The Indian Ethos
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Anglo-American triumph by T N Ninan (February 8) is a lucid exposition of the lessons to be learnt from the East Asian crisis. The underlying presumption, however, is that it is the triumph of one system or model compared with another: which brand of capitalism best serves an economy? is the refrain. In my opinion, the question should be: what is the system that suits a particular economy?
In the endeavour to answer this question, a clue may emerge as to the system likely to suit India. Remember, the same stimuli do not always stimulate every people or every country. While many a European nation went out to conquer colonies in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, Germany and Italy stayed put on the Continent. When the Industrial Revolution came, southern and eastern Europe were much slower to seize the opportunities than their north-western counterparts.
Similarly, the priority or preference of every people need not be the same, namely globalisation, as assumed by Mr Ninan.
In the ultimate analysis, the Indian economy is for the Indians and has got to be largely of the Indians and willy nilly by the Indians. Incidentally, if foreigners, either with their markets or with their technology or investment, can help Indians to prosper they should be welcome.
If, however, there is a conflict between the welcome of the foreigner and the welfare of the Indian, the latter has to supersede the former. In judging the welfare of the Indian, a balance has to be struck between the importance of the chain of suppliers and the mass of consumers.
This is where the peculiarity of the Indian ethos comes into play. Unlike the Protestant ethic, the Hindu gentry is more concerned with happiness than with success, more with contentment than with enrichment.
Viewing the issue in clinical terms, the dice is loaded not merely against India but the South. Until the advent of electricity and the Industrial Revolution, most of the North suffered from the disadvantage of dark cold winters. Whereas the South had the tropical advantage of being able to work long days the year round. With heat and light being plentiful in the North, the balance of advantage swung against the South, a lot of which was colonised and a lot of which is today unable to shed off the lust of neo-imperialism.
Countries like India should, therefore, give priority to searching for either a novel technology or a new strategy which could overtake the North.