Global Leadership: An Analysis of India as a Knowledge Work Leader
One of the under reported aspects of the terrorist attacks in Mumbia in 2008 was the potential impact this will have on India's abilities as an emergent economic power (“Diplomatic Outsourcing”, 2009). This writer's contention is that one reason for the under reporting is that any negative elements are non-existent or at the very least quite minimal; the reason, the writer believes, is that India itself has reached a tipping point in which its place as a major player in global commerce is fixed. And terrorist attacks, though they will occur, are no longer a disruption to the country’s economy as they once were a decade ago (Friedman, 2001, pp. 10-30; Pink, 2008, pp. 2-22).
This report will provide a critical analysis of India’s role as an emergent economic power. It will do so through the lenses of the following: a description and critique of the country’s strategy for growth; a description of its source of comparative advantage; a discussion about how cultural and political influences have shaped its competitive advantage; a description of the country’s trade policies, and an analysis of the country’s interrelationships with the west and with developing countries. This scholarly paper will then conclude with the writer’s perspective, based on his research on this topic, about India’s sustainability prowess in the wake of disruptive, and ever evolving changes in its socioeconomic structures.
Strategy for Growth
What has to be understood about India foremost, before any probe and analysis in to the country’s geopolitical and socioeconomic role, is that its culture and its history are every bit as precious to civilization as is Africa and the Middle East. Indeed, in many ways India can be considered the womb, the mother, if you will, of the higher ideals of justice, ethics and spirituality which ultimately were born (synthesized) in to the transforming knowledge that the Greeks and Romans would inherit. The term “mother India” as it is often referred to by Indian and non-Indian intellectuals alike is no accident; it is an acknowledging of crucial role the country has played in global history. Modern day India is still very much steeped in its foundational roots that trace back to the times before Christ (“The Story of India, 2009). To know and to understand India is to engage an act akin to looking at the stars at night—what one is really looking at is the past.
Modern India is a country that has grappled with colonization, civil war, and debilitating poverty, to emerge as one much closer to being a developed country than at any other time in its history. This does mean that there are still deeply entrenched problems. Poverty conditions are sustained for still far too many, and the country’s most protracted ongoing problem—continued tensions between its neighbor, Pakistan, which is every bit as nuclear capable as India—is a seeming albatross with little prospect of being removed any time soon.
Being a BRIC country and the advantages thereof. The U.S. investment firm, Goldman Sachs noted of India in 2007 that it was one of four emergent economically developing countries that would experience a quadrupling of its per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the next 13 years (“India’s Rising Growth Potential”, 2007). The company went on to say that the Indian economy would surpass the United States by 2043. Perhaps what was most interesting about the investment firm’s report, though, was that it grouped India in with three other countries displaying similar signs of growth unprecedented for their history; Brazil, Russia, and China. Known as BRIC countries, these four would come to be bell weathers for how the globalization and internationalization of businesses and cultures was proceeding. India, a close neighbor of China (located on India’s northern border), was most readily identified as having significant potential for growth because of social and economic reforms it had instituted during the 1990s. These reforms moved its economy from being a socialistic one to being more market driven. Correspondingly, these reforms brought with it an inflow of multinational corporations (MNCs) moving their businesses there. These companies found benefit in India’s educated workforce (part of the reforms had been to accelerate education of the younger generation) and its proximity to China, an economic powerhouse in its own right and one that had established a highly complex supply chain with India. A supply chain is a network of vendor business operations that facilitate the movement of goods and services from one country to another. This combination of India’s for having reformed to a market economy and then benefiting from its proximity to China helped create both comparative and competitive advantages for it, something that will be discussed in subsequent sections of this paper.
Meaningful growth. India, as a whole, has bought in to and clearly shows signs of being in the pursuit of fulfilling the projections offered by Goldman Sachs. The problem, though, is that however well intentioned its aims for becoming a fully developed country may be, there is significant incongruence in its strategy for growth that calls in to question whether it will actually be able to become what the investment firm predicted. Specifically, the country has depended on its leaders to usher in an era of unfettered market driven reforms but it has also expected its leaders to reconcile the enormously complex internal problems still quite prevalent in the country, problems that cause a marginalization of a large share of the population from benefiting from those reforms. Identified by the World Bank as the most populous country in the world, India is often viewed as being short sighted in its growth planning, with much of this being due to enormous pressure from MNCs. The Multinational Corporations see a strengthening of their position in the region if the country accelerates its growth to the speed indicated by Goldman Sachs. Doing so would certainyl bring about enormous short term profits but it would do so at the expense of deferring the poverty-social issues of the country out to the future for another generation to have to grapple with. Ironically, destabilizing conditions such as terrorism and very real threats to national security in India that was plainly seen in the 2008 Mumbia tragedy is actually forcing discussion about addressing domestic issues to the front burner. And for nationals who are considering returning to India to bring home their education and wealth in order to help grow the middle class, gestures such as these bode well for enticing them—many of whom are starting families and looking to build a future for that family—to return to a better, less myopic and more inclusive India than the one they left.
So India’s strategy for growth must very much be grounded in the reality of addressing its varied constituencies while also keeping steady focus on growing itself as a serious player in the field of BRIC nations that are emerging in to western-level developed nation status.
Comparative Advantage
Comparative advantage is described by Landsburg (2009) as a condition by which a country capable of producing the most goods and/or services at the lowest costs has a distinct advantage over a country that cannot deliver the same. This condition, posits the author, can ultimately serve to the mutual benefit of both parties as the party with the comparative advantage can free up the other party’s resources for other matters by being able to obtain needed resources at a cheaper cost from the advantaged party. This is a condition that India has some great benefits in.
The country (along with China, another one that has significant comparative advantage in delivery of goods and services) has become a pariah for organized labor leaders in the west because of its ability to provide low cost goods and services in many areas, including key knowledge work labor roles such as engineering and publishing. This condition has added to India’s image as an emerging world economic power. According to the Boston Consulting Group India’s off-shoring capability (its ability to provide goods and services to other countries), accounted for roughly 65% of the global off-shoring market and was expected to grow steadily over the next five years (“Ten Tips from Successful European Companies in India”, 2007). One of its important assets in this area, according to the consulting group, is that “India is the largest English speaking nation in the world with the second largest pool of scientists and engineers,” second only to the U.S. Lastly, the consulting group notes that India is the preferred venue for human capital to meet knowledge work demands in the global economy because of both a mixture of having superior management and technical wherewithal but also the lower cost for the delivering of these services.
But this position could be a transitional one as the country, which has also been hit hard by the global wide mortgage crisis, is also a long way from having stable and fully functional regulations that allow for the littlest bureaucracy as possible. In fact, the country is very much known for its difficulty in getting new businesses to start up or to facilitate the expansion of existing businesses. There is still notable levels of corruption and graft and there are also internal resistances to there being too much influence from the west in to Indian affairs. This sort of push back is making India’s comparative advantage not as significant as it once was. In fact, if the country is not careful, it could end up squandering the timely opportunities it as now since western countries and others, including in Africa and the Middle East, are pushing hard to gain leverage in the areas of global technology and the service/entertainment industries.
Competitive Advantage
According to Porter (1998), competitive advantage occurs when there are three conditions present: cost advantage, differentiation, and focus (pp. 40-42). Cost advantage, which is akin to comparative advantage, occurs when, as previously mentioned, one party can produce a product at a lower cost. Differentiation occurs when one party can produce a product better than the other party. And Focus occurs when there is emphasis on a narrow focus in the market, a particular zeroing in on one segment of the market. Given these definitions, it would not be easy to say that India has competitive advantage. It would be more accurate to say that the country has competitive advantage at some levels while not having it at others.
India definitely has competitive advantage when it comes to being highly sought after by MNCs for its highly skilled and relatively inexpensive labor. But it is not so easily able to meet the Differentiation criteria of Porter’s because it has not yet ironed out its regulatory problems to be able to have the kind of consistent quality assurance that allows for better products to be produced. It is still at its best when it works in partnership with western-based companies, not as independent entities.
The Boston Consulting Group notes some of the challenges India faces in this area. It notes that the country has a “difficult operating environment” that has been “brought about by government policy and processes, procedural bottlenecks and the legacy of cumbersome labor laws.” While it should be noted that there is inherent bias in the consulting firm’s observation since it is noted for representing MNCs, the concern is not just one expressed by them. Kapur and Ramamurti (2001), whose work on India’s competitive advantage came out six years before the consulting firm’s report, are also cautious about making claims that the country has a firm grasp on competitive advantage. They too cite the regulatory problems as being a major hurdle the country must face.
Both sources also point out that India’s poverty, illiteracy rate, and health concerns eat in to the country’s ability to emerge fully as a competitive force to be reckoned with. A quarter of the Indian population still earns less than $1 per day and 40% of the population is illiterate. Still, the consulting firm did note:
What this means is that India’s most significant supporter are the MNCs and the consulting firms such as the Boston group, as they have a vested interest in the country being successful. But even with them being fairly optimistic information being disseminated about progress being made in the country, the very essence of the country’s ability to produce knowledge workers who will be able to sustain the population and, correspondingly, encourage reforms in government policies that will help support overall better living conditions there, is what will inevitably determine India’s competitive status. In other words, this condition cannot be forced. And it must occur organically, from within the population, and not from overt influences from westerners who are looking out for their own interests and bottom lines.
A final point that is worth making regarding India’s competitive advantage circumstances is to be found in the country’s relationship with its northern neighbor, China. Because of their close proximity, the countries have established an excellent supply chain relationship. Thompson, Strickland, and Gamble (2007) describes this as a potentially favorable condition for a country in three ways: by helping to lower operational costs for the participating companies and can help both achieve product differentiation where in other instances this is not the case; as a way of transferring competitive value competencies (a way of “branding” the companies’ image by having this type of partnership), and thirdly by generally broadening the companies’ resource strength and capabilities “to coordinate its dispersed activities in ways that a domestic-only competitor cannot” (p. 227).While this does not directly intersect with competitive advantage matters, the supply chain relationship between the countries strengthens their prestige in the World Trade Organization and symbolizes favorable economic cooperation in an otherwise politically tense region of the world. If India is to take its rightful place as a true competitive force in the global marketplace, it will be done so upon a foundation built on cooperative relationships such as this.
To this point, Slumdog Millionaire has become a powerful diplomatic tool for India in its effort to leverage favorable policies, both trade and economic, with the west. And an unintended consequence is likely that Bollywood will continue to transform perceptions about India in ways scarcely imagined right now.
India’s political climate is in transition. Its present leadership is trying hard to push the country into pervasive middle class status but this is not consistent (or politically smart) in a country where thousands are still living in what the Economist aptly describes “shocking” levels of poverty. The country’s advancement will never be sustainable as long as it has a huge social safety net commitment. The country will have to find a way to spend some of its growing earnings from investments from the west to job training and employment incentives for locals through tax advantages to foreign nationals. Not doing so could turn otherwise favorable international sentiment toward the country in the opposite direction. This will not be the easiest thing to do since India is grappling with its own version of the mortgage crisis. But one of the hallmarks of a truly advanced country is that it shows a clear commitment to helping improve the lot of the less advantaged; India has the opportunity to do this and should do so. This must be a front burner objective for thought leaders in India if it expects to keep growing at a steady pace.
This report will provide a critical analysis of India’s role as an emergent economic power. It will do so through the lenses of the following: a description and critique of the country’s strategy for growth; a description of its source of comparative advantage; a discussion about how cultural and political influences have shaped its competitive advantage; a description of the country’s trade policies, and an analysis of the country’s interrelationships with the west and with developing countries. This scholarly paper will then conclude with the writer’s perspective, based on his research on this topic, about India’s sustainability prowess in the wake of disruptive, and ever evolving changes in its socioeconomic structures.
Strategy for Growth
What has to be understood about India foremost, before any probe and analysis in to the country’s geopolitical and socioeconomic role, is that its culture and its history are every bit as precious to civilization as is Africa and the Middle East. Indeed, in many ways India can be considered the womb, the mother, if you will, of the higher ideals of justice, ethics and spirituality which ultimately were born (synthesized) in to the transforming knowledge that the Greeks and Romans would inherit. The term “mother India” as it is often referred to by Indian and non-Indian intellectuals alike is no accident; it is an acknowledging of crucial role the country has played in global history. Modern day India is still very much steeped in its foundational roots that trace back to the times before Christ (“The Story of India, 2009). To know and to understand India is to engage an act akin to looking at the stars at night—what one is really looking at is the past.
Modern India is a country that has grappled with colonization, civil war, and debilitating poverty, to emerge as one much closer to being a developed country than at any other time in its history. This does mean that there are still deeply entrenched problems. Poverty conditions are sustained for still far too many, and the country’s most protracted ongoing problem—continued tensions between its neighbor, Pakistan, which is every bit as nuclear capable as India—is a seeming albatross with little prospect of being removed any time soon.
Being a BRIC country and the advantages thereof. The U.S. investment firm, Goldman Sachs noted of India in 2007 that it was one of four emergent economically developing countries that would experience a quadrupling of its per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the next 13 years (“India’s Rising Growth Potential”, 2007). The company went on to say that the Indian economy would surpass the United States by 2043. Perhaps what was most interesting about the investment firm’s report, though, was that it grouped India in with three other countries displaying similar signs of growth unprecedented for their history; Brazil, Russia, and China. Known as BRIC countries, these four would come to be bell weathers for how the globalization and internationalization of businesses and cultures was proceeding. India, a close neighbor of China (located on India’s northern border), was most readily identified as having significant potential for growth because of social and economic reforms it had instituted during the 1990s. These reforms moved its economy from being a socialistic one to being more market driven. Correspondingly, these reforms brought with it an inflow of multinational corporations (MNCs) moving their businesses there. These companies found benefit in India’s educated workforce (part of the reforms had been to accelerate education of the younger generation) and its proximity to China, an economic powerhouse in its own right and one that had established a highly complex supply chain with India. A supply chain is a network of vendor business operations that facilitate the movement of goods and services from one country to another. This combination of India’s for having reformed to a market economy and then benefiting from its proximity to China helped create both comparative and competitive advantages for it, something that will be discussed in subsequent sections of this paper.
Meaningful growth. India, as a whole, has bought in to and clearly shows signs of being in the pursuit of fulfilling the projections offered by Goldman Sachs. The problem, though, is that however well intentioned its aims for becoming a fully developed country may be, there is significant incongruence in its strategy for growth that calls in to question whether it will actually be able to become what the investment firm predicted. Specifically, the country has depended on its leaders to usher in an era of unfettered market driven reforms but it has also expected its leaders to reconcile the enormously complex internal problems still quite prevalent in the country, problems that cause a marginalization of a large share of the population from benefiting from those reforms. Identified by the World Bank as the most populous country in the world, India is often viewed as being short sighted in its growth planning, with much of this being due to enormous pressure from MNCs. The Multinational Corporations see a strengthening of their position in the region if the country accelerates its growth to the speed indicated by Goldman Sachs. Doing so would certainyl bring about enormous short term profits but it would do so at the expense of deferring the poverty-social issues of the country out to the future for another generation to have to grapple with. Ironically, destabilizing conditions such as terrorism and very real threats to national security in India that was plainly seen in the 2008 Mumbia tragedy is actually forcing discussion about addressing domestic issues to the front burner. And for nationals who are considering returning to India to bring home their education and wealth in order to help grow the middle class, gestures such as these bode well for enticing them—many of whom are starting families and looking to build a future for that family—to return to a better, less myopic and more inclusive India than the one they left.
So India’s strategy for growth must very much be grounded in the reality of addressing its varied constituencies while also keeping steady focus on growing itself as a serious player in the field of BRIC nations that are emerging in to western-level developed nation status.
Comparative Advantage
Comparative advantage is described by Landsburg (2009) as a condition by which a country capable of producing the most goods and/or services at the lowest costs has a distinct advantage over a country that cannot deliver the same. This condition, posits the author, can ultimately serve to the mutual benefit of both parties as the party with the comparative advantage can free up the other party’s resources for other matters by being able to obtain needed resources at a cheaper cost from the advantaged party. This is a condition that India has some great benefits in.
The country (along with China, another one that has significant comparative advantage in delivery of goods and services) has become a pariah for organized labor leaders in the west because of its ability to provide low cost goods and services in many areas, including key knowledge work labor roles such as engineering and publishing. This condition has added to India’s image as an emerging world economic power. According to the Boston Consulting Group India’s off-shoring capability (its ability to provide goods and services to other countries), accounted for roughly 65% of the global off-shoring market and was expected to grow steadily over the next five years (“Ten Tips from Successful European Companies in India”, 2007). One of its important assets in this area, according to the consulting group, is that “India is the largest English speaking nation in the world with the second largest pool of scientists and engineers,” second only to the U.S. Lastly, the consulting group notes that India is the preferred venue for human capital to meet knowledge work demands in the global economy because of both a mixture of having superior management and technical wherewithal but also the lower cost for the delivering of these services.
But this position could be a transitional one as the country, which has also been hit hard by the global wide mortgage crisis, is also a long way from having stable and fully functional regulations that allow for the littlest bureaucracy as possible. In fact, the country is very much known for its difficulty in getting new businesses to start up or to facilitate the expansion of existing businesses. There is still notable levels of corruption and graft and there are also internal resistances to there being too much influence from the west in to Indian affairs. This sort of push back is making India’s comparative advantage not as significant as it once was. In fact, if the country is not careful, it could end up squandering the timely opportunities it as now since western countries and others, including in Africa and the Middle East, are pushing hard to gain leverage in the areas of global technology and the service/entertainment industries.
Competitive Advantage
According to Porter (1998), competitive advantage occurs when there are three conditions present: cost advantage, differentiation, and focus (pp. 40-42). Cost advantage, which is akin to comparative advantage, occurs when, as previously mentioned, one party can produce a product at a lower cost. Differentiation occurs when one party can produce a product better than the other party. And Focus occurs when there is emphasis on a narrow focus in the market, a particular zeroing in on one segment of the market. Given these definitions, it would not be easy to say that India has competitive advantage. It would be more accurate to say that the country has competitive advantage at some levels while not having it at others.
India definitely has competitive advantage when it comes to being highly sought after by MNCs for its highly skilled and relatively inexpensive labor. But it is not so easily able to meet the Differentiation criteria of Porter’s because it has not yet ironed out its regulatory problems to be able to have the kind of consistent quality assurance that allows for better products to be produced. It is still at its best when it works in partnership with western-based companies, not as independent entities.
The Boston Consulting Group notes some of the challenges India faces in this area. It notes that the country has a “difficult operating environment” that has been “brought about by government policy and processes, procedural bottlenecks and the legacy of cumbersome labor laws.” While it should be noted that there is inherent bias in the consulting firm’s observation since it is noted for representing MNCs, the concern is not just one expressed by them. Kapur and Ramamurti (2001), whose work on India’s competitive advantage came out six years before the consulting firm’s report, are also cautious about making claims that the country has a firm grasp on competitive advantage. They too cite the regulatory problems as being a major hurdle the country must face.
Both sources also point out that India’s poverty, illiteracy rate, and health concerns eat in to the country’s ability to emerge fully as a competitive force to be reckoned with. A quarter of the Indian population still earns less than $1 per day and 40% of the population is illiterate. Still, the consulting firm did note:
While there are grave concerns and India does measure on them poorly [sic], even in
comparison with other developing countries, an analysis of the trends in the last 10 years shows that India has made significant improvements. Life expectancy has improved from 60 years in 1991 to 65 years in 2001….The rate of improvement recorded by India is significantly better than most other developing countries. This attributed to the sustained high economic growth rates, multiple schemes for the poor launched by both state and central governments, and the increasing thrust in these areas by other bodies such as NGOs, World Back, the Corporate Sector, etc.
What this means is that India’s most significant supporter are the MNCs and the consulting firms such as the Boston group, as they have a vested interest in the country being successful. But even with them being fairly optimistic information being disseminated about progress being made in the country, the very essence of the country’s ability to produce knowledge workers who will be able to sustain the population and, correspondingly, encourage reforms in government policies that will help support overall better living conditions there, is what will inevitably determine India’s competitive status. In other words, this condition cannot be forced. And it must occur organically, from within the population, and not from overt influences from westerners who are looking out for their own interests and bottom lines.
A final point that is worth making regarding India’s competitive advantage circumstances is to be found in the country’s relationship with its northern neighbor, China. Because of their close proximity, the countries have established an excellent supply chain relationship. Thompson, Strickland, and Gamble (2007) describes this as a potentially favorable condition for a country in three ways: by helping to lower operational costs for the participating companies and can help both achieve product differentiation where in other instances this is not the case; as a way of transferring competitive value competencies (a way of “branding” the companies’ image by having this type of partnership), and thirdly by generally broadening the companies’ resource strength and capabilities “to coordinate its dispersed activities in ways that a domestic-only competitor cannot” (p. 227).While this does not directly intersect with competitive advantage matters, the supply chain relationship between the countries strengthens their prestige in the World Trade Organization and symbolizes favorable economic cooperation in an otherwise politically tense region of the world. If India is to take its rightful place as a true competitive force in the global marketplace, it will be done so upon a foundation built on cooperative relationships such as this.
Trade Policies
India has established a strong working relationship with the World Trade Organization and has received ongoing support from the World Bank. This has translated to there being favorable support in both houses of the Indian legislature (the country has a bicameral legislative body) for maintaining strong trade ties with the west but particularly with Russia and China.
According to the India Report (2007), India has had an average annual GDP rate of 5.8% for the past two decades. Additionally, the country has the world's second largest labor force with 516.3 million people. The report goes on to read:
In terms of output, the agricultural sector accounts for 28% of GDP; the service and industrial sectors make up 54% and 18% respectively. Major agricultural products include rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes; cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, poultry; fish. Major industries include textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery, software. India's trade has reached a relatively moderate share 24% of GDP in 2006, up from 6% in 1985. India's share of world trade has reached 1%. Major exports include petroleum products, textile goods, gems and jewelry, software, engineering goods, chemicals, leather manufactures. Major imports include crude oil, machinery, gems, fertilizer, chemicals.
In terms of output, the agricultural sector accounts for 28% of GDP; the service and industrial sectors make up 54% and 18% respectively. Major agricultural products include rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes; cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, poultry; fish. Major industries include textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery, software. India's trade has reached a relatively moderate share 24% of GDP in 2006, up from 6% in 1985. India's share of world trade has reached 1%. Major exports include petroleum products, textile goods, gems and jewelry, software, engineering goods, chemicals, leather manufactures. Major imports include crude oil, machinery, gems, fertilizer, chemicals.
With these conditions in mind, it is clear that India has the wherewithal to be a
formidable trade partner but its problematic areas in competitive advantage, discussed in the previous sections, indicates that this will continue to be a challenge in the years ahead. What will benefit the country is continuing to build ties during the annual meeting of the G8 nations and to use its favorable relationship with China and Russia as leverage.
formidable trade partner but its problematic areas in competitive advantage, discussed in the previous sections, indicates that this will continue to be a challenge in the years ahead. What will benefit the country is continuing to build ties during the annual meeting of the G8 nations and to use its favorable relationship with China and Russia as leverage.
Interrelationship with the West
Over the last decade, India has wisely directed a large share of its creative resources to developing and exporting “Bollywood” movies and music. Bollywood is the country’s tremendously talented community of entertainers who are transforming world music and cinema with songs and movies that appeal to a wide range of audiences. This has culminated in an Indian movie winning an Oscar in 2009. “Slumdog Millionaire” is a movie that captured the imagination and interest of the Motion Pictures Academy of Arts and Sciences (the company that produces the annual Oscar event and selects candidates and winners).
India recognizes, as has the west for years, that real cultural and political influence occurs when a country can get another country to embrace (fall in love with) its popular culture media. This means that powerful messages about cultural identity can be communicated at visceral levels. Indeed, the movie, “Slumdog Millionaire,” contained a universal theme of an average person suddenly finding himself in position to win enough money to change his life forever. The underlying theme of the movie is also significant from a wider perspective as a push back against terrorism and the fundamentalism mindset that is still very much part of the Sino Asian region. According to an AOL news service article, “Slumdog’s Triumph: The Importance of Soft Power” (2009), the movie’s anti-fundamentalism influence can be likened to the way media were used to recruit freedom fighters during the Afghan war of the 1980s:
It merits recall that when the former USSR had occupied Afghanistan in 1979 and the US led western alliance, bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, had created the mujahideen warrior - the motivation and software came through the skillful use of soft power. Textbooks and easy to comprehend reading material were designed in local languages extolling the virtues of taking up arms against the foreign invader. This lethal software allowed for thousands of young Afghans, supported by their Pakistani brethren to distort Quranic tenets and leaven them with the Kalashnikov and the Stinger missile through rigorous ISI support and training.
To this point, Slumdog Millionaire has become a powerful diplomatic tool for India in its effort to leverage favorable policies, both trade and economic, with the west. And an unintended consequence is likely that Bollywood will continue to transform perceptions about India in ways scarcely imagined right now.
A Strategy that is Sustainable
In order for India to sustain its measured but steady growth as an emergent developed state, the country must hold to its history. Meaning: it must remember the lessons of transformation in the face of adversity that has been its hallmark. There are three critical areas the country must address in the pursuit of sustainability: broadening socioeconomic policies to make them more inclusive of the disadvantaged population; stifle the brain drain to the west by investing in the kind of infrastructure that can sustain an emerging middle class, and continue to strengthen its supply chain relationship with China.
India’s political climate is in transition. Its present leadership is trying hard to push the country into pervasive middle class status but this is not consistent (or politically smart) in a country where thousands are still living in what the Economist aptly describes “shocking” levels of poverty. The country’s advancement will never be sustainable as long as it has a huge social safety net commitment. The country will have to find a way to spend some of its growing earnings from investments from the west to job training and employment incentives for locals through tax advantages to foreign nationals. Not doing so could turn otherwise favorable international sentiment toward the country in the opposite direction. This will not be the easiest thing to do since India is grappling with its own version of the mortgage crisis. But one of the hallmarks of a truly advanced country is that it shows a clear commitment to helping improve the lot of the less advantaged; India has the opportunity to do this and should do so. This must be a front burner objective for thought leaders in India if it expects to keep growing at a steady pace.
Another area India must improve upon is being able to hold on to its educated class, or more specifically to stem the tide of its brain drain. As the world becomes increasingly globalized, the educated and talented are gravitating toward regions that support a host of attributes that are supportive of the “creative class,” a populous that is an amalgamation of being both college educated and of reasonable economic autonomy to be picky about where they want to live. Indian leaders have expressed intentions on making the retaining, and returning, of their 30-somethings population (the age group that has arrived at that crucial nexus of rising in their careers while also starting a family) a priority, and to provide incentives such as upscale housing and better education. While some inroads have been made in this area, it is by far clear that the country will be able to succeed in doing this. Ironically, the aforementioned challenge of addressing the social safety net issue will force some degree of compromise (and ultimately delay) in the extent the country can meet these immediate needs. What has been underway has been a subtle campaign on the part of some leaders to appeal to their expatriates living abroad to return home out of a sense of service to building the country during a critical moment in its history. This gesture is not a bad one as Indians are by tradition fiercely loyal to both family and history. But the complexities of economic conditions, added with a schism in the population of expatriates about the lack of progress in thawing the tensions with Pakistan have made the prospects of inroads being made in this area slim at best. The best chance of success in this area occurring is if these returning expatriates be inclined to run for public office and become a segment that wields political power. Given the benefit of this group being key to long term stability in the county, they might get support from multinational corporations who see them as important to their own long term interest in prospering in India and the region in general.
Conclusion
Conclusion
This topic was selected by the writer because of the following reasons: a sincere interest in doing international consulting that would include areas in the world such as India and China; a longtime curiosity about the history of India and its role in geopolitical culture, and a equally sincere interest in understanding how an emergent knowledge culture occurs. The later information was very important as the writer is a resident of a state (in the U.S., that is) which is in the throes of being at the very early stages of focusing on being a knowledge culture. This state is Michigan and it is experiencing the highest unemployment in the nation primarily because of the slow implosion of the auto industry.
India is inspirational for a place like Michigan because it is a country that has overcome extraordinary adversity to be where it is today. For many years it was under the rule of the British Crown and was subject to all of the cultural destructions that can occur under conditions of colonization. But the country did not give in totally to this condition. Through leaders such as Mahatma Ghandi and others, there was resistance, and a new form of resistance; called non-violence.
India’s creation as a state was also a condition of irony as was also formed at that time the country of Pakistan which located the large Muslim population of these close relatives of the Indians. For this writer, this dividing of two groups with such close blood ties was likened to that of the Biblical story of Isaac and Ishmael. And unfortunately, the tensions between the two countries is very similar to the tensions between Israel and some Arab nations such as that which embodies the Palestinian people.
These conditions suggest that conditions of peace are still far away for this region of the world. Yet, as this paper has revealed, there is also great hope for India, and for the Muslim world, to move toward areas of common ground that might be based on economic necessity. What should not be ignored is that fact that China, despite its long and staunch history as a country that grapples with human rights abuses and draconian laws is finding itself moving slowly and every surely in the direction of being a market economy. This development seemed unlikely just three decades ago by many who saw communism as yet to be the natural successor to democracy. But with fall of communism came a greater likelihood that a new and different China would have to emerge.
These changes in this critical region that also includes India and Russia are now playing themselves out in economic conditions that could be a new beginning of a different type of global village. What is certain is that the idyllic idea of globalization and internationalization has now come officially to an end. This has ended because of the global wide threat of terrorism and also the housing crisis and economic collapse. These conditions make it a necessity that nations now be willing to think in different terms, terms that requiring investing in education and technology and in being committed to building knowledge networks in all areas of civilization. Only through such networks can there be assurance of survival and even thriving. The old standards of living have passed away, this writer believes, and in their place new possibilities and a new hope: that the standards that have been created through the growth in India will reverberate to other countries and regions of the world, particularly in Africa.
The image now of India is really one of being a template for a country that is richly diverse and still grappling with many internal problems but yet is willing to transform itself even as it struggles to find its new self; the story of India today is as much about the India of times before Christ as it ever has been before. It is the country that bring about the catharsis, perhaps, needed to accept the rich diversity in the world once and for all.
It is with these thoughts and hopes that this writer takes from this experience a wiser and more humbled sense of what India means to the state of world conditions, but also what it means to the world itself as being one of its keepers of history and as a much needed conscience.
References
Friedman, T. (2001). Lexus and the olive tree: Understanding globalization. New York: Anchor
Diplomatic Outsourcing. (2009, January 26). The Economist, 50.
The Story of India (2008). PBS Series. Michael Wood, producer.
Kapur, D., & Ramamurti, R. (2001). India's emerging competitive advantage in service.
Academy of Management Executive, 15(2), 20–33.
Pink, D.H. (2008). A whole new mind. NY: Riverhead Books.
Porter, M.E. (1998). On competition. Harvard Business Review, p.40-42.
Ten Tips from Successful European Companies in India. (2007). The Boston Consulting Group.
Strategy for Growth
"Economic survey of India 2007: Policy Brief". OECD.(2007). Retrieved March 15, 2009 from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/52/39452196.pdf.
"The India Report". (2007). Astaire Research. Retrieved from
http://www.ukibc.com/ukindia2/files/India60.pdf.
"India’s Rising Growth Potential". Goldman Sachs. (2007). Retrieved March 15, 2009, from
1/Indias_Rising_Growth_Potential.pdf
Slumdog's triumph: The importance of soft power (2009, February 24). Retrieved March 15,
2009 from http://www.aol.in/news-story/Slumdog's-triumph-The-importance-of-soft-
power/2009022404239012000005
References
Friedman, T. (2001). Lexus and the olive tree: Understanding globalization. New York: Anchor
Diplomatic Outsourcing. (2009, January 26). The Economist, 50.
The Story of India (2008). PBS Series. Michael Wood, producer.
Kapur, D., & Ramamurti, R. (2001). India's emerging competitive advantage in service.
Academy of Management Executive, 15(2), 20–33.
Pink, D.H. (2008). A whole new mind. NY: Riverhead Books.
Porter, M.E. (1998). On competition. Harvard Business Review, p.40-42.
Ten Tips from Successful European Companies in India. (2007). The Boston Consulting Group.
Strategy for Growth
"Economic survey of India 2007: Policy Brief". OECD.(2007). Retrieved March 15, 2009 from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/52/39452196.pdf.
"The India Report". (2007). Astaire Research. Retrieved from
http://www.ukibc.com/ukindia2/files/India60.pdf.
"India’s Rising Growth Potential". Goldman Sachs. (2007). Retrieved March 15, 2009, from
1/Indias_Rising_Growth_Potential.pdf
Slumdog's triumph: The importance of soft power (2009, February 24). Retrieved March 15,
2009 from http://www.aol.in/news-story/Slumdog's-triumph-The-importance-of-soft-
power/2009022404239012000005
posted by Robert McTyre Sr. at 12:25 PM
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