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| INDIA AT 50 August 21, 1997 |
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Questions asked
in this forum:
How can India improve its educational system? Can there be a peaceful conclusion to the situation in Kashmir? What lessons can India teach the U.S. about affirmative action? Why is there such a difference between the economic success of Singapore and India? What steps are being taken to deal with overpopulation problems in India?
NewsHour Backgrounders
August 17, 1997:
Shashi Tharoor, author of "India: From Midnight to the Millennium," talks with David Gergen.
It's a country of staggering numbers.
Its history stretches back thousands of years, encompassing enormous diversity in culture, creed, and costume. Approximately 950 million people live in its 650,000 villages, speaking 35 different languages. Yet over half of them live in poverty and are illiterate.
Now approaching the 50th anniversay of independence from Great Britain, India remains a country both laden with culture and burdened with challenges. At this democratic milestone, should India celebrate or be concerned?
Our forum guest is Shashi Tharoor, author of "India: From Midnight to the Millennium," and executive assistant to the United Nations Secretary General.
A question from Joydeep Mitra of NYC:
As a member of a voluntary, non-profit organization such as ASHA, I help build schools in remote villages in rural India. I know that there are many such efforts being made at the grass-roots level by enthusiastic volunteers. However, I think these activities are not enough given the mammoth task ahead of us. How could we solve this soon enough?
Shashi Tharoor responds:
A long journey starts with a single step. Every little effort helps. Of course, the government must devote a greater proportion of its resources to the vital human "software" of India -- through programs in literacy, health, education, sanitation, and so on. But the government needs all the grass-roots help it can get.
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A question from Mark Gibson of Mesa, Arizona:
My wife is a Hindu Kashmir. She is originally from Srinigar but the family is now split between Jammu and New Delhi due to the violence in their original home. My wife's family has reluctantly reached the conclusion that they will not be able to return to Srinigar to live, but they would like to at least visit at some time in the future.
Do you see any possibility that there will be a peaceful settlement of the situation in Kashmir?
Shashi Tharoor responds:
I'm afraid that, as a U.N. official, I'm constrained in what I can say about Kashmir. But my own wife is half Kashmiri and I can only echo the hope that, with goodwill on all sides, a peaceful solution can be found.
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A question from Ron Thomas of New York, NY:
It's interesting to note the way that India is handling racial inequality. While we in the U.S. go to court to fight gerrymandering of districts that might favor a particular race, India reserves a certain amount of parliamentary seats for the dalits. Are there policies of the U.S. that India would like to emulate in handling race relations? Are there policies of the U.S. that India particularly eschews?
Your point that "identity as an appeal can...bring you votes on the short-term but can divide in the longer-term," is an excellent one. As we become more racially and culturally diverse, are there policies or practices you would recommend to the U.S. to either adopt or avoid?
Shashi Tharoor responds:
The larger question you raise is discussed fully in my book. I can't presume to preach to Americans since the historical experience of both countries is so different, but I do think that Americans could learn from India's willingness to take affirmative action far enough to guarantee outcomes, not just processes.
India, in turn, should learn from the U.S.' willingness to extend affrimative action principles to the private sector, not just the governmental.
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A question from Kainam Thomas Wong of Columbia, Maryland:
It is now a well cited fact that whilst India was richer than Singapore in 1947, the latter now has a per capita income at US$26,000 whereas India's grows only to under US$400. An obvious question is: why this divergence given India's rich and luminous legacy of cultural and intellectual achievements?
Shashi Tharoor responds:
There are, of course obvious differences between a country of 940 million people and an island of 3 million in terms of the scale of the challenge each has to confront.
But I have lived in Singapore and I do admire the way in which the life of ordinary Singaporeans has been transformed for the better by Singapore's economic miracle. India learned the wrong lessons from the colonial experience: since the British had come to trade and stayed on to rule, India mistrusted the world economy as a source of enslavement rather than of prosperity, whereas Singapore grew and flourished through its engagement with the world economy. India is in the process of abandoning its mistakes.
Perhaps in the next fifty years the per-capita GNP figures of the two countries will be less far apart.
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A question from Thether Hara of Denver, CO
How is India planning to cope with the over population that is predicted for the next century? Are there religious roadblocks for any type of national Planned Parenthood program?
Shashi Tharoor responds:
India has one of the oldest population programs in the world, but its effectiveness has been conditioned by a number of factors: cultural (social pressures to have more children); economic (children are an extra pair of hands for poor families); welfare (children represent the only hope for social security in their parents' old age); and health (the need to have many children because of the fear that some children may die young).
Religion is not a major roadblock. The answer, in a democracy where compulsion is not an option, lies in improving basic health facilities and economic conditions so thjat families have less incentive to have more children. It's happening, but slowly; within three decades India is expected to overtake China as the world's most populous country.
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