.:i think i thought a thought:.

Not long ago did The Economist state something which appeared to be a truism:

“If this is a race, India has already been lapped”

Cait Murphy, Fortune assistant managing editor argues that this is not necessarily the case. Makes me smile. Makes me think.
He sites two interesting arguments in favour of India:

Political Infratructure:

Being an Indian, this at first ignites a few cynical thoughts. May be he doesn’t know the inside story. He doesn’t know how bad the Indian state of politics is. In my humble opinion, India is making amazing progress despite the political infrastructure rather than because of it. But then, do I really know what China is like? It’s a comparison of relative potential for future development and I am tempted to believe that may be the fact that the economic growth in India is people driven rather than government driven makes it more sustainable. Afterall, politics and government do not operate in isolation from the people of the country. In a democratic setup government will have to respond to the people - even if for their own selfish motives (looking at people as vote banks).

Having said that, I do believe that an IT boom is the beginning but not the pinnacle of the economic “tipping point”. It has been a great first step with the government reacting at its own pace, but appropriately. There’s technology parks in every nook and corner of the country.

The real tipping point would be a agricultural revolution. If I’m not mistaken India still consumes most of its agricultural produce. The majority rural population is still agriculture based and it is the bulk of the vote bank that the politicians care most about. If this population is given a private sector impetus with more opportunites on lines of Sunil Mittal’s plans, then there’s no looking back. That would be our real answer to China’s manufacturing industry.
This dream is best summarized by Mr. Mittal when he says “There is a compelling case for India to feed the world, using inherent strengths that haven’t been exploited at all,”

The politicians haven’t ignored the IT industry, but the political infrastructure has given Indian entrepreneurs their share of grief. Come the next green revolution - the changes wont be overnight, but dare the politicians ignore 80% of their vote bank?

Demonstrable Success:

There goes the classic comparison of China with hardware and India with software. Murphy argues this in the economic sense. No doubt China has the hard infrastructure, but he looks at Indian financial markets and banking which are more progressive. Taking it very literally, the IBM PC’s gone to Lenovo - but IBM Global Services keeps getting bigger in India.

To steal a line from Orange: the future is bright. the future is india.

[Read Murphy’s complete analysis in his Fortune article]