I seem to have a fascination for the number two, it may just be the Illuminati in me coming out. Duality of purpose is something beautiful and is something mankind has embraced with religious zeal. This is especially true of India; one is reminded of notebooks doubling up as containers for peanuts, bhel puri, etc. etc., CDs as decoration on cars, and a host of other such uniquely Indian sights. The title also has a dual purpose, as you shall see.
The situation bears an eerie similarity to that faced by Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the twentieth century. The dual monarchy which was then ruled by the Hapsburg dynasty was unable to quell the separatist tensions arising from its various ethnic minorities. This was one of the main causes of World War I and the eventual sundering of the empire into the many Balkan states we see now. Ethnic separatism also played a part in the German capture of Czechoslovakia before World War II. To non-Indians, the logical solution will be to give independence to every state or region that asks for it. But this will eventually result in as many states as there are houses and I will need a passport to visit my neighbors. At a time when the need is for consolidating the world into a union with common aims, we seem to be heading towards further and further fragmentation.Thanks to Ch@#an Bh@#at for getting me started.
The only solution that I could infer from Ch@#an Bh@#at’s book was for all south Indians to marry north Indians, we could probably work out a system by which every state is assigned another state from which to find a mate. Another solution, this time my own, is to create what I call “focus zones”. A focus zone is a region, consisting of a set of states, which serves as a hub for certain essential functions of the nation. For example, we could take north-eastern India and make it a hub for education, this means all institutions of higher learning in the country will be located in that area. Think of it as a huge campus spanning the whole of the zone. Location-dependant industries like oil refineries will still be located there, this provides a platform for the training of the students educated there. We could even have all the services there managed by student trainees, fostering improvement in most professions. Such a scheme could also be worked out for software and other business activities, something like a region-wide SEZ. This is again something that cannot be done overnight and needs decades of gradual rearrangement. But I think at the end it will foster unity as all people will have to stay in all parts of the country at some point of time or the other.
Moving on to the second purpose of the title, the world seems to have developed a sudden fondness for empty gestures. This meaningless use of symbols in place of profanity, changing the phrases used to describe people with physical and mental disabilities, and lots of such things. I don’t think it makes a difference to a disabled person if he is referred to as disabled, differently abled or otherwise abled. It is just a name and changing the name doesn’t change the attitude. In a society where intransigence borders on phobia, these gestures don’t make a difference. Hence, I am going to balk at this stupidity and reveal the name of the author (yes that was a suspense), it’s Chetan Bhagat.
Harsha
Nice work da poi. Your anger about empty gestures is well justified.
ReplyDeleteBut I am not so sure about your line of thought on focus zones. How do you decide which industry to promote where? How do you promote it? When you are saying this are you thinking of India similar to one big corporation and the government as it's management. If you are, beware it is a dangerous line of thought. It would lead you to accept terrible ideas like communism or fascism.
If you are proposing something relatively harmless like subsidizing certain industries in certain areas, then state governments already do it. But they do not choose which industry. That happens naturally due to millions of factors. Bangalore did not become an IT hub because the government passed an order. Same with Chennai as an auto hub. Mostly one company came first. A culture of that industry develops and others follow suit to use that. And other cities compete too. Pune and Hyderabad are competing with Bangalore. How will you move the companies there to Bangalore in your scheme? If you do that by compulsion is it not like the infamous mistake of Tughlaq? Government should not dictate to businesses. Not if you want a free and prosperous country.
The best way to foster unity is to remove all restrictions on trade and make the entire country a free trade zone. The US constitution originally guaranteed that. None of the 50 states were supposed to make any law that prevented free movement of people and goods. Other than that they were free to govern as they pleased. ( Not the case today. Today USA is scarcely free ).
Again all our conflicts will never be solved as long as people believe that government should provide for our lives.
BTW that was surya da
ReplyDeleteIn US there is a lot of commonality throughout the country, the language is the same, and so is the culture for most part. Frankly, Chennai becoming an auto hub has resulted in more chennai-ites getting jobs there, not more outsiders coming into chennai, I have a first hand idea of this coz my father used to work in hyundai, and remember that tughlaq's idea of shifting capital was well-justified, only the means were foolish. I would suggest you look into the education example more closely. I am talking of location-independant stuff like the service sector. It'll force people to move to other areas in the country. This will create some national unity which, according to me is sorely missing.
ReplyDeletePoi I think it is necessary that ppl not just state the prob but give a solution as well. But the problem is that when adopting a capitalist economy and free market, centralization of anything through Govt influence would be impossible. All the organizations want different factors of production or input and they would not shift.
ReplyDeleteAlso, controlling these focus zones would be handed to commitees which will then get dangerous levels of power as the entire country would be dependent on them for that service and in that case it wil lead to a struggle for the overall rule of the country. There are several cases where power does corrupt.
I agree that it is only hypothetically that we can discuss this but somehow the solution does not seem feasible to me until we adopt a socialist form of govt. It is just not currently possible.
Also once again divides would occur between the people in these places regarding who is important etc and in a country like India with corrupt politics, it would almost become like the caste system all over again.
At the risk of repeating myself i say, no location-dependent activity will have to shift. a company will not have to move its factory but will have to move all its corporate activities to a certain zone. plus, these are not gonna be administrative units, we can simply make some areas attractive destinations for somethings. now we find every state subsidizing industries, institutions in some areas, thus every state wants to be self-sufficient which leads to this problem. simply, put, we say don't make every state have everything but bundle them into focus zones. Hence we are all more interdependent and hence more united. Am i making myself clear???
ReplyDeletehmm... ok i get ur point... I was not just talking about raw material or location dependent but also labour costs, skilled labour availability, target market distance etc will factor in. Still the principle u stated can apply to all industries, and would work as long as it is run in a loose fashion. Complete shifting or centralization is just not possible.
ReplyDeleteThere are some services that will result in greater returns than others. That being the case, how will you come to a decision on which state provides which service. Some states are likely to prosper more due to the nature of the service, as a result of which other states will want to provide the same...
ReplyDeleteall services are in some way dependent on other services. i don't think above problem will arise because a service being profitable will fetch returns for multiple zones.
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ReplyDeleteI think you are exaggerating the need for 'national unity'. India is a diverse country with around 70% of its population in villages, where most of the people born in villages spend their entire lives there, and to them, national unity is an irrelevant/unknown topic.
ReplyDeleteAnd the urban india is diverse- you have people from various parts of the country working in various fields in chennai, blore, mumbai, noida, jamshedpur and so on. There are no visible cultural strains in these areas.
I think there is a culture of 'tolerance' in our urban areas between people from various parts of the country, and as long as that stays cemented, we need not be concerned about 'national unity'.
i know of enough chennai ppl who'll be more comfortable in london than calcutta to suggest otherwise
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