India – The land of organised chaos.

The very thought of going back to India was enough to give me a surge of happiness and pride. After all, India is the place full future opportunities, not in the EU, not in the US, but in India. It is the place where everybody wants to be. The high observed growth in the GDP, the buzzing economy; the ever expanding IT sectors are the pillars that would carry India into the future where she will emerge as the largest and the best. This is what everyone says about India in Italy. Notwithstanding the fact that it is still a extremely poor country. What makes people say this? This time around I have come to India not just as an Indian (which I am proud to be) but as someone who is here to absorb and experience the Indian way of living. I also will be searching for or rather trying to experience evidences to support the above claims. I must say, with utmost regret that the evidences for a collective development have been difficult to spot and i do not see India growing for all.

What I do see, however, is a co-existence of two parallel, contradictory worlds. One is a rich fast developing middle class and high class with an ever increasing purchasing power. The second is the poor, underprivileged and hated class that has no name or category in India. The curious thing is that people are actually aware of this distinction, but the problem is that they are aware of this distinction to the extent of forgetting it. This may sound weird but for me it is evident. A simple short ride on a public bus is enough to prove this claim of mine. You look around as you travel and all you see is a unique mix of people, dust, animals and at times a disgusting stink. People act as if the world owes everything to them. In a city like Lucknow which was once hailed as the city of courtly manners and culture, is fast becoming a city of foul language and ill manners. It is common and frequent to see people shouting at each other, swearing and abusing as habitually as breathing. Another thing that really stands out in this city in particular and India in general is the sense of driving or shall i say the-nonsense of driving that the people of this country have. There is an absolute ignorance about following the lanes. People would honk at any and everyone, which for me is extremely frustrating.

The chaos is not just prevalent; it is deeply embedded and is now a part of “Indian way of Living”. This is not all. The curious thing is that it is an organised chaos, as uncanny as that may sound, it’s true. People are so used to living in a chaotic way that it seems perfectly normal to them now. Take for example the traffic in a city like Lucknow. It is perfectly normal here to walk on the roads even though there are footpaths all along. The white line dividing the road into lanes is for the road to look beautiful and is seemingly a sign of development. Driving in lanes is a concept alien here and people take on themselves to develop and follow imaginary lanes which interestingly are never straight but have all kinds of curves and twists. It’s chaotic to the extent of being organised. Even in a muddled situation people know which way to follow and it is the same every time.

I find it astonishing to see people behaving this way. Why would anyone want to live in a disordered way? I’ve wondered for long and what i feel is this. People in India are ok being second best. They are satisfied with being second best and bask in the glory of acting as second fiddle. Every one longs for, presumably, a perfect situation but is satisfied with a Semi perfect situation. Yaha pe sab Chalta hai. If you truly ask someone nothing is of extreme importance. If everything goes according to the plan then it’s all right, if not, it is forced upon the will of God which must have been against it. I feel an extreme lack of motivation to do anything widespread within the people.

Development in India tells us another fascinatingly unromantic and a sad story. The swift expansion of Indian economy has touched the lives of millions of people in the world, except the poorest in India. As i mentioned before, India hosts a co-existence of two parallel, contradictory worlds. Ironically, those people who should have been positively affected by the rise of Indian economy have been left behind and are now struggling to keep pace with the fast moving Indian middle class. The poor in India still remain among the poorest in the world. In some cases poorer than the people of sub Saharan Africa. It seems almost impossible to believe that a country which is being hailed as the next super power has the smallest GDP per capita amongst BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, china) countries. The GDP growth rate of India which has had its share of publicity and appreciation is basically due to a very high growth rate of population. In the last 10 years the population of India has grown 19% which is much ahead of China (7%) or the EU (3%). This is both, a boon and a bane. Due to a large workforce we are able to produce more and consume more. This results in a high GDP growth rate because of domestic consumption. However, the ever-increasing population has been increasing the load on our resources exponentially. The adverse effect on our resources is and has been phenomenal. What we need to do is to extend and transform our goal of development into efficient and responsible development and not just development for the sake of it. A country of over 1 billion people cannot become a super power with only about 30 % of its citizens being actually gaining by the expansion of the economy.