Re: The Dangers of Monotheism in the Age of Globalization
I’m still a believer
Posted at: 12:01
A quick nugget - as I dash off for Jumah (Friday Prayers) - that I picked up from
The Economist that tells you a lot about attitudes to the future of the ‘new’ India.
On his recent visit to India, George Bush repeated the oft-quoted figure that India’s new middle class was ‘300 million strong’.
But research from the National Council of Applied Economic Research, a Delhi think-tank, puts the number of households with genuine consumer spending power (those earning over USD$4,400/INR200,000 per annum) at less than a quarter of the Bush number - or 58 million.
Why is this interesting? Because it shows the extent to which the narrative of the ‘new’ India story is in danger of running away with itself.
India is in the grip of a bubble mentality right now. The stock-market is an obvious barometer - the benchmark Bombay Sensex is valued at 21 times earnings for the year to March 2006 - compared to 13 times for the London market which is itself midway through a recovery period. Indian commercial and residential property is on a similarly giddy upward spiral.
This means that a lot of people are betting heavily that India - for all its manifest problems - will live up to its promise. But will it? Well that’s the multi-zillion dollar question.
Personally, I’m a believer - perhaps I’ve had too much of the bubbly stuff myself. My faith is pinned more on the Indian people than their politicians. When they have a stake in things, Indians are generally canny, hard-working and - most importantly - not afraid of getting rich.
Hinduism seems not to frown upon wealth in quite the same as all that ‘camels and needles’ Christianity on which I was bought up. In fact the rotund, smiling figure of Lord Ganesha would have added greatly to cheering up the Catholic monastic school where I was educated. But I digress…
Those of us currently gripped by Indian fever might want to pause and consider a few of the barnacles currently clinging to the Good Ship India. For starters there’s the scale of India’s public debts which means the government can’t afford the required investment in the dreadful roads, ports and airports. Then there’s a long-term lack of top quality graduates to meet India’s expanding service sector economy; the slow pace of industrial development and a lack of jobs for India’s hugely young population. And did I mention rising energy costs in a country that has few indigenous energy resources; a moribund and corrupt political establishment…
Consider that little list of doom and gloom and then you see understand why a few business people I’ve met in the last month or so remain unconvinced by India. But am I still a believer? Yes I am.