Bootstrapping India
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Why solve problems, like corruption, crimes etc?

Why should we at all solve problems like say poverty, corruption in policemen/judges/Ministers or solve problems like criminals, naxals etc? After all, as many economists claim, our growth rate can cross 8% even if corruption, crimes etc may persist and increase. We can keep making and celebrating highways, skyways, fly overs, UGC, JNU, IIMs, IITs etc. Then why even bother about problems like crimes and corruption.

The MOST important reason why we MUST solve problems like corruption in policemen/judges, crimes etc is that they are the biggest killers of industrial productivity, perticularly productivity of small time semi-skilled labor and unskilled labor, perticularly self-employed labor.

[Aside : No economist or educationist would agree, that reducing corruption in courts/police etc is necessary to improve productivity, but that is becuase economists/educationist DO NOT want to accept that factors that increase productivity lie OUTSIDE the domain of economics/education. If an economist/educationists agrees that decrease in crime and corruption would improve productivity, this would raise the importance of subjects like administration and drastically reduce importance of entire subject of economics, and thus would reduce value of economists and educationists, along with all their "gyaan". Not only it decreases their value, but it also decreases their income. How? If one accepts than improving police and courts would raise productivity, it would decrease the need of giving cash and free land to academicians, trusts etc. This would result into sharp decrease in incomes and living standard of intellectuals, NGO-owners etc. So most economists, and other intellectuals, ignore, and insist that every else should also ignore, the problems of crimes and corruption. But these economists are WRONG, and deliberately misguiding us commons. ]

Repeating : the problems like corruption and crimes are the biggest productivity killer. India's administration and crime-scene has drastically detoriated in past 10-15 years. It has been detoriating since 16-Aug-1947, but detoriation in past few years has been sharp and dramatic. Corruption of almost all individuals in Govt, be Supreme Court judges or PM or MLAs or police inspectors or peons, has been increasing by leaps and bound in past 10-20 years. And at local level, the criminals, naxals etc are becoming more and more powerful. Then how come economic growth has been sustained?

The growth has been due to massive investment, increase in inputs of raw material, increase in inputs of labor and import of advanced technology. But at grass root lower level, the production costs has been rising due to lower productivity, corruption and crimes/frauds etc and resulting delay. This growth is unsustainable, as it will NOT increase competitiveness compared to countries where crime/corruption are low. And due to increase in crimes and corruption in policemen/judges etc, soon, regions after regions in India will implode internally and collapse, thereby reduce areas where industry can grow. We are already seeing this, as large number of naxal infested areas have now become useless of running industries for the time being. And its not just states like AP, Bihar etc. Even in well off places like Ahmedabad, the criminals in certain parts of city have become so powerful, that extortions have sky rocketed and businesses are fleeing.

Summing up, if corruption/crimes continue to rise, regions after regions will collapse, despite investment and import of technology.

So why bother solving problems of corruption, crimes etc? To improve productivity and save industry, and promote research. But then why bother about productivity, industry and research? My reason is : if industrial productivity and researches decline, so would the strength of our military. And what will happen to India when military's strength declines? India will go the where Iraq went.

The MOST important reason why we need robust industry and true scientific/engineering research is NOT to improve quality of life. That is certainly a good long term goal, but it is secondary and should wait. But the most important reason to have robust research and industry is so that we can create a military at least as powerful as US, and thus can save ourselves from threat "liberation" by US forces.

A large number of Indian intellectuals will ridicule this argument. As per some of them, since India and US are both democracies, US will never attack India. This "democracy-democracy bhai bhai" is utter nonsense. Why would one nation give up tempation of devoring another nation, just becuase other nation holds elections every five years, or not? The reason why a nation would try to devor another nation's people and natural resources has NOTHING to do with type of polity other nation follows. The ONLY factor is relative strength. If a nation, such as US or China or Pakistan, or ANY other nation, is too too powerful compared to another nation such as Iraq, Iran, Central Asian Republic or India or ANY nation, it would see NO reason not to devor it, and would go head. That was the ONLY reason why US attacked Iraq --- US was strong, Iraq was too too weak, and loaded with precious oil wells, and hence the war for take-over of oil wells. And the ONLY reason a nation will NOT make an attempt to devor another nation is when it is sees that other nation is too strong. Those who believe that US will never attack India are as foolish as the Mogul emperor who kept saying "Delhi door hai, Delhi door hai" when Nadir Shah was approaching.

Is India next in US's list of countries to be "liberated"? Not yet. As there are more lucrative and much weaker targets like Iran, Central Asian Republics etc to be victimized. In addition, US sees India as useful pawn in its fight against China, just as US saw Iraq as useful pawn in its fight against Iran. But India is certainly in the queue --- unless India's military becomes strong enough that that would deter US from attacking India. But how can we make Indian military strong? Sure we need to at least quadrapple the defence expenditure. But that is NOT sufficient. We also need something more. We need to manufacture class-A weapons. Manufacture, NOT import, as we will never have skills/means to repair/replenish the damaged/lost imported weapons during war time. So MANUFACTURING class-A US-level weapons locally is MUST. This is NOT possible unless we have industries that are as advanced as US. This requires an atmosphere with lower crimes and police/courts with low corruption.

The above reason, survival from invaders, is the MOST important reason I believe why we MUST solve problems like crimes and corruption. If we do NOT solve these problems, India will once again become slave of the West.

The above reason has a clear directive --- NOT only I want to solve the problems like poverty, crimes and corruption --- but I want India to go in the direction to create a powerful military.

Putting it other way : India has two and ONLY two choices as of today --- create a US-class military, or be prepared to become slave of US. Now preparing US-class military is easier DONE than SAID. I repeat --- it is easier DONE than SAID, provided we create US-class fast/fair courts, police and administration.


Why discuss ONLY some problems, and ignore the rest?

Now I am NOT interested in solving ALL the problems that India is facing. Also, some events and phenomenon that we see, like increasing divorce rate, increasing sexual promuscuity, increasing prostitution, increasing in-take of non-veg food etc, are issues which I dnot even classify as problems. I am interesting in solving ONLY those problems which prohibits India from developing powerful military and industry and for which an administrative solution exists.

It is hard to say if a problem is solvable or not. And much harder to say whether an administrative solution exists or not. But surely, if a problem has been solved by the west, this shows that solution exists and hence the problem can be solved in India as well. This proves that problems like poverty, crimes, corruption etc can be solved to a considerable extent in India as well. Now is there a solution to "problem" of increasing promiscuity, increasing divorce rate, prostitution etc? No country has been able to solve these problems. So it may be that solution does NOT even exist.

So for the time being, I have confined myself to solving problems which creates obstacles in creating powerful military and industry, that west has already solved.