Investment needed in people

AN ODD THING happened after my column appeared last Sunday. Soon after I posted it on X, it came under full attack from hyper-sensitive, hyper-nationalistic Indians who thought that I had portrayed China in a better light than India.

- TAVLEEN SINGH

The thrust of the attack was that I had failed to notice that China was not a democratic country with a free press, aggressive opposition parties and the freedoms we take for granted. When it became clear that there were many readers of the column who felt this way, I responded to a particularly belligerent critic by saying that instead of behaving like a chippy Indian with an inferiority complex, he would do well to notice what China had got right and what we in India have not. Suddenly I was inundated with an unexpected flood of support.

So let me begin by admitting that I was gratified to see that I had touched an empathetic nerve. There are clearly many Indians who agree that China invested in the things that go towards making a strong country and we did not. No country can be strong if its population is weak. I am personally not mad about the term 'human resource development' but use it here because it is in exactly this area that the leaders of India have failed to invest.