New Orleans only got the fringe of it; nowhere near the full force. It devastated New Orleans because all the levees burst. Why did the levees burst? A reason you will be familiar with. Louisiana is the most corrupt state in the United States. The sub-standard work of safeguarding the city of New Orleans and its entire population - black and white, Mr Krish - was the result of payoffs and cronyism.

I don’t understand your reference to African Americans in particular, unless you’d been getting your information from the commie BBC, which never showed any white people in distress. But now that all the bodies are recovered and the damage totted up, more white people than black people died in New Orleans from Katrina. And more white people lost their homes. Although it was only the fringes of this powerful hurricane, it didn’t tiptoe through some neighbourhoods and devastate others. It took all before it, black and white. The damage and deaths came from the surging flooding, not the wind which, so far from the centre, was only around tropical storm force.

Coming up with phony examples like this weakens your argument considerably.

First, you blame all of our ills on one person: Nehru.
Second its not about merely about x’ism vs y’ism. Take South Korea, an Asian Tiger which achieved dramatic growth. It made the transition to being a democratic state relatively recently after much unrest. China may have to go through a wrenching transition too. Shouldn’t you give Nehru credit for keeping India democratic? after all there are not too many instances of countries achieving freedom from imperial powers and staying relatively free and open, or are they?
Third, you are an unabashed admirer of an autocratic politican! Are you a devotee of Deng too? What can I say?!

Dude, if you propose something, the burden of proof is always on you. It is the basics of human understanding. If a scientist/economist proposes a new theory, he needs to show that it is a successful theory. If he says the burden of proof is on others to show he is wrong, then he will be treated as an insane guy and he will be ignored. The same logic applies here.

Also, I don’t care what Vandhana Shiva does. I am for economic liberalization but my argument is to ensure that every section of the society benefits from the liberalization. Thousands of years of “slavery” by the priviledged sections of Indian society has created a social inequality which will only get widened if we adopt capatilism overnight. It is the responsibility of the policy makers to take into account all the sections of the society, not just you and me. The corruption cannot be used as a reason to talk against the existing and past Indian policies. Capitalism is no different when it comes to corruption. In my opinion, capitalism helps just rich to be corrupt while socialism (as the name stands) makes everyone corrupt. So using corruption as an argument against socialistic principles. For every MP of operation Duryodhana, I can quote many Tom Delays, Bill Frists, Enron, etc. I don’t buy your argument that the corruption is due to socialism. It is due to the inherent insincerity and greed of the human being rather than socialism or capitalism. Read a little bit about Naxal movement. You will know that the neglect of their economy is the reason for the movement. Though their violence is to be severely condemned, it is a nasty by product of society’s negligence. If your idea of economy is to be taken, India will have 60+% of its population taking arms to protect themselves and the remaining 30+% will get wiped away in no time. So when you are in the position of making policy for the country, you take a path which is all inclusive rather than excluding a bigger portion of the society.

Really, Mr. Krish, you’ve morphed into Mister Friedman there. He was suggesting nonsense along the lines of - ‘Because of outsourcing, Indians are turning to BPOs for a productive living. Otherwise they’ll become terrorists & fly jets into our skyscrapers’

It is such a nonsensical argument, I was wondering whoever hired this joker for NYT must get his ass whipped. Fortunately, entire media, both left & right, took Friedman to task for such garbage masking as op-ed.

To get back to your point, I stand by what I said -

1. There is really, NO OBLIGATION, on the part of you or I or GoI or NGOs or whoever, to ensure that every Indian has a sustainable profitable livelihood. If the artisans are loosing marketshare because junta prefer durable Indolium vessels to earthernware, I would ask the artisans to literally get their heads out of the mud & go blog somewhere to make a living. I cannot help the cotton farmer. Trust me, you cannot either. If you think you will click some button on the web & donate $100 to AID & that will save one kapaas ka farmer, you are insane. The farmer has to realise that what he’s doing ie. growing cotton on 1 acre plot, is insane, high risk & unprofitable & do something else. If he doesn’t realise that, he will be forced to literally swallow his pride by swallowing pesticide.
When Dr. Vandana Shiva shouted yesterday from the WTO protest group at Hong Kong “India must be ashamed, 40,000 farmers commit suicide” I really wanted to punch her in the face. India has upwards of a billion people. There are umpteen unexplored markets. Even if you are completely illiterate, you can make 100 rupees per day selling rubberbands on Mumbai traffic corners - bunch of mid-day journos demonstrated this. You can sell flowers, chai, pirated VCD, pirated Harry Potter, whatever…NOBODY is putting a gun to your head & asking you to farm kapaas. You then drink pesticide like a coward & you want India to feel ashamed ?! WTF ? Why are you putting down a billion hardworking people for the sake of stupid suicidal farmers who can’t give up their high-risk adventures ?

2. You also say - “It is a good thing that the world is not just driven by economical considerations.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Mr. Krish, forget the “big bad MNC”, even our idiotic Indian politician is driven by economic consideration - he won’t pass stupid reservation bills unless aap uski jeb nahi garam karte. I guess you haven’t seen enough Operation Chakravyuh’s & Duryodhanas.

3. Finaly, the burden of proof is not on Atanu, It is on you. India has had 50 years of socialism, we’ve all seen the results, or rather, the lack thereof. It is logical to assume that 50 years of capitalism might have led to a different result. If you don’t think so, tell us why.

Kya yaar to bhi

“Also, there is no obligation to take everybody along. If a businessman makes a profit running a factory to import autoparts, it is not his obligation to convince the kapaas ki kheti karne wala farmer to stop swallowing pesticide because he can’t efficiently farm kapaas. If you can’t farm kapaas, get your butt into the factory & slog away on autoparts.”

This is the kinda argument I am opposing. If you have this kinda attitude with 60+% of the population not in a position to take advantage of capitalism, then they will be driven towards terrorism (what do you think is the starting point of naxalite movement). A capitalist country cannot face the terrorism of 60+% of the population. You will be royally screwed. It is a good thing that the world is not just driven by economical considerations. If it is, then it is a surefire recipe for disaster.

Guru Gulab Khatri, I do agree that there is widespread corruption etc in our country. I wouldn’t put the blame on Nehru’s vision for it. I would blame the ineptitude of Indian politicians and bureaucrats for it. Nehru’s idea at that time was to protect Indian economy taking into account many issues which many of you here cannot even visualize. It is a pity that Indian blogospehere is full of people from priviledged layers of the society (me included). It is difficult for such people to understand the reality on the other side and take steps to take them along when you move forward as a country.

Lee Kuan Yew on India - Part 2
December 19th, 2005 by Atanu Dey

{The first part of this series is here.} Reading Lee Kuan Yew’s lecture is ed [...]