"Functioning Anarchy"

Just read this description of India ("functioning anarchy") and it couldn't been more fitting. It was how John Kenneth Galbraith, U.S. ambassador to New Delhi in early 1960’s described the country.

If you have ANY interest in reading about India, I have to HIGHLY recommend a book I've mentioned before by Edward Luce: In Spite of the Gods, The Rise of Modern India. It's fascinating and brilliant. Check it out from the library and just read the last chapter if that's all you care to. Among the many reasons I loved it, the first chapter is entitled: “Global and Medieval: India’s Schizophrenic Economy”. He captures the contrasts and contradictions of this remarkable country in an astounding way.

He chronicles the rise of India, the many and major challenges it faces, and ends by suggesting opportunities for growth and change.

Here are a few highlights about some of the massive problems in India: (the examples and statistics help me to get my head around the size of the problem)

Education: “According to India’s government, on any given day one-third of teachers are absent from government schools. In the state of Bihar… less than 3% of government schools have electricity and less than 20% have toilets for their teachers. Only a few schools have separate toilets for girls.” (248)

Infrastructure: “Uttar Pradesh has among the worst highways in India. So potholed are they that most of the stat’s villages cannot get their farm surplus to market. Kutcha (substandard) roads are one of the main reasons that only 2% of Indian’s farm output has any value added to it beyond being harvested, or milked. More than a third of India’s vegetables and fruit rot before arriving at market. “ (88)

Aborting girls: “…India has an estimated 40 to 50 million ‘missing girls.’ ... In some parts of the state [Gujarat] the ratio is below 800 girls to 1000 boys. Families in the worst-affected districts are importing girls from other parts of India to serve as brides to several husbands at once—usually the unfortunate woman is shared between 3 or 4 brothers.” (319)

Luce suggests that to overcome poverty, India must establish better economic climate for farmers and create more jobs in manufacturing and services: “The problem is neither money nor technology. It is about the efficiency of government.” (338)

My FAVORITE description of the government:
“”If you were to assess India’s economic situation by walking its corridors of power, it would be impossible to guess the country was going through a software revolution. Instead of computers you have armies of men shuffling paper. Instead of vacuum cleaners you have lower-caste sweepers carefully reshuffling the dust beneath your feet. As a substitute for a specific appointment, you are told: ‘Just come.’ Yes, but at what time? ‘Don’t worry. Just come.’ In place of waiting rooms, you have queues of supplicants spilling over into the corridors and the courtyards outside, each hoping to snatch a moment with the VIP whose mere word or signature can put an end to a hundred sleepless nights and a thousand wasted phone calls. Instead of servants—civil or otherwise—you have masters.” (63-4)

Most complicated tax system in the world. “In some parts of India, the system of octroi—a tax levied on the passage of goods from one Indian state to another—costs more to administer than it collects. Corruption is the only possible explanation for why it has been kept in place.” (340)


Obviously, there are many more issues (poverty, child labor, HIV/AIDS, etc.) but I didn't want to write all night. :) Thanks for reading this much.