I am neither an economist nor a dooms-day prophet. I have always focused my efforts on serving and supporting this great nation of ours in my own limited way. However I still can’t accept the fact of ‘’India’s development’’ that has been trumpeted from the rooftops. Somehow the whole thing does not ring true. I do agree that India has the potential to be world beaters but are we really developing and are we really shining?

It all sounds fine on paper but when I look around me, the vast divide between the haves and the have-nots, the powerful and the influential as opposed to the powerless and the weak, I see nothing shining and over the years since this phrase was coined, I have come to realize that the entire thing is a sham and a mere PR exercise aimed at making the common man think that their political leaders are taking them towards prosperity. Whose prosperity may I ask; the rulers or the ruled? Like all PR exercises in India and the messages therein, the concept of India shining was nothing but mere exaggeration and built on a bundle of lies.

I know that the brick-bats are going to be to be flying today and a vast majority of my peers in this community are going to disagree with me. However, it is high time somebody called a spade a spade. I am not making these comments blindly or falsely. Any person with common sense can see the logic behind what I am saying.

The fact of the matter is that we started developing but then like any growth without proper foundation we now seem to be cracking up and floundering. I had stated this in a small forum eight years ago and was lucky to leave that place unhurt.

Economic growth has to be built on the pillars of infrastructure and values, ethics and discipline. Unfortunately, my dear country has neither. Look at the condition of our roads and you will know what I’m talking about. If major cities like Delhi and Bombay have roads or apologies for roads with potholes, nay craters, then imagine the plight of the villages. Most of them have no connecting roads unless they harbour the ancestral homes or resorts of some minister or influential politician. Quite a few villages and hamlets in our country still do not have electricity and adequately safeguarded potable drinking water. Why talk about villages when our beloved capital Delhi itself is starved of power for long stretches? Thank God I moved out of Delhi before the commencement of this summer for I wouldn’t have been able to survive another summer there with power cuts and sleepless nights making me a nervous wreck unfit to function at work the next day.

I have always maintained that Delhi is an overgrown village and I pity its citizens who are looking forward to suffer the additional burden of the 2010 Commonwealth Games and the pressure it is going to exert on the hard pressed infrastructure; however prepared the administration may attempt to be.

One of the reasons for the so called optimists to start chanting “India Shining” was the stock market which appeared to be booming with the advent of the new millennium. Worthless paper which was overrated and appeared valuable along with fly by night investors who were mainly hedge funds in disguise fuelled this “India Shining” mirage. The ordinary Indian not knowing what was fuelling this boom ploughed his hard earned savings into the stock market in the hope of making some quick money only to lose his shirt.

Another reason for assuming that India’s economy was growing rapidly was the growth in certain non-core sectors. However, this growth was not evenly distributed throughout all the sectors and only a few sectors flourished, while sectors like agriculture and energy remained in the doldrums. Such growth cannot be called overall development. As one of my dear friends clearly put it, “We say a child is growing only when all parts of his or her anatomy are growing in a proper proportion. If only the lower limbs were to grow more than the other parts of the child’s anatomy, we would call it a swelling and not growth”. Similarly the Indian economy is not really growing proportionately and its so called growth is merely a swelling.

While the growth rate graph appeared to be heading upwards, this growth was not clearly visible on the ground as it was accompanied upwards by spiraling inflation which could not be checked due to uncalled for populist measures despite the warning signals from the Reserve Bank of India.

Infrastructure necessary for the well being of the invaluable human resources of this country are also as thread bare as the clothes covering the dignity of the deprived poor of this country. Hospitals are available only in major cities and do not have sufficient beds. Patients can be found lying on corridors waiting for doctors who function at their pleasure and do not hesitiate to go on strikes holding the lives of the sons of the soil to ransom. Primary Health Centres (PHC) in villages which are lucky to have such centres have no doctors and other requisite skilled staff.

Primary education is also in a mess and even the poor do not want to enroll their children in schools run by the government or local bodies.

The second point on which I have built my contention that our growth is a mere mirage and that this growth cannot be sustained is the lack of discipline and ethics. By discipline I mean the subservience of selfish interests for the general common good. Corruption and greed are the order of the day. Conmen and unscrupulous businessmen who only want to make a fast buck, abound.

In our fight for survival we have become aggressive and have even forgotten to say such simple words such as, “Please, Sorry and Thank you” which are nothing but lubricants for a smooth and happy life. Even the few who use these words are looked down upon and taken advantage of rather than respected.

(To be contd.)