Amy Answers Alan Webber’s questions based on the growing economy of India

The India, a country with an estimated population of 1.12 billion, the  world’s second most populous country, on the one hand very divided in class, religion and status and on the other hand a united country independent 1961 from hundreds of years of being a British and Portuguese colony, a mindset based on the largest religion, Hinduism (aprox. 80 %); calm, satisfy with what you have, be good in this life and you will be rewarded in your next life. A mindset which clashes somehow with the country’s massive growing economy and it’s need to develop in many ways to improve the living standard for the millions of people in poverty.

Amy, a Danish woman living in Mumbai for 80 days, an observer and an outsider, curious on all systems of life, reflecting on what she is doing in Mumbai; in every way a different from the last time she was here four years ago, different needs, purposes and goals, on a mission as a Kaospilot, at work.

Allan Webber, an American journalist and chief editor, interested in what Team 1, Kaospilot Øresund has to answer to these three questions based on the growing economy in India:

#1 How are India’s people handling the country’s transition into a growing world economical power?
#2 Do they feel any change in the status  in the world?
#3 Is there more economical equity among the people as India’s performance grow?

I, Amy, will answer these questions from what I have seen, heard and felt in the past 18 days. The answers to the questions are personal interpretations and stand not for any general view point as I feel the questions are seeking.

#1 First of all a very small percentage of Indias population are aware of the fact that India has become one of the largest growing economies in the world and therefore it’s impossible for them to know that there is anything to handle.
Secondly I don’t know who are handling the economic growth to begin with, and what they have in mind to do with the situation as it seems like a lifelong sleep for the government to follow through with ideas related to poverty, education, infrastructure etc. which leads me to my next point.
Thirdly I see a big challenge for the Indian people and their mindset in handling the growing economy. One argument for this is that they are settled with how their situation is, living in the now. Another argument is a general lack of organisational skills and thinking how things can get better, be effective, take less time and cost less money.
I have seen many examples of total chaos where resources, time and money are wasted because the planning is either short term or nonexcixting. Or maybe it’s lazyness or to keep people occupied; today I counted ten baristas and three cleaners at work on a fairly slow afternoon at a small Starbucks like café in Colaba, Mumbai. Max two would do the same job at my café hangout in Copenhagen. This pattern I find almost everywhere I go in this country.
Finally, I have my doubts as to whether people of India are open and creative enough yet  to handle the power and possibilities which can come from the growing economy. “…creativity is essential to the way we live and work today, and in many senses always has been. As the Stanford University economist Paul Romer likes to say, the big advances in standard of living – not to mention the big competitive advantages in the marketplace – always have to come from ‘better recipes, not just more cooking’” (Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class, 2002)

#2 Generally Indian people are very proud of their independent country. It must have given the Indian people a great national feeling to be free from colonists at last. For the few aware of the economic growth in India it may give them a feeling of “it’s payback time”, naturally this must lead to feeling that India’s status in the world has risen, and I can understand that, but for the millions of people oblivious to the economic situation, I don’t think the status has changed much. I think what matters for them is the here and now life and not tomorrow and the rest of the world.

#3  During daytime, on the streets in some areas of Mumbai I see Indian’s having the opotunity to be well educated, buy western brand clothes like Nike and Levi’s and get their coffee from a coffee shop like Starbucks. At night the same streets are the beds and homes of many more Indian people than the ones I see in daytime. The rich become more rich and the poor more poor.

I would like to answer these same questions at the end of my stay in Mumbai as I hope to learn and understand more about the growing economy and how it effects the people of The India.