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The Economist’s recent special report on India, “An elephant, not a tiger”, probes into the country’s economic, social, political, and geopolitical affairs, providing insight into how India will fare in her quest to become a superpower. Despite all its chaos, bureaucracy and occasional violence, India has had a remarkably successful past few years, but can we cope with the economic downturn? Shocking, depressing and hopeful at the same time, these are stories that most Indian are accustomed to. Nonetheless, it’s clear that India faces daunting challenges going forward and here are some highlights from the report.

POVERTY

• According to the World Bank, in 2005 some 456m Indians, or 42% of the population, lived below the poverty line. In 1981, by the same measure, the numbers were 420m and 60% respectively. The government’s own estimates are lower. But everyone agrees that poverty in India is falling much too slowly.
• The effect: India has 60m chronically malnourished children, 40% of the world’s total. In 2006 some 2.1m children died in India, more than five times the number in China.

LABOR

• Some 65% of Indians live on agriculture, which accounts for less than 18% of GDP. Therefore the biggest challenge will not only be to create more productive jobs but also to upgrade skills of the large labor force through education and training.
• Roughly 14m Indians are now being added to the labor market each year, and that number is rising. Half of India’s people are under 25 and 40% under 18. Therefore the pace of development has to be rapid in order to mobilize the youth population.
• The manufacturing sector has its own complexities; to escape throttling labor laws, Indian entrepreneurs tend to keep their operations small: 87% of manufacturing jobs are with companies that employ fewer than ten people.

EDUCATION

• By one estimate, which may be optimistic, only 20% of jobseekers have had any sort of vocational training. If India cannot find employment for this lot, poverty will not be reduced and India may face serious instability.
• India is already worryingly violent. A Maoist insurgency in eastern India, which Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh has called “the greatest internal security challenge we have ever faced”, is an obvious ill omen. Where it is spreading, in poor, agrarian and broken places, the “invisible threads” that bind India, in the phrase of Jawaharlal Nehru, its first prime minister, are almost non-existent.
• A combination of all the above factors could lead to social unrest, starting out as mini-revolts that we’re beginning to see across the country. What is being termed as Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW), could be a serious threat to India’s stability if the Government does not implement bold reforms.

INFRASTRUCTURE

• As the River Ganges in Varanasi enters the city, Hinduism’s sacred river contains 60,000 faecal coliform bacteria per 100 millilitres, 120 times more than is considered safe for bathing. Four miles downstream, with inputs from 24 gushing sewers and 60,000 pilgrim-bathers, the concentration is 3,000 times over the safety limit. In places, the Ganges becomes black and septic. Corpses, of semi-cremated adults or enshrouded babies, drift slowly by.
• Besides the religious implications, this is a result of India’s execrable sanitation methods. By one estimate, only 13% of the sewage its 1.1 billion people produce is treated.
• India’s urban roads are choked: the average speed in Delhi has fallen from 27kph (17mph) in 1997 to 10kph.

POLITICS

• Of the 522 members of India’s current parliament, 120 are facing criminal charges; around 40 of these are accused of serious crimes, including murder and rape.
• In the 2004 election Congress and the BJP mustered only 283 seats between them, a record low and only 11 more than is needed for a majority. As a result, most energy is lost in keeping alliance members of the coalition government happy, causing friction and disharmony.

ECONOMY

• The RBI has already revised its forecast for GDP growth this year downwards, from 9% to 7.5%, and even that may be optimistic. Most independent forecasters see a further drop next year, possibly to 5.5%.
• The case for optimism: Until recently India’s investment splurge has mostly been covered by domestic savings: as a share of GDP, savings have risen from 28% in 2003-04 to 35.5% last year.

WHAT LIES AHEAD?

India has managed to grow rapidly for the last 5 years despite all these hindrances, but the global recession has caused the first net outflow from Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) in 11 years. This credit freeze will create complications in the Government’s ability to raise capital and sustain growth levels that are imperative for the 14m people joining the workforce every year. The need for reform is urgent and we need to do our part as citizens to instigate change.

Personally, I was extremely disenfranchised by our governance recently and wondered if it was worth voting in the upcoming General Elections of 2009. I wondered if change could really come about with no party challenging the status quo of corruption and incompetence. But that is foolish. We do have some intelligent leaders that care about India’s future but are constantly bogged down by bickering from alliance members. It’s time to set aside our regional differences and unite as one nation, recognizing that the right to vote is our greatest weapon in a democracy!

My feeling is that we have enough headroom to grow despite macroeconomics factors but we can’t afford another coalition government at this stage. If we can go out to vote in record numbers next year and either the Congress or BJP win a majority in Parliament, I’m confident we’ll start seeing reform from the Center.

Cast your vote, don’t vote your caste!

It’s 5pm. I look out of my airplane window to see Manhattan’s breathtaking skyline against the impending sunset. Far into the horizon I notice luscious hues of orange, yellow, and red. We’ve just taken off and and the plane feels like it’s floating towards this paradise. Time stands still… It’s a new beginning. Within minutes the colors begin to melt away and the sky is engulfed in darkness. The journey begins. The journey from New York to Mumbai. The journey from America back to India after seven years. The journey to find my new life adventure. The journey to fulfillment.

I had decided over the summer that Mumbai with a teeming population of some 15 million, its expanding financial and entertainment industries, and enigmatic promise would be my next stop after Bangalore, Ann Arbor, Prague, and New York. The city whose essence NY Times writer Anand Giridharadas captures so wonderfully:

Here the highest social boast is that you “just got back” from abroad; the loftiest praise for a restaurant is, “It’s like you’re not in India.” Mumbai’s globalized class hungers for it to be a world city, and its leaders pledge to make it Shanghai-like by 2020; the plan is, to put it gently, behind schedule. (full article)

Similarly, my decision was met with much cynicism amongst my friends back home: “Why leave America?”, “Enjoy one of the worst cities of the world. It’ll destroy your soul. Have fun!” So why am I doing it? What am I looking to get out of it? I can’t foresee the future but as I was deliberating these thoughts, I chanced upon Tony Robbins’ provoking TED talk, “Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better.” Littered with nuggets of wisdom, it gave me perspective and a chance to reflect on what I was doing and where the motivation was coming from.

Over the past few years especially, I haven’t taken conventional paths when presented with a decision. When most of my friends were clamoring to business school, I opted for film school. When the same friends were headed to Wall Street internships, I moved to Prague to shoot a film and then finally ended up at a comic book company after graduating. Being a startup, we were hit by the financial crisis this year and I decided to move on.

Evaluating the decision through Tony Robbins’ six basic human needs, I’m definitely looking for more uncertainty at this formative stage in my career. Life in New York was getting predictable and I missed the chaos of India. Chaos breeds creativity but on the flip side, getting things done can be draining.

As Giridharadas goes on to say:

Mumbaikars, as they are known, cannot resist one another, cannot resist Mumbai. Those who crave departure could depart if they wanted. They are still here. The newly arrived could have stayed in the villages, basking in their certainties. They too, choose to invest themselves here.

Neither investment is total, unreserved. But Mumbai works on the agglomeration of these hopes: Because so many cast their lots here, it becomes a place worth casting lots. The longer you remain, the less you notice what Mumbai looks, smells, sounds like. You think instead of what it could be. You become addicted to the companionship of 19 million other beings. Surrounded by hells, you glimpse paradise.

Then there is the need for achievement, which will lead to significance and fame. That said, I strongly believe that given appropriate educational and cultural backgrounds, there is a window of opportunity for faster rates of professional growth in emerging markets like India. Finally, when one can take the need for connection and love beyond the familial context—by embracing cultural and geopolitical roots—contribution beyond ourselves (to society) will begin to emerge. Call me an idealist but Barack Obama’s recent exploits have really shaken me up from the inside to take part in pro-social activities and get involved in the political landscape of my country.

I’m on the journey to discover my destiny but somewhere in between I see those glimpses of paradise. Maybe that is the final destination!