Imagining India: The Idea Of A Renewed Nation (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
Finished. At last! It’s taken me three weeks of slow, solid reading to get through this book, and it was worth every inch of the journey.Nandan Nilekani, the author, is co founder of the hugely successful IT company Infosys. He is at the heart of the Indian business and economic community, and initiatives to modernise the country. He really comes across as having his finger on the pulse. His perspective seems to be humanitarian as well as purely practical, and for this he acknowledges the influence of his wife, who works for an NGO.The scope of the book is vast. He discusses a raft of issues pertinent to modern India.Infrastructure Cities v rural communitiesHousing Business EducationEnergyPensions and social security HealthPolitics FarmersThe possibility of a national identity card BankingThe forthcoming baby boomEnvironmentalismTo many of these topics he brings a brief discussion about the history of India – British India, followed by Nehru and the socialist ideals of successive governments. This was followed by the major reforms of the 1990s, and latterly, the flowering of India, with a sparking of successful business initiatives, particularly in the high technology sector. As with all countries, India’s history has vastly shaped her current situation, and it is a major strength of the book that Nikekani has placed most of the issues discussed in their historical context.Nikekani’s India comes across as a place of enormous strengths and enormous weakness, but his tone is always upbeat. He talks to a wide variety of innovators, reformers and policy-makers in the book, and they are full of suggestions for constructive ways forward.I found this a fascinating and inspiring read. A must for anyone interested in contemporary India. What is a Demographic dividend? The concept was new to me before reading this book. India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65% below the age of 35. It is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan; and, by 2030, India's dependency ratio should be just over 0.4 , ie. 60% of the population will be working. When China , USA and other major economic peers of India will be spending a major part of their money on the dependents, India will have a robust work force and a minor spending on old age. This will result in a major increase in output in terms of productivity of the nation. But there are cases wherein such a golden opportunity was squandered, like in the case of Brazil which enjoyed such a dividend from 1980 to 2000. The mistake Brazil did was that it never created enough jobs for its young people, thereby making them waste their youthful energy doing nothing productive. India today is at cross roads having reaped rich dividends in the 20 years of economic reforms, complimented by the boon of Information Technology.What makes India’s timing unique is that, it already knows the environmental costs the developed economies and China had to pay for their reckless development. This gives us a golden chance to mitigate the environmental impact beforehand and still maintain the growth rate. India has a per capita energy use (oil equivalent per capita) 559 kgs, which is much lower than the developed world (USA -7164) and China – 1806. This is partially because of the lack of access of electricity to the rural areas and the general low standard of life. But the positive side is we still have a chance to mould our people to keep the energy use minimum and yet maintain a decent life style, without wasting energy like the developed world do. The book also takes references from a plethora of eminent citizens cutting across the society, be it, Sulabh International’s Bindeshwar Pathak, or the historian-thinker Ramachandra Guha, or the Father of India’s communication revolution, Sam Pitroda. The author covers seemingly trivial but hugely important for the Human Development Index, the availability of toilets in the country. He jokingly refers to the incident that forced a bride’s parents to call off the marriage to a groom whose village had no toilets. A point which India has to improve upon before sending our man to the moon, along with the other parameters like malnourishment and the skewed sex ratio. It also takes a dig at China which faces an acute social problem of grooms finding it difficult to find a girl due to an unbalanced ratio (962 females to 1000 males), a pointer to India as well. Being a man from the Information Technology sector, he stresses the importance and the role played by the sector in the various segments of economy - a funny incident being, a State bank union opposing the computerization of banks on the pretext of people losing jobs. Today the computers have taken banking to the nook and corner of the country boosting employment be it through the public or private banks. Those days the only reason the bank employees allowed computers were for the reason that computers asked for air conditioned rooms, thereby giving them also the comfort of AC. There can be no better example of technology creating more jobs and better efficiency. Today the same bank union’s secretary gives the annual report on a power point presentation in his lap top. Nandan Nilkani has proved that he is not only a beneficiary of the IT boom, but an asset for India in the true sense. He could have well continued his ride in a BMW, reaping more profits for Infosys. But his relinquishment of these in favour of an Ambassador car and an ordinary Government office, is a welcome sign for the all Indian Techies to start a reverse brain drain.
What do You think about Imagining India: The Idea Of A Renewed Nation (2009)?
Amazing book. Clear cut description of how technology can create a breakthrough !
—yourz
Great book on India. Author gives very good outlook on India's potentials
—Blackrocker101
I could only handle so much of the history of IT, and gave up.
—mahnoorfamous
