive on it.
"Rather, India’s rise is threatened by a political factor – a leadership deficit, which is compounded by a splintered polity. India is still governed by a pre-independence leadership – an anomaly even in Asia, where age is supposed to be wisdom. India today boasts the world’s oldest head of government and oldest foreign minister. Old, tired, risk-averse leadership can hardly propel any country to greatness. Worse, India’s coalition federal governments, which have become a norm, tend to function by the rule of parochial politics – in fact, by the lowest common denominator.
"Yet, democracy remains India’s greatest asset. It not only helps instil fear among the corrupt, but also makes India’s future less uncertain than China’s."
Select Readers' Comments on the Ramachandra Guha article:
"All quite true but it doesn't seem to have stopped China or for that matter Russia..."
"There is nothing inevitable about our success- we turn complacent at our peril. Systematic, analytical criticism can only help us improve, just as a deep crisis might shock us into reform."
"Nations don't have to be perfect civilizations to be super-powers. For this, they need a powerful military, a hard scientific & intellectual edge, cultural soft power, a dynamic economy and a will to engage with the world, for good or for bad. I don't see Mr.Guha debating whether the USA, with its military-industrial complex and beltway lobbyists, is a deserving candidate for its status of the world's policeman. It just *is* the world's preeminent power, for good or for bad.
India may remain corrupt society for a thousand years more, but that will have no bearing on whether it becomes a super-power or not."
"And here is my criticism of the author - I think a country can be a great power and yet corrupt and institutionally flawed."
"Economist Joan Robinson (quoted by Amartya Sen) used to say, “whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true.”
"As an Indian living in China, I feel terrible about the state of my own country's development (specially when compared to China) but also understand that India can never be a China. And maybe the question should not be about whether a corrupt nation can be a superpower. When China overtakes US as the superpower, no country (not just India) will be in a position to replicate the "China model" "
"It seems that Mr Guha has ignored the whole element of the rising middle class that is fueling the growth. In terms of corruption, that problem still persists but no credit has been given to the amount of improvements that have been achieved. I admit it is still one of the biggest problems facing our country, however, there are movements in India that are addressing this concern as we speak.
"India continues to succeed despite the corruption and one wonders how much she can achieve after resolving this problem."
"Yes, the gargantuan corruption in India weighs down on its potential to be a great power. Yet, we should not underestimate Indian genius to re-invent itself. Indian identity is still in the process of making, a work in progress as they say. Powerful social currents could well arise to stigmatise and purge this curse. Alongside corruption and self-aggrandizement we also frequently witness not inconsiderable reserves of idealism and social consciousness among the people at large. These reserves could enlarge in time and become a salient strand of India’s identity.
"Very often in its history India has appeared to be a hopeless case, even close to being at a point of disintegration. I remember in the early sixties American scholar-journalist Selig Harrison’s ‘India: The Most Dangerous Decades’ and Ronald Segal’s ‘Crisis of India’, were widely read discourses on the country’s dismal plight. Please do not think that these works were outpourings of prejudiced minds. No, they were highly regarded on the campuses and were even recommended by deans as texts on Indian polity. Yet, evolution of a pan Indian Identity was imperceptibly at work and as the years went by was gathering strength. And today it has galvanised as a formidable force.
"The point is, India springs surprises. Its ancient civilization is still a vital force and inspires and energizes its people to rise to new heights. Corruption of the present-day scale could be an outgrowth of creation of new, sudden, immense and dazzling wealth leading to a scramble by most who can, and be a mere passing phase. Please do not give up on the widely held countervailing belief system to come into play again, which is, material wealth is an illusion and a corrupting influence on the soul. Other-worldliness and spiritualism still run deep among people and are not dead, not as yet.
"The real Achilles heel of India is not corruption but its’ dangerous neighbourhood and its’ less than adequate preparedness to secure itself. In the past too India's vulnerability to external threats has been its main undoing. But this is another story."
"I have to say that I agree with Brahma Chellaney's observations in this case. Ram Guha, for once, has succumbed to his heart over his head...an infliction that we all suffer from, from time to time!! Particularly unfortunate are his sweeping generalisations and broad-brush conclusions"
The full debate is enlightening! Please read on.
http://blogs.ft.com/the-a-list/2011/07/ ... z1SZ7fOGBo
