Poverty

[Dominik Wujastyk]

Narayan S. Raja said:
> 
> One basic fact that jumps out at
> you is that, in fact, most Indians
> who follow business/finance are 
> highly optimistic and confident
> about the economy.

Yes, I noticed that this attitude was common amongst many Indians,
including some businessmen and politicians whom I met over the last year
in India.  I could never understand it: it seemed to demonstrate
extraordinary blindness to the attitudes and experiences of European and
American companies trying to do business in India, or form partnerships
with Indian companies.  I have some experience of this too, since I know
business people and engineers in the UK who have been trying to set up
collaborative projects in India.  They have not found it an encouraging
experience, and I have heard nothing from them that makes me believe
that there is anything to be optimistic and confident about.

A marker that foreign governments are not overly impressed by the Indian
economic performance is the fact that departments of South Asian studies
around the world seem to be under pressure to contract, and staff are
being shed due to lack of government interest in SA languages and
cultures.  By contrast, departments of Middle Eastern, Japanese, and
Korean studies are expanding rapidly.

In my opinion, the liberalization of the Indian economy since 1992 has
had a very beneficial effect in many spheres of activity, but it has
also generated and unrealistic euphoria in the minds of people who have
hitherto been unused to even the incomplete freedoms that have been
granted.  There is still a very great distance to go before the
liberalization policy is fully implemented (ask any bookseller who has
to export books), and even then, most areas of the Indian infrastructure
(electricity, communications, roads, railways, shipping, health)
contain an almost infinite capacity to absorb funding.

I'm sorry, this isn't really indological.  I'll stop.

Dominik