Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani

Nandan Nilekani, one of the co-founders of India's IT giant Infosys, recently published his first book, Imagining India: The Idea of a Nation Renewed. He has a unique perspective as one of India's captains of industry, but the book isn't about Infosys. It's about India.

I became aware of this book after I saw Mr. Nilekani's presentation at TED back in February (included below). I think his talk from California is a good substitute for the book. He even organized his speech around the same four areas: "ideas that have arrived," "ideas in progress," "ideas in battle," and "ideas to anticipate." Mr. Nilekani is now working for the Indian government to put standardized ID cards in the hands of every Indian by 2012. He addresses the importance of this project in his book, but I'll come back to that.

Now, I've been to India. Any book that is optimistic about India's future and it's progress has to reconcile that with what I saw there. India is wonderful. I would go back anytime, but India is also mired in poverty, its infrastructure is horrible, and as recently as 2002 there was an outbreak of the plague. However, India is not a backward nation. It was a backward nation. When India gained independence from Great Britain in 1947, its leaders looked to the Soviet Union as their model, not the colonizing West. As a result, India was hostile to technology for many years; its leadership thought machines would take jobs away from people. English wasn't taught in school because it was the language of colonialism and oppression. The entrepreneur was seen as a villian in society, like Russia's kulaks or China's wealthy peasants (I think owning just a few acres qualified you as a wealthy peasant in Mao's China). Globalization was seen as neo-colonialism, and India's huge population was seen as a problem to be solved, not an asset. The proof that India was hostile to its large population was Indira Gandhi's policy of forced vasectomies during The Emergency (1975-1977). The Emergency was the backdrop for the climax of Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, which I would recommend reading.

But, as Mr. Nilekani points out, that is the old India. The India of his "ideas that have arrived" has moved past these backward policies. India is no longer hostile to its people, entrepreneurs, English, globalization, or democracy. And when I write that India has moved past these ideas, it shouldn't be understood that with a change in leadership these ideas could quickly come back. Mr. Nilekani makes it perfectly clear that these ideas are dead. No serious candidate for a position in India's leadership would run on a campaign of resisting technology or punishing entrepreneurs anymore. But beyond "ideas that have arrived" there are "ideas in progress." These are some of India's greatest hurdles for its economic growth. Among the issues at hand are India's schools, cities, roads, and single market. I think these are the things that people have in mind when they dismiss India's prospects and its progress. I mean, even America hasn't solved its public school problems. What chance does India have with a fifth of the GDP and four times the population (and a much younger population at that)?

Nilekani's "ideas in battle" are the things that India is currently arguing about, like the state of its universities or labor reforms. The "ideas to anticipate" are modern problems that India hasn't had to face yet. For example, now we understand that burning fossil fuels destroys the environment. If India invests in clean energy now, it can avoid 200 years of pumping carbon into the atmosphere and costly changes later. However, I'm not too optimistic about India's ability to do this. Even India's Environment Minister recently told Hillary Clinton that India won't accept any limits on its carbon emissions. Shouldn't at least that guy pretend to care?

So what do I think? I think India has gotten a bit ahead of itself. Yes, there are reasons to be optimistic and excited. But how many more low hanging fruits are there? Teaching English in the schools, allowing for grass roots initiatives, and being accepting of technology are just changes in attitudes. How about trash collection and indoor plumbing? Is India anywhere closer to tackling those problems for its cities and villages? American attitudes need updating as well, but I think the US is in a better position to maintain a global lead than India is in to threaten it. If the question is "will India be a much better place in 50 years?" I think the answer is "yes." If the question is "will India be able to threaten America's global leadership in 50 years?" I think the answer is "unlikely." I realize this book isn't about India's ability to threaten the United States, but as an American that's what I'm interested in.

So what is Nandan Nilekani working on now? ID cards. Doesn't that seem like a guy making sure the front door is locked on a burning house? Well, not really. It's a very basic step, but until India can create a standardized identification system for its people, solutions to many other problems are harder. For example, land ownership. There are many people in India's slums that own phony titles to the land they live on. Or consider how many of India's poorest people sell their ration cards, and then an unscrupulous few profit from it. If India had national ID cards, social programs could be made much more efficient and non-transferable. However, I still question if this should be a priority for someone as capable as Nandan Nilekani. Isn't any solution that requires ID cards a top-down one? Isn't the way forward for India bottom-up? Indians have been getting small business loans for a long time without these cards. Shouldn't improvements in infrastructure be a higher priority?

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