It's a Dickensian world where the British empire collapsed half a century ago. Nothing about India resembles the way things work at home, and yet this morning with Skype on my iPhone I could talk to my son and see him, half a world away as clear as day though it was night on the east coast.
What happened to India? Its record of achievements in engineering, mathematics, astronomy, art and sciences-- placed at the top of human development until the 17th century then appears to have fallen apart under pressure of the West's industrial revolution and its military strength.
The timescale of India is unimaginable from the perspective of the United States. One stretch of mountains on the way to Jaipur from Agra that provides sandstone and granite for construction has been consumed by hand-shovel mining after thousands of years. The mountain range has been reduced by half, by hand. Its open faces are still being hacked with shovels, picks, and levers.
Of adjusting to India a friend advised, you have to let India happen to you. Still, letting it happen leaves one with a queasy stomach.
The demographics blare from the street, that the vast majority are under the age of 25. One wonders, how do they place their country in the context of history; especially considering the border of Pakistan only a few hundred miles away.
The striving and the struggling. Nothing of use is thrown away until it is utterly useless and then so much of what remains ends up curbside with the livestock.
The streets are filled with hand work shops using the cheapest available power to bang, drill, and repurpose what is old but still contains the value of work. At the poorest level, obtaining enough protein and fat to live requires less than a dollar. The airport at Fort Lauderdale, filling with jets from a week aboard cruise ships, has double the body fat of a similar crowd gathered from a street in India.
The poor and their circumstances seem as immoveable as layers in sandstone. Which brings me to water in a time of climate change. Here, in Jaipur only a few decades ago the water table used to be twenty or thirty feet below surface. It is now, several hundred feet. Due, I suppose, to population pressure but also, dwindling monsoons in the region.
The opportunities for advancement out of the rural village are a Hobbesian choice. Moving out of farming by hand and the grinding difficulty of extracting a living from the earth means trading for the uncertain prospects of the megacities and work in factories and suburbs where the only thing that freely flows is pollution.
At home, I am often frustrated that government should work because it is organized to work. In India, the pressure of population is so great, the tax base so low (apparently), that one captures in an instant the impossibility of government to work except for the few who control the levers of power.
Somehow services are provided (to tourists, through hotels that have organized with municipal authorities for infrastructure, etc.), through charitable organizations developed by mosques and temples or churches, and through the big pieces of infrastructure: electrification, power plants, and highways.
On the road from Agra and the incomparable Taj Mahal to Jaipur, there are many smokestacks --- one hundred feet tall-- attached to small furnaces at the base. These burn coal, or sawdust, to manufacture bricks. As the workers shovel and sort, they pour black clouds filled with carbon dioxide straight into the atmosphere. Tractor trailer beds are filled with new small tractors stacked sideways. They are not John Deeres. They are made in China.
One way or another India is rising and cannot be ignored.
What happened to India? Its record of achievements in engineering, mathematics, astronomy, art and sciences-- placed at the top of human development until the 17th century then appears to have fallen apart under pressure of the West's industrial revolution and its military strength.
The timescale of India is unimaginable from the perspective of the United States. One stretch of mountains on the way to Jaipur from Agra that provides sandstone and granite for construction has been consumed by hand-shovel mining after thousands of years. The mountain range has been reduced by half, by hand. Its open faces are still being hacked with shovels, picks, and levers.
Of adjusting to India a friend advised, you have to let India happen to you. Still, letting it happen leaves one with a queasy stomach.
The demographics blare from the street, that the vast majority are under the age of 25. One wonders, how do they place their country in the context of history; especially considering the border of Pakistan only a few hundred miles away.
The striving and the struggling. Nothing of use is thrown away until it is utterly useless and then so much of what remains ends up curbside with the livestock.
The streets are filled with hand work shops using the cheapest available power to bang, drill, and repurpose what is old but still contains the value of work. At the poorest level, obtaining enough protein and fat to live requires less than a dollar. The airport at Fort Lauderdale, filling with jets from a week aboard cruise ships, has double the body fat of a similar crowd gathered from a street in India.
The poor and their circumstances seem as immoveable as layers in sandstone. Which brings me to water in a time of climate change. Here, in Jaipur only a few decades ago the water table used to be twenty or thirty feet below surface. It is now, several hundred feet. Due, I suppose, to population pressure but also, dwindling monsoons in the region.
The opportunities for advancement out of the rural village are a Hobbesian choice. Moving out of farming by hand and the grinding difficulty of extracting a living from the earth means trading for the uncertain prospects of the megacities and work in factories and suburbs where the only thing that freely flows is pollution.
At home, I am often frustrated that government should work because it is organized to work. In India, the pressure of population is so great, the tax base so low (apparently), that one captures in an instant the impossibility of government to work except for the few who control the levers of power.
Somehow services are provided (to tourists, through hotels that have organized with municipal authorities for infrastructure, etc.), through charitable organizations developed by mosques and temples or churches, and through the big pieces of infrastructure: electrification, power plants, and highways.
On the road from Agra and the incomparable Taj Mahal to Jaipur, there are many smokestacks --- one hundred feet tall-- attached to small furnaces at the base. These burn coal, or sawdust, to manufacture bricks. As the workers shovel and sort, they pour black clouds filled with carbon dioxide straight into the atmosphere. Tractor trailer beds are filled with new small tractors stacked sideways. They are not John Deeres. They are made in China.
One way or another India is rising and cannot be ignored.
4 comments:
I spent 3 days in Jaipur in the summer and found it nearly intolerable. Only climbing to Nahargarh Fort or up to the Sun and Galta temples could you appreciate it, I thought.
The Major City's in India are a fuming hot bed of uncomfortable. Go outside the golden triangle to experience the best India has to offer.
one word for India
CAST
Sorry...Auto Correct...GRRRRRRRR
CASTE
I am a 25 year old Doctor in India, recently returned from a 3 month training in Internal Medicine at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, and I am entirely in agreement with the authors of this blog. However, to analyze India's achievements without taking into account her handicaps would be biased.
Its been only 64 years since India achieved her Independence. But with freedom, we inherited a myriad of problems. The nation had hardly any industrial infrastructure (thanks to colonial exploitation), over 70% of its population was illiterate, there were hundreds of languages and cultures residing within the land, and 30% of its original territories had been created as a new country (Pakistan). To have achieved such a tremendous growth, while staunchly adhering to democratic norms, is highly commendable. We never had a military rule/ dictatorship and the Government has always been elected by the people. Very few countries, liberated in the same era as India, can boast of such a record.
The rising population is the root cause of all the current ailments that India suffers. It simply is not humanly possible to implement schemes , if no check on the population is provided. In University of Miami Hospital, i used to come across a maximum of 4 patients a day in the ER, but here in Delhi,i provide consultation to about 150 patients in a single day!
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