Thursday, February 09, 2006

India's crazy assocition with the 'Leftists'

The leftists (communists and socialists) are threatening to derail the government once again and making the Government of India, an hostage to their whims. It is totally scary!! India has only two small states who still believe in the prinicples of communism. This wrecked their economy and despite possessing an impressive set of advantages, these two states have lagged behind other states due to persistant threat of strikes and violent boycotts. However, India's fate is being guided by these two states (West Bengal and Kerala), just because the ruling government has a razor-thin majority at the Parliament and needs the scrappy support of the leftists. This remains as a source of very big drag and India is unable to join the process of modern civilization. The latest event being the huge hue and cry raised on airport modernization. Can you believe it? There are souls in India who oppose modernizing the airports, which are at its nadir and source of much riddicule abroad.

It could be recalled that, it is pricesely the principles of socialism that is responsible for the shabby state of Indian society. At the time of independence, Indian economy looked far better than any other economy in the developing world. The British legacy of extensive rail and roal networks, planned cities, big foreign exchange from tea and cotton exports, huge agro industries and english language stood as a very big advantage for India over its competitors like korea, China and Japan. South-east Asia and East Asia was in shambles, then. Besides, India had a stable political system inherited from Gandhiji & Patel's Congress Party. However, all the advantages were let down in the drain due to the predominant socialistic attitude of its rulers starting from Pandit Nehru. From the position of being a leading economy of the developing world in 1947, India slid into bankruptcy in 1991, inspite of the Green revolution and industrial projects. It took the great brilliance of Narashima Rao & Manmohan Singh to bring India to a state of great respect, by diluting the socialistic principles.

However, the current government took its mandate as bringing back many of the socialistic principles, unmindful of its terrible legacy in India and elsewhere. No doubt, India still remains as one of the poorest nations (in terms of Per-capita income, UN's Human-development Index and host of other factors suggested by World Bank, IMF and WHO). The progress brought by its techno-savvy neo-capitalists can be nulled, if the Government drags its foot on social issues. In no way, India is near China. All the reports about India's greatness are based on projections assuming that India taps its potential. However, if it refuses to do so, world will cease its comparisons with China and US and India will go back to its shabby legacy of being associated with trouble-ridden sub-saharan Africa and Latin America.

India is now in cross-roads. Continue the modernization process and stay in company with the civilized world or embark the failed principle of socialism and remain with the rotten under-developed nations. The verdict now is in the hands of India people - do we still need the communist parties?

2 comments:

Noorul Islam said...

In Kerala, even though the non-communist (UDF) got the opportunity to rule the state, they are not utilising it properly. Lots of groups getting created and destroyed everyday inside the Congress party itself. They dont realise that people are watching this closely. The next assembly election is nearing and 75% chance goes to left parties. They should have utilised this opportunity to show people that they can rule the state batter and bring development projects for the state.

Anonymous said...

Balaji, how come this communist state of Kerala leads the country in almost all the quality of living indices? Highest per capita hospital beds, near 100% literacy rate, much lower disparity between rich and poor? Not saying that communist govt system works perfect, but it did something that other govts didn't do ie: take care of the poor. Yes, not as glamorous as building yet another shining building for one of the MNCs in Bangalore(by underpaid laborers), but definitely more important. And by the way, that pic in your post showing children in poverty, its very rare to see that level of poverty in Kerala. Please do your research properly before dishing out opinions (if you want them to be taken seriously)