~By Anu Anand Hall
Finally! Finally! After four postponed departure dates, we've arrived back in Delhi!!
First Impressions
So... how has India changed?? Well, the capital has a brand new international airport. And while the carpet is particularly nauseating... (ugly doesn't do it justice, and yet, the design was apparently well thought out!) ... the terminal itself is refreshingly large, bright and modern.
And at first glance, the city too has been transformed for the better. There are no longer medieval road works and half-finished metro stations to negotiate when driving around. Traffic flows better. There are road signs everywhere to point you in the right direction. The re-vamped Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, where the Commonwealth Games opening and closing ceremonies were held, is an impressive landmark. And the Metro, which has opened dozens of new stations in all new directions, is quite simply, world-class (elevators to streets and platforms, electronic ticketing, air-conditioned trains with mobile phone signals, well-enforced 'Women Only' carriages! Better than the London Underground or NYC Subway any day!)
There are other changes: foreigners everywhere you look. Every neighborhood, block and building seems to have at least one European, Malaysian, Filipino, American, British, Canadian, Chinese, Korean or African expatriate on a stint working in India. And they're all forming Yahoo! Groups, exchanging information, banding together on new businesses and projects... Hooray! I'm all for the world coming to India! Or as one fellow expat put it so well: "...nice to live in a very tiny cobweb in a nation of one billion."
And of course, India's capitalist culture is booming: new stores, malls, products and services from organic foods, toys, designer clothes, furniture, design, animation, medical tourism, leisure, new restaurants, cafes, bars, music... you name it, it's here somewhere!
Nothing works cosistently. Big business is dominated by a few elite families. There isn't much true innovation. The infrastructure still sucks. And the poor have little opportunity to progress.
When I wake up in love with India, I see the green parakeets on my terrace, the kites soaring and keeling in the sky above the domes of ancient Mughal monuments...I rejoice at the vegetable vendors calling out their wares... and I'm excited by meeting new people and patronizing India's myriad, exquisite textiles and crafts.
When I wake up seething, it's because India is now AS if not MORE expensive than London, though the quality of most things is still sub-standard. Because, although I live in what is considered an expensive, up-scale neighborhood, my plumbing, electricity, windows, and water set up are pretty shoddy (I have to fill up a big Brita storage filter every morning and there are huge, slow, inefficient, uninsulated, expensive electric kettles (called 'geysers' lol!) mounted in the bathrooms to provide hot water...!) The light switches often fuse, the lightbulbs constantly blow out... I don't have the right paperwork to prove that I live here... There is no reliable postal service, no public toilets, little reliable public information to hand, and my bank, HSBC, is plagued by the most insane, acute communication problems, unique to India!
It's not just me... I also spend a lot of my day sorting the problems plaguing my staff (health/paperwork/legal/money/education/lack of information). Not to mention there are still power cuts even in 'posh' areas... Electricity is erratic, with surges and low voltage still common. Batteries get buggered. Any home/office requires expensive voltage stabilizers and back up power.
And on and on and on.......
India vs China?
Meanwhile, based on all the anecdotal evidence, India's great economic flowering seems to be making the rich richer, the poor poorer and squeezing the middle class. Of course, there have been some strides in improving poverty levels. But by and large, the majority of the population is struggling to stay afloat.
If you already have money, clout and connections, you sidestep all the suffocating rules and bureaucracy... or you bend them to your advantage.
But if you're a white collar office worker, the rewards of the new economy are decidedly mixed. After years of sacrifice, you're likely to pay a staggering 30% of your salary as income tax, along with a host of other sales and luxury taxes... Your job security is low... the hours long, the benefits non-existent. And the government to whom you cede a third of your income provides little to nothing in the way of reliable utilities, schools, hospitals or social security. What's more, the lack of true competition means prices are extremely high. So you're not even getting a bargain when you shop at that glittering air-conditioned shopping mall!
And if you're illiterate, landless, low-caste, hungry or handicapped... good luck! You'll be fortunate to make it to old age and you'll struggle every single day of your life to eat, stay healthy and out of trouble.
The big discussion at the moment revolves around which country is better: India or China? I can't speak of China, having never been there. However, my sense is that the debate is pegged to the wrong terms. China's authoritarianism doesn't necessarily provide a neat contrast with India's democracy. By many accounts, the Chinese enjoy more freedoms today than they ever have. And India's democracy is hardly one of equal opportunity.
The difference between China and India, to me, is more practical than political.
China is building roads, power plants, factories, housing. They may not be pretty or 'democratic', but they work. And presumably, that improved infrastructure gives many ordinary people more power over their everyday lives -- the sort of control we in the West take for granted (that our electrical sockets will work, that our water and land won't be poisoned, that the person we hire will not be starving or exploited, that we have access to education and mountains of information).
In contrast, apart from a few token projects, India still has no enduring public infrastructure.
Like others who deeply love this country, I'm doing my very tiny part by paying a living wage to my ayah, a semi-literate mother of two... by making sure her children are educated and have access to a proper doctor... by interpreting the world for her and pointing out relevant opportunities... by sending her on training courses and teaching her English... and hopefully in the process reinforcing her right to prosper, no matter what her background.
It's a piecemeal effort, shared by millions of Indian citizens, some of whom have no other country to call home and must ultimately live with the success or failure of their efforts, unlike me. I can only imagine how exhausting it must be, doing your government's work along with your own... and paying dearly for the privilege.
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