India is more than the sum of its contradictions
India in Transition
Promoting
Dr Massouma Al Mubarak being honored with IBPC award.
By Chaitali B. Roy
ny truism about India can be immediately contradicted by another truism about India’ said Dr Shashi Tharoor in his keynote speech titled “India in Transition” at the anniversary function of the Indian Business and Professional Council Kuwait on Oct 28 at the Radisson Blu Hotel. The glittering ceremony honoured Indian and Kuwaiti personalities who have contributed to the development of Kuwait into a modern nation and strengthened business and cultural ties between their two countries.
Chief Guest for the evening, Jeeva Sagar, Ambassador of India to Kuwait lauded the contribution of IBPC members and complimented them on their hard work and dedication to strengthening Indo-Kuwait economic ties. “Kuwait is in transition. It wants to move from too much dependence on oil,” he said. “We need a long term vision of the economic relations between our two historically linked countries. IBPC can play a role in this transition. But to do that IBPC has to become India-Kuwait Business Council. Once that transformation takes place, you will see things happening,” he urged.
The IBPC is a premier non-profit voluntary association whose membership includes leading members of the Indian business community, senior corporate executives and professionals from the private sector and also senior managers of Indian public sector undertakings in Kuwait. Besides promoting business ties between India and Kuwait, IBPC also strengthens cultural relations between the two countries by organising open concerts. “IBPC promotes the mindful interaction of its council members and guests, by inviting keynote speakers and influential individuals to Kuwait,” said Gurinder Singh Lamba, Vice-President of IBPC. Anant Kapadiya, Chairperson of IBPC while speaking of the awards instituted by the organisation said, “The IBPC awards have become a benchmark over the years.”
“The Award recognises and honours substantial achievements of our Kuwaiti
Mohammed Reza Yusuf Behbehani receives his award.
and challenges that have marked India’s journey since 1947. He said, “Winston Churchill once barked, ‘India is merely a geographical expression. It is no more a single country than the Equator.’ Churchill was rarely right about India, but no other country in the world indeed embraces the extraordinary mixture of ethnic groups, the profusion of mutually incomprehensible languages, the varieties of topography and climate, the diversity of religions and cultural practices, and the range of levels of economic development that India does.”
Dr Tharoor spoke of the immensities of the challenges people face in defining India and its people. “How can one determine the identity of an ageless civilisation that was the birthplace of all major religions, with different traditions of classical dance, 85 major political parties recognised by the election commission, and three hundred ways of cooking the potato?” he asked.
Dr Tharoor went on to speak of contradictions inherent in India’s socio-economic, cultural and political fabric. “Any truism about India can be immediately contradicted by another truism about India. Anything you say about India, the opposite is also true. And yet India is more than the sum of its contradictions,” he remarked. Speaking of the challenges the Indian economy experienced post-independence, he said, “The British took what had been the richest country on earth as of 1700 when the revenues of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb exceeded
A group photo from the Japanese Society’s beach clean-up operation in Kuwait on Nov 2.
the wrong implementation of the GST and impulsive demonetization that set the economy back severely. “Unemployment in India is at a 45-year high at 8.4 %. Unemployed young men are the greatest danger to a society like ours, ” he warned. But the former Minister of Human Resource Development was hopeful. He said, “We have made major advances, extraordinary progress but our challenges remain. As long as we can lift those constraints that are holding us back, Indians are capable of replicating in India the spirit of entrepreneurship and success that you have been practising in Kuwait.”
Development
India’s transition must go beyond the billionaires and reach the billions. As a politician, I always argued this, and whether we grow at 9 per cent as we did under Dr Manmohan Singh or at 5 to 6 per cent as we seem to be growing now, we cannot forget the focus of our development must be the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid.”
Dr Tharoor also dwelt on the extraordinary ability, energy and entrepreneurial spirit of India’s young population, and hoped that the youth are moved to action by a sense of national duty. On their part the government has to ensure, he said, education, training and creation of jobs for India’s youth. Dr Shashi Tharoor concluded his speech with an impassioned plea to live by India’s pluralistic heritage. “The idea of India,” he said, “is of one land embracing many. It is the idea that a nation may endure differences of caste, creed, colour, conviction, culture, cuisine, costume and custom, and still rally around a consensus. And that consensus is around the simple idea that in a large, diverse democracy you don’t really need to agree – except on the ground rules of how you will disagree.” The spirit of the country is larger than anybody’s religion, he said. Urging for an open and inclusive society, Dr Tharoor remarked, “We must remain faithful to our founding values of the 20th century if we are to conquer the 21st. An India that denies itself to some of us could end up being denied to all of us. Our new India will shine, but it must shine for all.”