It took a mere four days of Operation Sindoor for Pakistan to realise that it is nowhere in India’s league, militarily, in the present time. It may continue with its ‘thousand-year war’ against India in the future, but the odds are now heavily stacked against it. For India, it is now time to further its strategic and tactical heft against the real competition – China. Much like Pakistan, China continuously pushes against India even though it makes a huge amount of money from it through trade.
Why is India still not in the same league as China in economic terms? To begin with, of course, because of China’s pragmatism in allowing US manufacturers to shift their factories there, and by providing cheap and obedient labour. India, instead, was ridden with socialist idealism in the same period – keeping capitalist nations at bay and undermining industrialists at home by actively legislating against growth. Nationalisation of private assets was a big thing, leading to large scale losses in multiple ways.
Once the horrors of such policies were realised, ‘liberalisation’ of the economy was initiated but after having lost many decades of opportunity. Worse, business had been habituated to the ‘licence-permit’ mentality, which still has a strong grip on the government mindset. There are parties that are still determined to take India back to that era. The social impact of such policies also limited upward mobility among the working and middle classes. Instead of acquiring education and technical skills, the effort was directed at getting government jobs and reservations. The spirit of enterprise did not develop in the manner it did in the South-East Asian nations, for example.
It is no surprise, therefore, that even the cheapest of items are being imported from China merely because there is a system there that can take ideas to the manufacturing floor in very little time. India is notorious for how much time it takes to get the many clearances required to start an industry. Now that India’s entrepreneurs are being encouraged to live their dreams, the economy is surging ahead. The impact of this was seen in the sophistication with which Operation Sindoor was carried out. However, for India to get anywhere near the US and Chinese economies, the ‘animal spirits’ have to be released in a big way through cultural transformation. People should think at every level to build up in areas of their specialisation, instead of hankering after social mobility patterns of the past. Everybody can have an idea that works, and business skills can be learned by everyone.
