Sunday Posts

China and India stepped back from the brink, at least for the moment. But the flare-up in June - and indeed the ongoing tensions - has strained relationships and nudged India closer to the United States. But, not many people in India would readily buy the argument that India should become a member of the Quad (a grouping of United States, Japan, India and Australia for the control of Indo-Pacific) to face-off China. For them, it really means Indian lives and India's prosperity are put in the line for containing China. Despite all the public outrage at China's misbehaviour and even with all the forthcoming bollywood fare trashing China, that would be a hard sell in India. Indian leaders, despite their almost pagan love for spectacles, are realists. Even though they sell to the public India's impending great power status, they are well aware of the constraints that India's divided polity, widespread poverty and lack of productive manpower impose. For all the transformativ...

War and geopolitics are not my focus, invested as I am in the history of universities and the role of intellectuals in society. But a combination of factors, the recent India-Pakistan skirmish, the Indian government's revisionist and critical stance on Nehru and my own interest in historical interactions between India and China, have led me to look closely on the Sino-Indian war of 1962. This is very much a work in progress, as I have compiled a reading list and started working through it, but one thing is clear to me right at this initial stage: The history of war has huge contemporary significance, particularly for India, and this should indeed be studied better there.  For example, this war weakened Nehru politically at home and in the world stage: There is no denying the truth in Mountbatten's comment that had Nehru died in 1958, he would have possibly gone down in history as one of the greatest statesmen ever. The war also changed, I shall argue, India's position...

Last summer, I was at lunch at a Mumbai restaurant when the host asked me whether I can help in facilitating international partnerships for an educational institution he has been planning to set up. I often get requested this, and I almost always say no, knowing that the private Indian institutions are often too immature in their approach and opportunistic in their intention for meaningful partnerships to work. But this conversation was different: This was a serious social organisation with a purpose, and I wanted to seriously explore it. So, I presented my views, that there is very little to be gained by looking to collaborate with a Western institution - as they rarely understand the ground realities of India and are all too opportunistic and commercially driven - and rather, the approach should be to explore meaningful partnerships with Chinese institutions.  It was a difficult argument to pursue. The arguments about the limitations of the Western model of education - and...

It seems that the Chinese economy is coming to a screeching halt! If the latest growth figures indicate a trend, it seems that all that public debt/investment-fuelled growth on steroids that China enjoyed for over three decades is now due for a payback time, and there is little to show for it. Now, one has to pronounce judgements on this with caution. The collapse of China has been predicted and proved decisively wrong, before. China is not a fragile twentieth-century variety of a nation, as some in Eastern Europe were, but millennia-old civilization with a distinctive culture and polity: It is unlikely to wither away for the lack of growth. Besides, it is fair to assume that the Chinese leadership were long preparing for such a possibility. China had, over the last two decades at least, a curse of the surplus - it was hoarding up US Dollars as it did not know what to do with the huge trade imbalance in its favour - and it has been steadily exporting that surplus in the for...

My journeys abroad was to make sense of myself, to see from the outside what can't be seen from the inside. Perhaps predictably, but at once ironically, I ended up in England, mother country of modern Indian imagination, hawking - as I can't find a better word - English manners and experiences to the fawning middle classes. Admired simply as I live in England, it became increasingly difficult for me to leave, as all suggestions of my intent to return were invariably met by premonitions of something being wrong, as no one really ever wants, or should want, to return. Even the rather satisfying moments of canvassing India's economic progress were almost always punctured by grossly embarrassing proclamations of 'special relationship', in full knowledge that the affectations flow only one way; in my stock of trade, Kolkata wants to be London without ever London wanting to reciprocate. Therefore, 'self-colonialisation' as a concept appears real from my vant...

India is in the middle of a great transformation, driven by the aspirations of its young people. This transformation is apparent to any visitor in India, primarily through its business parks and the towering apartment blocks, its new roads and its omnipresent media, the confidence of its leaders and its street vibe. India, the collective claims, is the country of the future. And, this focus on the future is playing out in its education system. The country has affected an unprecedented expansion of its education system - unprecedented for India, though following the example of and in a smaller scale than China - particularly in Higher and Vocational education. This is the most exciting part of the transformation:  new education in India is built to create a whole new India, a fresh new future. This educational transformation, however, needs a new imagination. India's future is unlikely to be like India's past, and even recent past, all those Call Centres and IT Hub...

Universities seemed to have lost the plot when it replaced its sense of purpose - whether theological or nationalistic - with the vacuous pursuit of quality, which really stands for nothing. The term we all came to love, 'quality education', is actually a pathetic postmodern posturing, a surrender to the consumer ethic and an abandonment of any grander project of shaping human futures. And, this framework of valuelessness, one could argue, leads directly to the current state of crisis in the university ranks: We may not need them anymore if only we need a conveyor belt of making consumers. But, then, this is only one conception of the future ahead of us. This is a powerful conception, reinforced by all things we live by, and it seems there is no escape. And, as it happens, we can already glimpse into the brave new world of technologically enabled societies built around a few superstars and lots of indebted consumers: The whole story seemed incongruous with our middle clas...

Traditionally, the modern Indian education, instituted and shaped by the British colonists, have developed around 'the temptation of the West', built primarily around the English language and the values and attitudes that come with it. Even the attempts at indigenous education have almost always been shaped by European revivalist formula, looking backwards to draw inspiration from an imaginary past, based on a fantastical idea of racial purity and exclusion of the others, expressed with a triumphalism devoid of content and context. And, this whole idea was to be played out within the bubble of a modern consumer economy - Levi's celebrating ' Khadi ' is perhaps symptomatic - a doomed approach to fashion an identity devoid of commitment, values and connection.  This affects education more than anything else perhaps. Uneasy with the identity question, Indian education has developed an escapism, resorting to blind technocracy rather than a search for answers. This...

I have now finished reading Pankaj Mishra's From The Ruins of the Empire, a fascinating tale of the idea of Asia in the time of European conquests. This is a colonial history in the reverse, a sensitive, balanced tale of interactions, tensions and ideas around the lives of men who made it. The story is structured around the lives of two central figures, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838 - 97) and Liang Qichao (1873 - 1929), and their many contemporaries who debated and developed the idea of the new Asia in the face of the advances and adventures of the newly industrialised Europe. Other prominent Asians, men like Rabindranath Tagore, Gandhi, Rashid Rida, Sun Yet Sen, Lu Xun, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, leading men of Japan leading the Meiji restoration and imperial Japan, the young Ottomans and European Socialists all make an appearance, all in stark contrast with the old world colonialists such Lord Elgin, the Czar, David Lloyd George etc alongside a rhetoric-obsessed, duplicitous Woodr...

I recently spoke in an event discussing world economies 'beyond China': My topic was Africa and I reported what I spoke about in an earlier post on this blog (Read Beyond China: Why Africa Matters ). I was, however, not speaking about India's prospects in this changed world. It is only fitting for me to supplement my earlier post with what I think of India's prospects. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- China's prosperity and ascendancy present both a great opportunity and a grim challenge to India. China's economic growth, and consequent rise in Military Power, dwarf India's position in its immediate neighbourhood, where it faces many challenges anyway. Its relative loss of significance will both impact its domestic polity, where a particular firebrand nationalism is on the rise, and its resource economies, which is far more interdependent with its neighbou...

These days, most intelligent conversations tend to focus on two alternative possibilities. First, the more pessimistic ones, see the current recession going the same way as the Great Depression did, slowly altering political opinions and driving the world into protectionism and national chauvinism, finally leading to some kind of great war, which may lead to an end of civilisation. The proponents see a challenger power, like the 19th century Germany, in China, and the incumbent in the form of the massive global empire of the United States. Next, there is the optimistic view, which does not see a violent end of the civilisation but a re-balancing: This is more the doctrine of decline of the West and the rise of the rest. This view suggests a power-shift, to China and India, and possibly Brazil, and that they would emerge as the World's preeminent economic powers, in a replay of what happened during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth century Europe. To be clear, this is not the only vie...

In the context of the discussion about the East Asian Union, there is a lot of unease in America and Europe. It almost appears that there is some kind of conspiracy against them, by some socialist powers, though the idea is generating in Japan and the adherents, countries like South Korea and Taiwan, are strong American allies. I have been told that the scheme is to undermine American hegemony, which is partially correct, but seen from a different perspective, this is not such a bad thing for America itself. Let me explain. I do not think East Asian Union, if it ever happens, will be about undermining anyone. We should not think about this in nationalist terms; as this is not going to be a nation and will not act like a nation. This is possibly the strongest rationale for promoting such an union. Asia, as of today, is much like the Europe of the Twentieth century. Home of strong and emerging powers, biggest armies and arsenal. Many of the world's most dangerous points of tension ar...

In the light of the Hatoyama doctrine and the shifting world economics and politics, it is time for us to rethink our plans in India and how this country should develop in the next decade. I am a great believer that India has the potential to develop into a powerful economy, but I do not think this is a given, and a lot will depend on the choices we make with regard to our development model. I am not sure it was about liberalization and that's it, however much the English language press wants us to believe that. It seems that we have caught up this free market credo just after its time has passed - we have a penchant for picking up the doctrines after its sell-by date - and it is important for us to think hard, yet again, on what is right for us. I am not talking about a militant nationalism or old school protectionism, though both of those doctrines may make a comeback in the Western economies real soon. India should not, and I am confident, would not, follow the European and Ame...

In the context of my recent comment regarding the East Asian Community, I decided to post Yukio Hatoyama's article from International Herald Tribune, where it appeared in English. This article, understandably, created so much anxiety in the Washington Policy circles. However, it is said that there is less to worry about Hatoyama's intent than is currently thought. His comments about the failure of American style capitalism is all but common these days, and his idea of an East Asian community is not a new one. Besides, it was pointed out that the English article omits important sections that appeared in the original, longer, Japanese one, sections which would have made this sound much less belligerent. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yukio Hatoyama heads the Democratic Party of Japan, and has since become the prime minister of Japan. A longer version of this article appears in the September issue of the month...