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I am an Indian, in India. To be honest I think our current situation is not just a slowdown. I feel the country has become largely divided when it comes to day-

I am an Indian, in India. To be honest I think our current situation is not just a slowdown. I feel the country has become largely divided when it comes to day-to-day economics. I am sitting in a co-working space in Bangalore, I do that in Kolkata often and will head to Mumbai soon. I hardly see people talking about slowdown in these spaces. The cities seemingly are powered more by funds from outside and are alienated to the issues in agriculture or manufacturing. Not just the government, but the well-to-do educated class have simply stopped looking at the country as a whole - that is my feeling and I am guilty of the same.

abledon 7y ago
what do you think of movements like Sadhguru's Cauvary Calling -- to replenish the greenery in India's agricultural areas and bring back prosperity to farmers who are on the brink of suicide. I find his talks very inspirational, from someone halfway across the planet.
- mav3rick 7y ago
  I think he is a charlatan who preys on insecurities and charges hefty amounts for his seminars. He was holding one such environmental one and the organization itself was deemed pretty bad for the environment. So much so that the PM didn't show up.
  - abledon 7y ago
    They've planted 35 million trees[1] through volunteer activity, trained farmers and provided schooling to poor villagers, and they are bad for environment? what sources are you using? And secondly, could you be so kind as to provide your preferred alternative organization that provides these resources in the country? I would like to learn why you think their efforts are disingenuous, and how they would function as an organization , buying assets such as centres/schools etc without charging rich(relative to the 400m starving ones in the country) people fees to attend yoga/meditation retreats. [1] https://www.ishaoutreach.org/en/project-greenhands https://www.ishaoutreach.org/en/project-greenhands
    - mav3rick 7y ago
      Sadhguru gets very cheap land in prime areas from the government. Also this stuff https://www.altnews.in/scientific-research-ascertains-mercury-toxicity-sadhguru-continues-endorse-indian-traditional-medicines/ https://www.altnews.in/scientific-research-ascertains-mercur...
- brainless 7y ago
  I have only heard but have not taken the time. To be honest, I think city-zens like myself are so far out from the agricultural areas that I have really never taken deep interest. But I have recently become more interested and I will read up.
- rohan_shah 7y ago
  "Prosperity" here means stable 2 meals a day...
justforfunhere 7y ago
>>> that is my feeling and I am guilty of the same. To acknowledge the problem is the first step towards its solution. Your observation is very similar to what I have felt as well. There is a wide urban-rural gap. India is primarily an agricultural country. A fairly large part of Indian population resides in villages and is directly or indirectly dependent upon agriculture sector. The current state of economy also stems from the agrarian crisis that has been brewing for a long time now. I don't think this government is exclusively to be blamed for the plight of farmers, but given the mandate they got in 2014, they had the means to enable farmer friendly policies - unfortunately they did not. I was actually traveling in different parts of India when the demonetization move happened. I saw firsthand the immediate aftermath in both the urban and rural India. There were diverse opinions, but given how simple, credulous and sheep-like most of the Indian population is, most people I talked to were ready to bear the brunt because our leader told us it was overall a good move for the country. These people didn't realize how it would come back to haunt them when they start loosing their livelihood in the coming times. I can't imagine anywhere else in the world, where people wouldn't have protested on a mass scale, if such a sudden, disastrous move would have been made on their lives without consulting them. If you read about the history of Independent India, we still haven't settled down as a nation yet. Each decade has brought it's fair share of challenges and the churn is always on. I hope the current situation is just one of those and the idea of India, as what our forefathers deemed it to be, shall survive to fight another fight. Edit: Grammar, Typos
- mindentropy 7y ago
  To protest on a mass scale you need resources which cost money. When the very money is invalidated how do you think somebody would be able to protest? No one would be ready to take on the risk to provide goods for money which is invalid with the hopes that a protest might be a success.
antonvs 7y ago
The political divide in the US is along similar lines. It's not a problem unique to India, it's driven by technology that gives those who can exploit it best a big economic edge.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
  It's not driven at all by technology. It's driven by central banks with easy money, further fracturing the divide between the poor and ultra wealthy. Technology just allows you to see evil for what it is.
  - sifar 7y ago
    Central banking is a technology. Capitalism is a technology. Democracy is a technology. At least that's what the tech tree in Civilization says :). Seriously, in the modern world, almost everything is a technic[1]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Society-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394703901/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+technological+society&qid=1569319953&s=gateway&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Society-Jacques-Ellul/d...
    - rohan_shah 7y ago
      Exactly. The science and art of economics is also a technique with only probability based outcomes. If the underlying assumptions change, then things will slowdown / grow in unexpected ways.
    - Accujack 7y ago
      You can choose to view things that way, but that's just a perception, not the actual nature of these concepts. You could equally well say they are all philosophies and use that to reinforce a view you hold.
      - sifar 7y ago
        Yes, my thoughts are partly shaped by how I perceive things, see them, read about them. However when you have spent time exploring the concepts, go to their origins, subject them to your analysis, to what people before you have thought about them through the different ages, pay attention to the meaning of the names and not use them flippantly, look at who wields the power and who benefits, watch your own motivations and those of others, then I believe it ceases to be mere perception and the true nature of the thing under consideration reveals itself. Yes you may not understand it in its entirety, but you tend to grasp the essence where earlier it was cloaked in myth. I'll give you an example. People exemplify the benefits of division of labour stated by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations. That is how it is conventionally taught. But they conveniently ignore how he talks about the soul crushing, mind numbingness of it later in the book. How it negatively affects the nature of man. And this resonates with ones experience having gone through the grind. Also the nature of things is not fixed, static. It evolves too. It changes those using it and in turn is shaped by them. What started of as a good idea, mutates into a self-perpetuating myth. Please read the book I referred if you are really interested in the actual nature of these concepts.
IGotThroughIt 7y ago
Would you say the socialist policies of the government have had a negative effect or a positive effect on the country's economy? In your opinion as a resident, does this play at all into why things are the way they are economically?
- thawaway1837 7y ago
  You can hardly call the policies socialist, because there is no coherent thinking behind any of the policies. Rather, the current government’s actions seem to be driven solely by the government’s electoral needs of the day. New election coming up? Announce huge “socialist” policies promising free stuff to a lot of people. Massive foreign rally where the economy will be a rallying point coming up, but your markets are at a low and falling? Announce a huge “capitalist” 10% corporate tax rate cut that boosts the markets and doesn’t throw a dampener on your rally.
  - sbmthakur 7y ago
    > Rather, the current government’s actions seem to be driven solely by the government’s electoral needs of the day. That's what any Government does in India. https://m.timesofindia.com/city/bhopal/farm-loan-waiver-takes-off-in-madhya-pradesh-40k-benefit-on-first-day/articleshow/68121687.cms https://m.timesofindia.com/city/bhopal/farm-loan-waiver-take...
- sn41 7y ago
  There are both good and bad aspects to the socialist approach taken by India. (+) The biggest gain: There have been no famines in Independent India - in the previous 80 years, around 20 million died in famines. This was a massive issue during the freedom movement. (+) State-subsidised education has succeeded in producing an elite which is world-class. However, state-subsidised _basic education_ is non-existent in many places, and literacy rates have been slow to grow nationally. (-) Excessive regulations have stymied industry, and led to massive corruption. The regulatory codes in India are needlessly complex and stringent. Many people opt to bribe out than comply, it is much cheaper that way. Overall, it has taken India more or less along a path of progress and is less of a mess than others think it is (see Hans Rosling's informative presentations for this). But, Indians feel frustrated because we feel the pace of progress should be much more.
throw2343w2 7y ago
This is hardly a new phenomenon. India has for the past few hundred years been run by an elite linguistic minority - the so called Macaulay's children. It's hardly a wonder that the deep state in India both despises and organizes self-righteous protests against local linguistic communities, all while simultaneously ensuring that education, the bureaucracy and employment remain isolated to English speakers. Little wonder that most of India's bright minds leave for the US right after (or even before) graduation. It's astonishing that Social 'Scientists' have paid such little attention to such glaring structural disparities (compared to say China), while they go on wrecking what's left of Indian society using theories entirely developed by foreigners. Education has definitely gone downhill as a result over the past few decades - while my parents tell us stories of great education in Public schools (run, quite sensibly, in the local languages), I can see the abysmal state of these today. The state has tried to offload its duties (while imposing one of the highest tax rates in the world) by emburdening Hindu-run schools (somehow this is 'secular') using RTE, but the competition and the fees at some of the better schools has become quite absurd of late, costing people close to ~$3000 annually, and an additional one time 'donation' which will help cut the long queues for these schools. Considering that this kind of colonial social structures are absent in most countries, it is to be expected that the Indian economy can't really outgrow its ~100 million elite, while the underclass remains bound in a sub-saharan level educational and cognitive achievements (that is if they're even literate). It is very interesting that the self-labelled "Left" in India is at the helm of further pushing these colonial policies, while the supposed "right", in their bombastic arrogance, are happy to implement them (see Shiv Sena, BJP etc., and also the DMKs in Tamil Nadu). It's very unlikely that India will ever achieve parity with China in our lifetimes, considering its self-destructive tendencies.
- justforfunhere 7y ago
  >>> It's very unlikely that India will ever achieve parity with China in our lifetimes, considering its self-destructive tendencies. And to add to that, we don't really exist in the most peaceful part of the world with at least two of our neighbors ( Ch, Pk ) having fought wars with us in the last fifty years.
  - 7y ago
hos234 7y ago
> the well-to-do educated class have simply stopped looking at the country as a whole There is lot of misguided guilt-tripping that goes on in India. Misguided because it doesn't produce any outcomes. I feel India is massive and most people including Indians don't realize how massive. I worked on project a few years back, which required traveling around/studying just one district. That district alone had a population larger than Norway. And India has 700+ districts. Just think about that for a moment. We might as well be talking about 700 countries when we talk about India. There are many districts doing really well and healthy and many on the other end of the spectrum. Whenever people talk about "India" as a whole they don't know what they are talking about. Get them to be specific about a district and the conversation gets much more productive.
- sifar 7y ago
  Yes India is a very diverse country and that is why policies which treat it as a single homogeneous entity won't work. They might work in tiny countries with similar populace but not when you scale it up to something like India. People fail to realize this.
- addicted 7y ago
  This is true. But when discussing the economy, the Indian economy is extremely interconnected. Arguably, the Indian economy is far more integrated and 1 corner of the country is far more affected by impacts from another corner than in Norway, because the lower population numbers mean that people in Norway simply don’t rely on other Norwegians as much as they do on foreigners, which is far less true of India.
baq 7y ago
this is happening in the west and is one of the reasons of a wave of authoritarian governments elected in a mostly democratic fashion, with a little bit of a stir from certain nation states psyops divisions.
kamaal 7y ago
>>well-to-do educated class have simply stopped looking at the country as a whole To put it bluntly they don't care. They don't care until they lose their jobs, until they can't pay their kids school fees, until they lose their home/car when they default on their loans, and more importantly they don't care for the social problems until its their kids or family whose life is on the line. They outsource their hate to political parties who do the work for them, they wake in the morning read headlines in the news papers, and if it fits in their political world view they just carry on. To put it frankly not a single person from the current working generation will likely face much issues from these socio economic problem. Mostly a few problems. The coming generation are screwed, they will inherit a dead economy and impossible to fix social conditions.
jonahbenton 7y ago
Same as America. We have been doing this for the last 50 years.

abledon 7y ago

what do you think of movements like Sadhguru's Cauvary Calling -- to replenish the greenery in India's agricultural areas and bring back prosperity to farmers who are on the brink of suicide. I find his talks very inspirational, from someone halfway across the planet.

mav3rick 7y ago
I think he is a charlatan who preys on insecurities and charges hefty amounts for his seminars. He was holding one such environmental one and the organization itself was deemed pretty bad for the environment. So much so that the PM didn't show up.
- abledon 7y ago
  They've planted 35 million trees[1] through volunteer activity, trained farmers and provided schooling to poor villagers, and they are bad for environment? what sources are you using? And secondly, could you be so kind as to provide your preferred alternative organization that provides these resources in the country? I would like to learn why you think their efforts are disingenuous, and how they would function as an organization , buying assets such as centres/schools etc without charging rich(relative to the 400m starving ones in the country) people fees to attend yoga/meditation retreats. [1] https://www.ishaoutreach.org/en/project-greenhands https://www.ishaoutreach.org/en/project-greenhands
  - mav3rick 7y ago
    Sadhguru gets very cheap land in prime areas from the government. Also this stuff https://www.altnews.in/scientific-research-ascertains-mercury-toxicity-sadhguru-continues-endorse-indian-traditional-medicines/ https://www.altnews.in/scientific-research-ascertains-mercur...
brainless 7y ago
I have only heard but have not taken the time. To be honest, I think city-zens like myself are so far out from the agricultural areas that I have really never taken deep interest. But I have recently become more interested and I will read up.
rohan_shah 7y ago
"Prosperity" here means stable 2 meals a day...

justforfunhere 7y ago

>>> that is my feeling and I am guilty of the same. To acknowledge the problem is the first step towards its solution. Your observation is very similar to what I have felt as well. There is a wide urban-rural gap. India is primarily an agricultural country. A fairly large part of Indian population resides in villages and is directly or indirectly dependent upon agriculture sector. The current state of economy also stems from the agrarian crisis that has been brewing for a long time now. I don't think this government is exclusively to be blamed for the plight of farmers, but given the mandate they got in 2014, they had the means to enable farmer friendly policies - unfortunately they did not. I was actually traveling in different parts of India when the demonetization move happened. I saw firsthand the immediate aftermath in both the urban and rural India. There were diverse opinions, but given how simple, credulous and sheep-like most of the Indian population is, most people I talked to were ready to bear the brunt because our leader told us it was overall a good move for the country. These people didn't realize how it would come back to haunt them when they start loosing their livelihood in the coming times. I can't imagine anywhere else in the world, where people wouldn't have protested on a mass scale, if such a sudden, disastrous move would have been made on their lives without consulting them. If you read about the history of Independent India, we still haven't settled down as a nation yet. Each decade has brought it's fair share of challenges and the churn is always on. I hope the current situation is just one of those and the idea of India, as what our forefathers deemed it to be, shall survive to fight another fight. Edit: Grammar, Typos

mindentropy 7y ago
To protest on a mass scale you need resources which cost money. When the very money is invalidated how do you think somebody would be able to protest? No one would be ready to take on the risk to provide goods for money which is invalid with the hopes that a protest might be a success.

antonvs 7y ago

The political divide in the US is along similar lines. It's not a problem unique to India, it's driven by technology that gives those who can exploit it best a big economic edge.

0x8BADF00D 7y ago
It's not driven at all by technology. It's driven by central banks with easy money, further fracturing the divide between the poor and ultra wealthy. Technology just allows you to see evil for what it is.
- sifar 7y ago
  Central banking is a technology. Capitalism is a technology. Democracy is a technology. At least that's what the tech tree in Civilization says :). Seriously, in the modern world, almost everything is a technic[1]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Society-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394703901/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+technological+society&qid=1569319953&s=gateway&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Society-Jacques-Ellul/d...
  - rohan_shah 7y ago
    Exactly. The science and art of economics is also a technique with only probability based outcomes. If the underlying assumptions change, then things will slowdown / grow in unexpected ways.
  - Accujack 7y ago
    You can choose to view things that way, but that's just a perception, not the actual nature of these concepts. You could equally well say they are all philosophies and use that to reinforce a view you hold.
    - sifar 7y ago
      Yes, my thoughts are partly shaped by how I perceive things, see them, read about them. However when you have spent time exploring the concepts, go to their origins, subject them to your analysis, to what people before you have thought about them through the different ages, pay attention to the meaning of the names and not use them flippantly, look at who wields the power and who benefits, watch your own motivations and those of others, then I believe it ceases to be mere perception and the true nature of the thing under consideration reveals itself. Yes you may not understand it in its entirety, but you tend to grasp the essence where earlier it was cloaked in myth. I'll give you an example. People exemplify the benefits of division of labour stated by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations. That is how it is conventionally taught. But they conveniently ignore how he talks about the soul crushing, mind numbingness of it later in the book. How it negatively affects the nature of man. And this resonates with ones experience having gone through the grind. Also the nature of things is not fixed, static. It evolves too. It changes those using it and in turn is shaped by them. What started of as a good idea, mutates into a self-perpetuating myth. Please read the book I referred if you are really interested in the actual nature of these concepts.

IGotThroughIt 7y ago

Would you say the socialist policies of the government have had a negative effect or a positive effect on the country's economy? In your opinion as a resident, does this play at all into why things are the way they are economically?

thawaway1837 7y ago
You can hardly call the policies socialist, because there is no coherent thinking behind any of the policies. Rather, the current government’s actions seem to be driven solely by the government’s electoral needs of the day. New election coming up? Announce huge “socialist” policies promising free stuff to a lot of people. Massive foreign rally where the economy will be a rallying point coming up, but your markets are at a low and falling? Announce a huge “capitalist” 10% corporate tax rate cut that boosts the markets and doesn’t throw a dampener on your rally.
- sbmthakur 7y ago
  > Rather, the current government’s actions seem to be driven solely by the government’s electoral needs of the day. That's what any Government does in India. https://m.timesofindia.com/city/bhopal/farm-loan-waiver-takes-off-in-madhya-pradesh-40k-benefit-on-first-day/articleshow/68121687.cms https://m.timesofindia.com/city/bhopal/farm-loan-waiver-take...
sn41 7y ago
There are both good and bad aspects to the socialist approach taken by India. (+) The biggest gain: There have been no famines in Independent India - in the previous 80 years, around 20 million died in famines. This was a massive issue during the freedom movement. (+) State-subsidised education has succeeded in producing an elite which is world-class. However, state-subsidised _basic education_ is non-existent in many places, and literacy rates have been slow to grow nationally. (-) Excessive regulations have stymied industry, and led to massive corruption. The regulatory codes in India are needlessly complex and stringent. Many people opt to bribe out than comply, it is much cheaper that way. Overall, it has taken India more or less along a path of progress and is less of a mess than others think it is (see Hans Rosling's informative presentations for this). But, Indians feel frustrated because we feel the pace of progress should be much more.

throw2343w2 7y ago

This is hardly a new phenomenon. India has for the past few hundred years been run by an elite linguistic minority - the so called Macaulay's children. It's hardly a wonder that the deep state in India both despises and organizes self-righteous protests against local linguistic communities, all while simultaneously ensuring that education, the bureaucracy and employment remain isolated to English speakers. Little wonder that most of India's bright minds leave for the US right after (or even before) graduation. It's astonishing that Social 'Scientists' have paid such little attention to such glaring structural disparities (compared to say China), while they go on wrecking what's left of Indian society using theories entirely developed by foreigners. Education has definitely gone downhill as a result over the past few decades - while my parents tell us stories of great education in Public schools (run, quite sensibly, in the local languages), I can see the abysmal state of these today. The state has tried to offload its duties (while imposing one of the highest tax rates in the world) by emburdening Hindu-run schools (somehow this is 'secular') using RTE, but the competition and the fees at some of the better schools has become quite absurd of late, costing people close to ~$3000 annually, and an additional one time 'donation' which will help cut the long queues for these schools. Considering that this kind of colonial social structures are absent in most countries, it is to be expected that the Indian economy can't really outgrow its ~100 million elite, while the underclass remains bound in a sub-saharan level educational and cognitive achievements (that is if they're even literate). It is very interesting that the self-labelled "Left" in India is at the helm of further pushing these colonial policies, while the supposed "right", in their bombastic arrogance, are happy to implement them (see Shiv Sena, BJP etc., and also the DMKs in Tamil Nadu). It's very unlikely that India will ever achieve parity with China in our lifetimes, considering its self-destructive tendencies.

justforfunhere 7y ago
>>> It's very unlikely that India will ever achieve parity with China in our lifetimes, considering its self-destructive tendencies. And to add to that, we don't really exist in the most peaceful part of the world with at least two of our neighbors ( Ch, Pk ) having fought wars with us in the last fifty years.
- 7y ago

hos234 7y ago

> the well-to-do educated class have simply stopped looking at the country as a whole There is lot of misguided guilt-tripping that goes on in India. Misguided because it doesn't produce any outcomes. I feel India is massive and most people including Indians don't realize how massive. I worked on project a few years back, which required traveling around/studying just one district. That district alone had a population larger than Norway. And India has 700+ districts. Just think about that for a moment. We might as well be talking about 700 countries when we talk about India. There are many districts doing really well and healthy and many on the other end of the spectrum. Whenever people talk about "India" as a whole they don't know what they are talking about. Get them to be specific about a district and the conversation gets much more productive.

sifar 7y ago
Yes India is a very diverse country and that is why policies which treat it as a single homogeneous entity won't work. They might work in tiny countries with similar populace but not when you scale it up to something like India. People fail to realize this.
addicted 7y ago
This is true. But when discussing the economy, the Indian economy is extremely interconnected. Arguably, the Indian economy is far more integrated and 1 corner of the country is far more affected by impacts from another corner than in Norway, because the lower population numbers mean that people in Norway simply don’t rely on other Norwegians as much as they do on foreigners, which is far less true of India.

baq 7y ago

this is happening in the west and is one of the reasons of a wave of authoritarian governments elected in a mostly democratic fashion, with a little bit of a stir from certain nation states psyops divisions.

kamaal 7y ago

>>well-to-do educated class have simply stopped looking at the country as a whole To put it bluntly they don't care. They don't care until they lose their jobs, until they can't pay their kids school fees, until they lose their home/car when they default on their loans, and more importantly they don't care for the social problems until its their kids or family whose life is on the line. They outsource their hate to political parties who do the work for them, they wake in the morning read headlines in the news papers, and if it fits in their political world view they just carry on. To put it frankly not a single person from the current working generation will likely face much issues from these socio economic problem. Mostly a few problems. The coming generation are screwed, they will inherit a dead economy and impossible to fix social conditions.

jonahbenton 7y ago

Same as America. We have been doing this for the last 50 years.