Indian Economics 101

"For everything that's true about India, the opposite is also true." Sounds like some major hedging, right? I've heard at least 3 speakers use this refrain when talking about their area of expertise within India. So, what's up with that? It's actually a very useful idea when thinking about any group of people in order to avoid over generalizing, and it speaks specifically to both the vastness and complex diversity of India. An official from the Fulbright comission gave us a useful way to speak about our observations about India without giving people the false idea that ALL Indians behave in a certain way, or believe a certain thing, when he suggested the phrase, "In my experience...". It's a great moderating phrase that I might not add each time I blog, but I am now officially stamping globally to all of my observations past and future. When, for example, I wrote that Hindus don't adore idols but ASPECTS of those idols, I actually should have written "Hindus who are inclined to observe one aspect of their faith by praying to idols...." and lots of other caveats, but you can see that's cumbersome, so please mentally insert that moderate qualifying tone to all blogs. Actually,as I reflect on this idea, I think many of you probably already do that with my speech in general, so keep it up!

Tuesday's orientation featured many wonderful speakers. I'm leaving here with a very high regard for U of Wisconsin's South Asian Studies department. First a political science professor, Dr. Aseema Sinha, gave an excellent lecture on meteoric rise of India onto the global scene. She was riveting and spoke as fast as I do, and she was tossing around some economic and political terms that were challenging to absorb at warp speed. I had been wondering just exactly how India seemed to sprint to the forefront of producing nations, and she offered some great insight. It was interesting to hear her constantly compare India to China, and describe differences. As a political scientist and Indian, India got the thumbs up, but she had good things to say about China! The fact that India began its nationhood as a democracy from the beginning was significant, because it meant initially that their GNP was growing slower than nondemocratic nations as it provided welfare and heavily invested in consumer goods and its infrastructure. The State created a private sector through credit and subsidies, and diversified the economy, which set them up for good times ahead. I hope the political science people in the crowd, and you know who you are, are impressed that I can even write a cogent sentence about these topics. Oh... I hope that was a cogent sentence! Anyway, the State controlled almost everything after 1947, and reacted to colonial rule to Britian by deciding to become self sufficient. Then came their financial crisis of 1991, and the IMF stepped in and made some interesting concessions to their usual set of stipulations, and helped them move forward after some downturn. From 1985 to now, there has been a dramatic increase in their GNP (from about 3% to about 9%, before the current recession, thanks USA!) My understanding is (this is where right side of my brain kicks in and wants to learn a language or sing a song instead of think about economics) the liberalization of strict governmental controls on all things economic lead to very prosperous times indeed.

She then spoke about current challenges in India, including the huge population (1.13 billion), the low GDP ($820/capita, or $2,700 PPP, which means how much purchasing power that $820 represents), a literacy rate of 61%, and extreme poverty (I couldn't write quickly enough to grab that statistic, but it's huge, and depressing anyway). There are 23 OFFICIAL languages, in 23 states and 1,600 dialects. Those numbers make my ELL job seem unimpressive, I must say.

For the educators in the crowd, there are some interesting differences regionally regarding literacy rate, which varies from over 95% in the state of Kerala, to less than half that in the upper states like Utter Pradesh. Also, she spoke about an interesting initiative to get more girls to school (can I get a shout out from the females??) by building bathrooms in some schools, because modesty prevents girls from coming if they can't use the bathroom privately. Smart move, I say. Also, they have some money initiatives they are trying in some states, like send a girl to school for the day,and get one rupee established in a fund (FOR HER, yeah, that's right, SHE would actually see the money....these people are thinking) that she could access when she's finished schooling.

She talked about despite all the HYPE of India's boom economy,with a growth rate of 8%, 2nd fastest growing economy (nod to China), very young population, a large middle class, and an urbanization bonus (too political science for me, didn't get it exactly), there is still much inequality and poverty. 400 MILLION people earn less than $1/day, and absolute poverty is high. Women are less literate than men, and their population growth isn't in the areas they would like it to be, i,e, it's in the poorest regions of India. She raised the puzzle that despite all this inequality and poverty,there have been no serous challenges to the democratic institution, except some isolated recent violence against the state. She talked about a 2006 nuclear sales pact between India and the U.S. I'd never heard of (reading the arts section of the paper again, I guess!) and its significance in many areas. She ended with some great news, which was that woman/leader extraordinaire, Secretary Clinton, will be in India when we're there to give some long awaited speech about relations. She thought Clinton might be too busy to have tea, but I'm holding out hope we might bump into her.

WHEW! I was sweating when this lecture was over (only 1.5 hours), but it was a good sweat. I learned so much and she was very engaging. I don't know how you political science people think these big thoughts each day without your head popping off, quite frankly. I'll be glad to start reporting about great meals soon, I can tell you that. We had other great lectures, but another blog, perhaps. I've got to go eat some chocolate and think noneconomic thoughts for a while....

But first, another Hindu deity story.... Today's word is TRIMURTI (say try-MOOR-tee). In Hinduism, God is thought to be made up of 3 gods. This holy trinity (sound familiar, Christians?) is known as the Trimurti. The 3 forms are the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Hindus believe that the gods represent the following 3 aspects: creation (Brahma), preservation (Vishnu), and destruction (Shiva). However, do not forget that behind all great gods are great goddesses to assist them. (I'd prefer the goddesses standing in FRONT of the gods, but it's their story, not mine.) These goddesses are the consorts of the Trimurti: Sarasvati, Lakshmi, and Parvati. That's just an introduction...you'll be reading about each of them in the coming blogs.