ANIMAL SPIRITS

Kiran Karnik chooses his similes carefully. India’s image is that of a large, lumbering elephant, but it threatens to become a hippo, he says. Aggressive, bad-tempered and slow. Or could it become a gazelle by 2030, agile, peaceful and likable? He seeks answers through his analysis of nine areas shaping India: democracy and politics, security, health, education, economy, demography, society, jobs and livelihoods, and technology.

- Prasanto K. Roy

DECISIVE DECADE

INDIA 2030: GAZELLE OR HIPPO

by Kiran Karnik

RUPA

Kiran Karnik sketches an optimistic picture of India, but just a layer below, his gentle brushstrokes paint dystopia

Why should you care what this public un-intellectual, as he calls himself, says? Well, Karnik led projects that shaped India, including satellite TV education in his two decades at ISRO. He oversaw the UGC’s Countrywide Classroom TV programmes. And then, in the month the terrorists struck the twin towers of New York City, he joined India’s trade body NASSCOM. He turned it into an organisation that helped shepherd Indian IT to global, iconic status. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2007.

Through much of his deeply-researched book, Karnik sketches an optimistic picture, but on the same canvas, just a layer below, his gentle brushstrokes paint dystopia. Our elections are good, though “there are accusations of late about the Election Commission of India being soft on the ruling party”. As part of its nationalist agenda, the BJP has been trigger-happy in filing sedition cases, he notes. Democracy should mean that rights of minorities—religious, regional, gender, caste, opinion—need to be respected, Karnik writes, describing New Delhi’s “steamrolling of new laws based only on a massive majority”.