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Scenarios For India

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[Astrological predictions are woven into the social fabric of India. The need to know the future based on celestial constellation cuts across region, religion, gender and age. Almost everyone has at one time of the other sought the advice of an astrologer to take a quick look into the future. A positive future is well regarded. But immediate mitigatory steps are taken for a dim future. The believers hope that wearing certain types of stones and orchestrating special prayers will blow away the dark clouds in the years to come. So it is apt that some future scenarios for India's growth be developed. This has been done periodically by organisations that have used empirical and not celestial data to extrapolate the growth curve options for India. I will take two such examples. One was done about six years ago by the World Economic Forum (WEF). And the second was made public last month by Planning Commission. Both of them have concluded that there are three possible scenarios where India could be in about ten years from now. The great, the ugly and the confused. Let me start with the one that was done in 2006 by WEF. One was called Bolly World. In this scenario, the "initial economic success becomes unsustainable, and domestic social and demographic pressures soon trigger an economic crisis." The second scenario was Pahale India or India First. This describes a potential scenario where "leaders put India first, above personal and sector interests. Broad based, high growth benefits majority and sustains internal economic development, while enhancing global economic integration." The perfect scenario. The final scenario was called Atakta Bharat or India Getting Stuck. This was seen as a less benign future. It describes "an India getting stuck without direction reflecting the lack of unified action and absence of effective leadership that in this scenario create a continuous and cumulative source of problems for India." About 5 years have passed since the scenarios were built. And it is not difficult to see where India stands today. The fresh scenario building done by the Planning Commission this years is eerily similar. The three scenarios are Muddling Along, Falling Apart and The Flotilla Advances. Again one does not need to read star alignment of the cosmos to get a sense of three directions India could head in. The first scenario called Muddling Along is described thus. "…where the system is crying for reform and some reforms are initiated. However, these are piecemeal, do not address core governance issues, and therefore are not effective…Small enterprises are sought to be encouraged, but the agenda of big business dominates." The scenario has likened India to a flotilla of several boats that represent cast, class and regional interests. A flotilla would move together only if these boats keep together. The second scenario is called Falling Apart. Here "India is stuck in centralised governance…wealth is distributed through subsidies. The resulting impatience and political logjam put India under severe stress, with several factions threatening to disassociate from the political union." In the flotilla, the ships keep colliding. And nobody moves ahead. The third scenario is most positive and is labeled The Flotilla Advances. In this scenario, federal and local governance systems work together to help everyone reach their aspiration. Government processes and regulatory systems become more efficient to achieve economic reforms. The Center for Study of Science Technology and Policy (CSTEP), a not-for-profit policy research think-tank in Bangalore, helped build the scenarios which were reinforced with inputs from civil society organizations, experts, government officials and academics. Such exercises are important as they allow policy makers to step away from daily file pushing and take a bird's eye view of the country. Legislators, policy makers, officials in states and centre would do well to study this. It will give everybody a sense of where the country is headed. And what needs to be done to choose the best direction. While there is much to be pessimistic about the future of India, there is much that can be done to prevent the worst scenarios. The first critical step though is to contemplate the future through such scenarios. And then to plan the present. As any astrologer will say, it is really about taking proactive steps to craft the desired future. (Pranjal Sharma is a senior business writer. He can be contacted at pranjalx@gmail.com)