Sanjeev Sanyal’s The Indian Renaissance charts the decline of India over the past ten centuries, and suggests that India now faces the opportunity to reclaim its status as both a cultural and economic superpower.
The Indian Renaissance seems to suggest that ‘cultural openness’ is the main predicate to a country’s economic success.
Actually, I’m proposing that cultural openness and economic success are the same thing. We witness the same pattern of rise and decline around the world.
In Europe, for example, we had a civilization that had been in decline for a thousand years. Then suddenly, in the mid-1400s, something really changes. Within a few generations we had Galileo, Vasco Da Gama, Columbus, the Medicis, Leonardo Da Vinci. What happened in this very short period of time? Europe developed a culture of innovation and risk-taking.
India in 1 AD accounted for 33 per cent of the world’s economy, surpassing Western Europe and China. The country declined after 11 AD due its rejection of foreign influence and homegrown entrepreneurialism. It became a closed civilization.
Does the title Indian Renaissance refer to a contemporary India that is reinstating this ‘cultural of openness’?
That’s right. For the first time in a thousand years we are once again embracing innovation. India has always been terrible at sports. Now we’re winning Olympic medals. We’re winning the Oscars. The Tata Nano was released recently. The fact that the Nano is a major topic in the newspapers shows that people think it’s an issue.
Why are all these changes happening in such a tiny period of history? Because we are once again taking risks.
What reaction has The Indian Renaissance provoked within economic circles in India?
I’ve had plenty of criticism. You’d be surprised at how much opposition people have to the idea of change. Change is uncomfortable. Innovation is uncomfortable. Many are still praising the old Nehruvian model of strictly regulated economics.
How would you respond to critics who feel the global economic crisis has vindicated India’s decision not to embrace economic liberalization wholesale?
I’d argue entirely to the contrary. The only reason why we’re still standing is that in the past 17 years we’ve been through enormous reform. In 1991 our economy collapsed when the oil price went up. Our economy doesn’t collapse today when oil prices rise, because we are now a totally different animal.
In times of stress, it’s even more crucial to understand the importance of risk-taking, as it’s easy to become introverted at such times. Some risks will come to roost and you will have breakdowns, but how you deal with these crises is what separates the men from the boys.
So we will watch America. Will they react to the crisis by saying that the rest of the world is dangerous? Protectionism may save them for five years, but that decision is the end of America as a civilization. It’s bad news for us for a few years ~ it’s bad for them forever.
You end the book with a response to Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. Are you taking issue here with the concept of globalization as ‘the great leveler’?
I think Friedman misses the point. Yes, Bangalore is what it is because of the Internet. But Zimbabwe has the Internet too. What mattered was that India had the right attitude and was able to use the opportunity.
What are the factors that could impede India from following the pattern of Asian ‘miracle growth’ as seen in China, Singapore, Japan and Taiwan?
The conditions are in place for economic growth on a huge scale in India. But the conditions are not sufficient. You can use this energy and go in the wrong direction. Places can go backwards, as India did after 11 AD. Within my own lifetime, Kolkata ~ once the cultural and economic centre of the country ~ has quite clearly gone backwards.
Do you see the book as a wake-up call to those who stand for cultural conservatism and economic protectionism?
India has a long history of conservatism. Today, there’s the influence of the Left and the extreme Right, there are obscurantist groups in Bangalore who oppose women drinking in pubs ~ it’s all part of the same resistance against change. There’s a poem by Tagore called Mind Without Fear where he writes of ‘narrow domestic walls’ and advocates ‘ever-widening thought and action’. Tagore is saying: don’t shut my system down.
Cultural openness is not only about economic liberalization. It’s an attitude that affects every aspect of civilization.
(The Indian Renaissance: India’s rise after a thousand years in decline by Sanjeev Sanyal has been published by Penguin/Viking.)
No comments:
Post a Comment