Amazing India

This week’s Time Magazine again features India. Undoubtedly, this subcontinent is a charging elephant. In 50 years, The Economist predicts it will become an economic superpower surpassed only by China (the US being only the third). In fact, China is now wary about its southern neighbor as it poses a potential threat to usurp its niche in manufacturing, IT, and research.

A booming economy of over a billion people (GDP growth of over 8%!), a world-class skilled workforce composed of brilliant and dynamic young professionals, and a vast, rich territory. All these helped India recover from the doldrums despite its seemingly chaotic politics, multi-layered bureaucracy, and unabated graft and corruption by public officials. It is amazing to note that the subcontinent has been through a lot of troubles after its independence 60 years ago. The division of the subcontinent into a Muslim state, which is Pakistan, and Hindu India left wounds in its history and among its people. Wars that followed further widened the gap between peoples who once lived together in one empire under the Mughal rule and under the British colonial rule that followed. Then came another painful partition that gave birth to Bangladesh.

In the early 90s, lackluster India almost defaulted its international debt after years of economic downturns. But rational political will, a rare incidence in India, turned the subcontinent’s predicament 180°. It served as momentum for economic reforms and propelled India’s amazing recovery.

Reading about India made me think about the Philippines. Both countries experienced the same economic boom during the early 90s, and were even dubbed economic tigers. India made it – and is now even called an economic elephant (not a white elephant) – but the Philippines still remains a promise unfulfilled.

Nevertheless, it is not always just to compare Philippines with India. The former has a long history as a civilization. Its ancient cities first rose alongside those in other parts of Asia and Africa. Its merchants started trading across the seas long before the West stumbled upon the New World. The Philippines, on the other hand, was composed of fragmented autonomous barangays when the Spaniards came in 1516 and started founding towns. The islands never had a concept of a single nation until 1898 when the Philippine Republic was proclaimed. But this proclamation still remains, until now, a project. The Philippines is not yet a nation, but a nation still being built.

So when you think about the troubles our country is in, think of them as birth pangs of nation-building. India has learned a lot from its centuries of existence. The Philippines still has to learn its lessons. And maybe one day (I hope this will come soon), the country will see the same growth that made India undoubtedly amazing.

If given the chance, I would like to go to India to see personally how this future super power prepares to take the world’s center stage.