Building a nation needs nation builders. Its young must be healthy, well-educated and ambitious –for their country. Its leaders must be wise, self- less and dedicated to service – again, for their country. We have neither. Our young (not to mention their mothers) get less protein to build their bodies and brains and fewer calories to sustain their energy than did their parents* or grandparents at the time of independence fifty years ago. Twice as many are illiterate today as there were then, even while our best are being trained at huge state expense to be given away to other countries for no return whatsoever. The only ambition most of them can possibly have is to make money. The children of the privileged few should, of course, be capable of giving much more for national development. But the predominant ambition among them is to jump as quickly as possible down the bran drain that heads West. Worse, perhaps, is the skill siphon, the internal brain drain, that deprives our country of the talents and abilities of people who could provide front line leadership in administration, science engineering and the whole range of activities needed for sustainable national development. For those who cannot get overseas, life’s highest ambition is now to get a “five figure salary” in a bank, hotel, industry or commercial concern – preferably a multinational. Or in a government service that provides opportunities for additional side income and perquisites. While Indian history is replete with heroes and great leaders, it is difficult to identify many in positions of power today who could be called wise, self-less and dedicated to the service of the pople. Our elders long ago gave up the pretense of living up to the legacy of our founding fathers who so valiantly and willingly gave their all to the fight for freedom. Anyone who can demand more does so. No matter whether the demand is leditimate, fair or relevant to the conditions that exist in the country. In a country where more than half the population exists below the poverty line, airline pilots demand and get salaries that are 150 times the average national income. Bank executives get similar remuneration, as do many marketing professional. Even government officials, with virtually guaranteed life-time tenure, whatever their performance, now expect to be paid one hundred times as much as the average citizen. Young or old, it is now everyone for him (or her) self. Where will all this leave those who cannot compete? The poor, the fixed income middle class, the teachers and professors – the numerous professionals without whom society cannot begin to function ? Does it make any logical or societal sense that a twenty five year old bank executive gets paid ten times as much as the fifty five year old professor who taught him his skills? Any economy in transition will naturally experience temporary dislocations and imbalances among the sectors and between different groups. The mechanisms of the market are not sensitive to the social and economic costs of wide disparities. And if liberalisation entails such costs for the greater good, they could to some extent be justified. But the greater good is far away. So far away, that no one will live to see it. None of the economies that have make a successful transition within a reasonable time frame – Japan, Korea, Taiwan – were built on such stark disparities. Neither high flying airline pilots nor top government officials in these countries ever received salaries that were more than ten to fifteen times the national average – or two or three times that of a university professor. Liberalisation cannot be a mindless phenomenon. The benefits of the market place can only come to a country that is prepared to make difficult decisions and hard commitments. On the government front, policy must not promote disparities of the type we witness today. And on the individual front, our professionals must involve a basic set of values that takes them from asking what the country can do for them to offering what they can do for the country. |
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