主题：【原创】印度崛起：神话与现实 -- 晨枫

This is a week when I feel especially hopeless about India’s future. A week in China has caused this gloomy mood. I have just returned from the World Economic Forum’s ‘Summer Davos’ in the city of Tianjin. I had not heard of Tianjin till two weeks ago and, because I was told that it was near Beijing, expected an obscure dormitory town. So when I found myself in a magnificent, modern city of shiny skyscrapers, spectacular bridges and fine boulevards, I was stunned. Even more so when I heard that the city has been built in the past decade and then I found myself reduced to speechless wonder when I heard that Tianjin’s amazing, futuristic Convention Centre took just nine months to build. There were Indian officials and businessmen at the meeting whose mouths fell open when they heard.

We chattered amongst ourselves in Hindi about why such a Convention Centre would take ten years to build in India and agreed that it could be because democratic processes take longer than totalitarian ones. Then we went to Tianjin railway station to take the high speed train to Beijing and we stopped making excuses for the Motherland. Tianjin railway station looks like Delhi’s new international airport and the train that covered the 130 kilometres to Beijing in thirty minutes is faster and more modern than any I have ever been on. When we got to Beijing, the Indians I was with, were as angry as I was at how far India had been left behind by a country that till the seventies was at least twenty years behind us.

Meanwhile, the country from which our Lefties, Liberals and Maoists get inspiration, has moved with spectacular success towards a market economy. When I twittered about this, someone twittered back that perhaps we should lease India to the Chinese for the next 200 years. It might come to that if

we do not buck up.

Sad fact is that India does use democracy as an excuse. Indians look at China and say she has abused her populous and forced them to build the shiny cities, something that India cannot do due to the rule of law and democracy. Strange how India was able to evite 140,000 poor families to make space for the Commonwealth games despite democracy and rule of law. The difference between China and India is less about the government system, its not about authoritarian or democracy. The real difference is that the Chinese government is pragmatic and has thrown ideology out the window. What on earth can be more incompatible than communism and capitalism working side by side? Indians claim they have the advantage of democracy. This is my prediction, the chinese government is pragmatic enough to adopt democracy if and when it suits them. Where will India's advantage lie then?

Absolutely right!!! We do have a feudal setup where we either elect Indira gandhi rajiv gandhi sonia gandhi and Rahul our leaders. A dmaned feudal setup !!!! Now to top it we have an appointed PM for two terms of or whom none of the indians cast a single vote in any election!!! The wings of democracy the legioslatur the judiciary and the executive the office of the PM, president the CBI the CVC and the CEC everything ids under the control of AICC chairperson.Do we call it democracy?