India's Rush To Modernize Causing Resentment In Rural Districts

Land Wars Bedevil India's Rush to Industrialize -- New York Times/AP

SANAND, India (AP) -- It doesn't look like he's won much from industrialization. Take his face, weathered beyond his 30 years, or the earth stuck to his bare ungainly feet.

Jaisar Khan Pathan, one in a long line of farmers, is simply too scrawny.

But Pathan, and scores like him who live in the shadow of a new factory built by Tata Motors to make its ultra-cheap Nano car, are the beneficiaries of the race to transform India from a nation of small farmers to an industrialized power.

They are part of a tectonic shift as millions move off the land into an uncertain future, even as others wage land battles that have blocked some of the world's most powerful companies from building power plants, mines and factories.

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My Comment: India today is in the same position that China was in the mid 1980s .... a desire to modernize but also keenly aware of the impact that rural life still has on the majority of the people in the country.

Will India emulate China .... I have my doubts. Modernization was easy in China because of the power of the Communist state and its control over the military and security services .... a control that they had no problems in using during the Tienanmen Square protests in 1989 as well as stifling dissent later on. Coupled this with a strict program to develop key economic sectors with Western business partners, it then became much easier for China to develop into the country that it is today.

In contrast with India, India has numerous restrictions that comes from a country with democratic institutions and a need to be accountable to the public for its actions. Consensus, public opinion, an economy that is driven by the rule of law rather than government fiat .... this is what limits India economically .... but politically and (more importantly) for the future .... I believe that it has an economic future that will (soon) match China's .... if eventually surpass it.

Will this cause problems between these two emerging super powers in the future? .... probably. But it is the direction that both countries are going, and there is little if anything that we can do.

But in the interim .... for India the competing interests of land owners and industrialists will still continue .... and at times .... will be messy as they continue to go down this economic path.