Divergent destinies for India and China
The Chinese premier's recent visit to India was a good thing because, even if only for a fleeting weekend, it took Indians' minds off Pakistan. India must learn to ignore Pakistan and heed China. If Pakistan pulls us down into an abyss of terrorism and identity politics, China will lift us up, fuelling our ambition for better roads, schools and health centres. I used to admire or fear China, but now I am more relaxed. Both economies are among the world's fastest growing, and both are on the verge of solving their age-old economic problem. China's success is induced by the state, however, whereas India's is due to its private economy. Although slower, India's path may, in fact, be more suited to its temperament.
Our different pasts explain a great deal. During the past century, China has suffered devastating violence while India has been spoilt by amazing peace. China's 20th century opened with the ravages of warlords; the Nationalists followed with their butchery in the 1920s. Japan's invasion of Manchuria in the 1930s made the British Raj look angelic. In the 1940s came Mao Zedong's massacres as Communists took power. Mao's ambitions sacrificed 35m in the “Great Leap Forward” in the 1950s and brought more misery during the Cultural Revolution. It was not until 1978 that the Chinese breathed easy, and then went on to create a spectacle of amazing economic growth.
Saints, on the other hand, created India (in André Malraux's words) and this happened in the shadows of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Not only did India escape the world wars but it became free with minimal bloodshed, thanks to Mahatma Gandhi. Yes, half a million died in the partition riots, but this was not state-sponsored violence. Because we were addicted to peace, we created the world's largest democracy. Although Jawaharlal Nehru's socialism slowed India down for three decades, we did not wipe out our private economy with its invaluable institutions of corporate law and the stock market. So when India broke free from its socialist shackles we had this advantage over China.
This explains why India's recent economic success is driven by its entrepreneurs. The best thing that the Indian government is doing is to move slowly out of their way through its reform programme. India is spawning highly competitive private companies such as Reliance Industries, Jet Airways, Infosys, Wipro, Ranbaxy, Bharat Forge, Tata Motors, Moser Baer and Hindalco. China's government, on the other hand, is suspicious of its entrepreneurs. Only 10 per cent of China's banking credit goes to the private sector, which employs 40 per cent of Chinese workers.
Nothing quite illustrates the difference between India and China as well as the two countries' approach to the English language. Despite coming under huge popular pressure from parents, many states in India are still debating whether English ought to be taught in primary schools. But the Chinese government has decided to make every Chinese literate in English by the 2008 Olympics. It seems bizarre that India, whose success in the global economy derives from its facility with English, should remain hostage to the deep insecurities of its vernacular chauvinists. I cannot help but admire China's ambition, but I console myself that India has been spared their earlier ambitions at social engineering, notably the Cultural Revolution.
Because India's government is ambivalent, the market is solving people's enormous appetite for English. Thousands of English teaching “shops” and schools have appeared. Unlike Indians of my generation, today's young think of English as a skill, such as learning Microsoft's Windows. To them, English is just one of India's many languages, not the mother tongue of the colonial rulers. They are quite comfortable mixing English with Hindi words in a fashionable mix called “Hinglish”, which has increasingly become India's street language. Advertisers, in particular, have been surprised by the terrific resonance of slogans such as Coca-Cola's “Life ho to aise” (This is life) or Pepsi's “Dil maange more” (The heart wants more). David Crystal, author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, claims India may already have the largest number of English speakers in the world.
India's public debate over teaching English in primary schools seems inconceivable in China. Nor will India grow at 8 per cent (against its current rate of 6 per cent) because it has too much law and not enough order, too much democracy and not enough governance. If it came to a trade-off, however, I know no one in India who would give up democracy for two more percentage points of growth. We have waited 3,000 years for this moment
