The dragon Awakens

Last week the whole of the china and its diaspora celebrated the coming of the 'Year of the Pig' and this event got a great deal of coverage from the world media which used to shy away from third world countries like China and India and treat them like second class nations. So what has changed between now and then? This event is a case in point of the coming of age of modern china, indeed its the 'awakening of the dragon'.

If one has a glance at the histories of India and China they almost run parallel.They remain two of the oldest and continuously flourishing civilizations of the world that have contributed a great deal to world culture. Both had their glory days and fell on hard times in later days with India being ruled by the British and China suffering a 'Century of humiliations' at the hands of the western powers during the 19th century. And both are experiencing an economic and social resurgence during the 21st century.

Lets have a closer look at China. The Chinese up until the 18th century most often than not had a pretty prosperous time with several royal dynasties. A great change had taken place during the 18th century during which Europe had the industrial revolution and was strutting around the world greedily eyeing colonies. India fell easily with no strong central governing authority but china did not fall as a colony as it had some semblance of a central authority but got divided among the great powers into 'spheres-of-influence' which is a byword for exploitation. Thus began the 'Century of humiliations' right through the 19th century where china was humiliated to give up territory and pride.

The communist revolution though improved the situation it did little to bring relief to the masses but something really interesting happened in 1980 where for first time a communist country opened itself for foreign capital thereby throwing open china which brought and is bringing prosperity to the masses. India followed the path a decade later and still has to do a lot of catch-up.

What china has succeeded in doing is change the rules of the game viz. manufacturing which had traditionally been a 'Better-quality-more-expensive' business into a 'Better-quality-for-same-price' business which gives it an undoubtable edge over its competitors. This is similar to what India has done to services , hence no wonder the two countries are the fastest growing economies of the world. If this trend continues the future of the world might well be written in India and China and the dragon will keep raising its head.

Water Woes...

Its a shame that a country that aspires to be the next super power still has a tough time in providing water to its citizens. Indeed its a sad commentary on the state of civic amenities in the country. Any nation that wants to be among the elite nations has to put good civic amenities in place because for a lay man what matters more is getting his share of drinking water more than a double digit growth rate of the economy.

The recent cauvery verdict sparked of incessant mud-slinging from both sides of the river but such reactions are like 'missing the tree for the woods'. We have missed the whole point in doing this,which is that we are still in the middle-ages viz. our water facilities and need to jump into the 21st century. Ok we have a billion people whose thirst has to be quenched and its a mammoth task but the same constraint apply to China as well and she is coping up well with the problem so there is no reason why we shouldn't.

It really confounds me how the rivers of north and east India keep flooding year after year and at the same time we in the south struggle for every drop of water. A practical solution would be to link these rivers thereby solving two problems with a single solution. But as always the political will is lacking and this sane idea has got lost in the rhetoric of RealPolitik.

As all aspects in India even this problem has got politicized and conveniently hijacked by the powers-that-be. What we need at the moment is a comprehensive water policy which lays stress on inter-river linkages,rain water harvesting and other such progressive methods of eradicating an age-old problem. In the absence of such a policy we are going to have to put up with inter-state river disputes for years to come.