WRONG-SIDE DRIVING

WE, AS INDIANS, take great pride in our country being amongst the leaders in any field. We have excelled in certain areas and won wide international recognition. 

- Kiran Karnik

Space, nuclear technology, pharmaceuticals, and IT come immediately to mind, in the tech area. Elsewhere, movies, music, cuisine, yoga. And, of course, beauty: both natural (of the National Geographic type) and human (as recognised in Miss Universe or Miss World contests).

Now, even preceding our much-publicised G20 Presidency, which puts us up there amongst world leaders, our ambitions have soared to being not a, but the Vishwaguru. This means being not just amongst the top few, but numero uno. There are some areas in which we are number one: cricket, for example. But then we are often displaced quickly by some other country. The same may be true of GDP growth rates, though with caveats like “amongst big economies”, which (though in fine print) take away some of the glory. There are other areas in which we have long and indisputably been number one (the number of poor or of illiterates), but let’s not talk of those. Who knows, the data may be wrong. 

We are (already, or will be, next month) number one in population and will stay so for many decades at least, but somehow this parameter (unless we call it a productivity indicator) is not one that sits comfortably with the