This is beautifully written. About the reform being incomplete, I want to quote his interaction with Martin Wolf of FT
As India’s finance minister, Manmohan Singh visited the FT’s London offices in the early 1990s to discuss his reform programme with Martin Wolf and me. Martin asked why he hadn’t made what seemed like a perfectly obvious policy change — something to do with capital flows, I think. “Yes, Martin,” replied Singh quietly. “I understand the economics. But the difference between you and me is that if you make a mistake you can correct it in your next column. If I make a mistake, 20 million people die.”
Brilliant. Thank you for that. MS deserves to be remembered. Amazing human being. Just amazing. If it is really true that democratic electorates get the leaders they deserve, then well, that speaks very highly of the Indian electorate. :-) :-) :-)!
Economists Arvind Subramanium and Karthik Muralidharan suggested that Indian achieved democracy at a much lower level of income than other countries, and ‘premature deomcratisation’ gets in the way of rapid economic growth.
Yes, a very interesting hypothesis which I am not at all sure of. Because there were a LOT of people, for example Lal Bahadur Shastri among them, who would have fixed the problem at its source. But he died. As I keep saying, you cannot graft socialism onto the most capitalist culture on earth. It really is.
Thank you bringing lesser known facts to public. For me the revelation was “chupke chupke reforms” in today’s much tom tommed reforms. Then you highlight the missed reforms and consequences. Thank you. Looking forward to next post.
Milieu in Argentina, Meloni in Italy, Trump in America, Takaichi in Japan and other like-minded leaders appearing regularly on the global stage are heirs to the remarkable smaller-government reforms dating to 1991 India. Entrenched forces defending the status quo will fight to the death, but as Hugo proclaimed and which the Indian leader cited, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
Thank you, Samir Varma, for all your work bringing to light a greater understanding of India’s remarkable evolution since its independence. The world has much to learn from India’s experience even as it prepares for its growing presence on the world stage.
Comprehensively written and engrossing article. I hope it reaches the ignorant Indians. These were the people who believed in doing their jobs without any publicity, in contrast to the incumbents who believe in making noise without substance.
The inequality is partly built in due to 5000 years of the caste system and partly the result of socialism. Some of that is now, thankfully, reversing. I have a series of posts on this topic. It is quite complex and isn’t easy to reduce to a simple syllogism. Belligerent is incorrect. Where? I don’t see any territorial expansion claims. Destabilizing? Again, where? Who are they destabilizing?
Yep. When you have a moronic system designed by ideologues, all options have to be on the table. Exit, reform, whatever. Those moronic ideologues are still all over Indian intelligentsia. Holier than thou, and completely useless.
This is beautifully written. About the reform being incomplete, I want to quote his interaction with Martin Wolf of FT
As India’s finance minister, Manmohan Singh visited the FT’s London offices in the early 1990s to discuss his reform programme with Martin Wolf and me. Martin asked why he hadn’t made what seemed like a perfectly obvious policy change — something to do with capital flows, I think. “Yes, Martin,” replied Singh quietly. “I understand the economics. But the difference between you and me is that if you make a mistake you can correct it in your next column. If I make a mistake, 20 million people die.”
Source: https://www.ft.com/content/837d8ddc-d2dd-4dfa-8cff-ea30bc16ce04#:~:text=As%20India%E2%80%99s%20finance,million%20people%20die.%E2%80%9D
Brilliant. Thank you for that. MS deserves to be remembered. Amazing human being. Just amazing. If it is really true that democratic electorates get the leaders they deserve, then well, that speaks very highly of the Indian electorate. :-) :-) :-)!
Economists Arvind Subramanium and Karthik Muralidharan suggested that Indian achieved democracy at a much lower level of income than other countries, and ‘premature deomcratisation’ gets in the way of rapid economic growth.
Yes, a very interesting hypothesis which I am not at all sure of. Because there were a LOT of people, for example Lal Bahadur Shastri among them, who would have fixed the problem at its source. But he died. As I keep saying, you cannot graft socialism onto the most capitalist culture on earth. It really is.
Their observation is geared more towards the challenge of generating growth post 1991.
True but I think path dependence matters.
Thank you bringing lesser known facts to public. For me the revelation was “chupke chupke reforms” in today’s much tom tommed reforms. Then you highlight the missed reforms and consequences. Thank you. Looking forward to next post.
Milieu in Argentina, Meloni in Italy, Trump in America, Takaichi in Japan and other like-minded leaders appearing regularly on the global stage are heirs to the remarkable smaller-government reforms dating to 1991 India. Entrenched forces defending the status quo will fight to the death, but as Hugo proclaimed and which the Indian leader cited, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
Thank you, Samir Varma, for all your work bringing to light a greater understanding of India’s remarkable evolution since its independence. The world has much to learn from India’s experience even as it prepares for its growing presence on the world stage.
Comprehensively written and engrossing article. I hope it reaches the ignorant Indians. These were the people who believed in doing their jobs without any publicity, in contrast to the incumbents who believe in making noise without substance.
Thanks for sharing
The inequality is partly built in due to 5000 years of the caste system and partly the result of socialism. Some of that is now, thankfully, reversing. I have a series of posts on this topic. It is quite complex and isn’t easy to reduce to a simple syllogism. Belligerent is incorrect. Where? I don’t see any territorial expansion claims. Destabilizing? Again, where? Who are they destabilizing?
On that, I must disagree. And that is what the series is about.
Yep. When you have a moronic system designed by ideologues, all options have to be on the table. Exit, reform, whatever. Those moronic ideologues are still all over Indian intelligentsia. Holier than thou, and completely useless.