Job Discussion Forums

[Jack Rabbit]

Hello Everyone.

I want to start a thread here about the rise of India as a new superpower. I have also started a similar thread on the China forum. I feel that these two countries are one day going to equal or surpass the West (mainly headed by the US and the UK).

I believe this will have an effect on the EFL industry as well. English is being learned around the world because of the economic, military, and political power of the West. When this power shifts, this will have direct and indirect effects on the ELT industry. What those effects will be are a matter of debate.

I would be very interested in the views of all of you.

Jack Rabbit

[Jack Rabbit]

What is happening to all the EFL teachers in India? I started a twin thread in China (Off Topic) Forum called �China Rising!� and people are putting forth so many ideas that I can't keep up. I learned a great deal in the process. But here, the silence is deafening!

The topic is loaded with opportunities! Come on! Let�s GO!

Jack Rabbit

[jpvanderwerf2001]

After spending one year in India, I am very doubtful it'll become a superpower in the foreseeable future for the following reasons (these are obviously not all-encompassing, and only cursory):
1) Bureaucracy. Anyone who's tried to wade through the Indian bureaucratic system knows what I'm talking about;
2) Democracy. Democracy, in my opinion, is actually holding this country back. There are too many people coupled with too many political parties to get anything legislation passed. Also, the political infighting between the myriad political parties hinder progress as well. Of course, I hesitate to endorse a totalitarian state, but I'm simply not so sure that democracy is the most useful for this country;
3) Unions. This might tie-in with #2, but the unions in India are a debilitating factor to modernization. While I was in Bangalore, I witnessed the "construction" of the bridge over Airport Road; barely any headway was made in the year that I was there (this is not the Golden Gate we're talking about, it should've taken weeks to complete). Workers' strikes every two days led to nothing getting done. In fact, although it's been two years, I have a gut feeling that that bridge is still not finished (perhaps someone could tell me?);
4) Infrastructure. The previous three points all tie-in with India's woeful lack of infrastructure, not only in the rural areas but in the cities as well;
5) Social norms. India is not China.The idea of the "work ethic" is different; religious pluralism is a fact of life; the rigid class/caste system is endemic...these lead to a more challenging road towards the modernization it would take for India to actually become a world power.

I believe China, on the other hand, will most definitely become a superpower, probably within a generation or two.

[japanman]

I voted no mainly because of the work ethic issue. I live in japan now and I lived in India for a bit before. Japan's economy has done so well because nobody looks down on people doing various jobs, every job has it's position and function in the whole. One example of this is that people clean their own offices and kids clean their own classrooms. There is never a lower class or caste to clean up after someone's mess.
Another point is the infra-structure. In Beijing it is excellent, I only stayed there for one week but I never experienced a power cut, the water was always running and the roads were clean and smooth but not perfect. Compare that to New Dehli and it's shocking.
The money in India is still going into too few people's pockets.
I do however doubt that China can become a real world leader either. This is based purely on the idea that China is a huge producer but not a creator or inventor. You need to start new ideas and inventions to truly get ahead.

[Jack Rabbit]

Thank you Japanman and jp for the votes and the opinions!

Unlike you, I have never been in India. But I have heard things. Things like:

If you took all the Indian engineers out of US IT, there would be no US IT.

That the outsourcing of so many functions of Western business to India is happening that the question �Can you have a corporate identity if you don�t have a body?� has been posed.

20 years ago, India was associated with poverty and little more. My wife went there for four months at that time and she said that in one glance you would see the divine and the profane rubbing shoulders. Now it�s Bollywood, IT, outsourcing and the burgeoning affluence of a growing middle class.

Four years ago, India and China made an historic pact on the manufacturing of computers, India will focus on the Software and China will work on the hardware.

This place has changed so much, so fast, that I am taking the calls of �the next superpower� seriously.

Take a look at the �China Rising!� in the �China Off Topic� forum, because the 2 topics are so interrelated.

Jack Rabbit

[jpvanderwerf2001]

Another thing to consider is that India doesn't produce much. Sure, it dabbles in some metals, soft goods and so forth, but it's main export is people. This of course does not bode well. A brain-drain on a society does not generally lead to super-power status.

You say there's a middle class in India? I'd be interested to see the numbers on that, because whatever middle class there is is miniscule. Compared to 20 years there is probably a something of a middle class of course, but it's still tiny.
The news reports out of swank middle-class cafes focus on a very limited number of such places. They are few and far between. Bangalore itself probably has nine or ten decent restaurants to speak of; hardly a sign of a booming middle class in a city of seven million.

Also, the IT industry in America was built before the influx of Indian engineers. This is not to downplay these engineers' importance, but to say it would collapse without them is pure hyperbole, in my opinion.

I have to completely disagree with japanman's assessment of China. I've been there a number of times and the rate at which it is advancing is simply astounding. Of course, the environment and human rights are secondary in this case, but by simple economic prowess, China is mobilizing unlike any major country in the last century.

[Jack Rabbit]

Hello JP.

You have a convincing argument and I didn�t know quite what to say. So�.

I decided to look at the CIA world fact book at https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html
and the information was overwhelming. But this is what I have gleaned from the data.

1,129,866,154 (July 2007 est.) total population of those 60,000,000 are Internet users. Which is 5th largest in the world
the 1st being the EU
2nd US
3rd China and�
4th Japan

India�s GDP WAS 4,042,000,000,000 which was 5th largest in the world
The 1st being the US
2nd EU
3rd China
4th Japan

They listed the real growth rate as 8.5 % the 25th largest in the world,
The 12th being China
The 148th being the US
When I looked at the real growth rate comparison of all the countries in the world, I was surprised. Counties I have never heard of were way up there (Azerbaijan: 35.50 %, Mauritania: 19.40 %) and when you look at the growth rate of India, China and the US, well they didn�t look as impressive compared to the rest.

The general overview of India was: �Despite impressive gains in economic investment and output, India faces pressing problems such as the ongoing dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir, significant overpopulation, environmental degradation, extensive poverty, and ethnic and religious strife.�

The economic overview was: India is capitalizing on its large numbers of well-educated people skilled in the English language to become a major exporter of software services and software workers. Economic expansion has helped New Delhi continue to make progress in reducing its federal fiscal deficit. However, strong growth - more than 8 percent growth in each of the last three years - combined with easy consumer credit and a real estate boom is fueling inflation concerns. The huge and growing population is the fundamental social, economic, and environmental problem.

I couldn't find any figures on the size of India's middle class.

So, what this means is that India looks like it is changing and changing fast but it has some big problems that may prevent it from being a world power. But the same can be said for China.

Take a look, JP, at the CIA website, because I didn�t cover all the data about this dynamic country. But I have this general impression that this is a very different India from the India of 20 years ago, and it hasn�t stopped changing and that change is accelerating and I can�t help but feel that it may acquire world power status in our life time, maybe with in the next decade.

As for the collapse of US IT if you took all the Indian engineers away being pure hyperbole, well I heard that statement but I can't remember my source, so you may be right there.

Jack Rabbit

[jpvanderwerf2001]

Jack Rabbit,
First off: Dude, what's with the huge, bold letters? (I don't care, just busting your chops.)
Second: Interesting stuff on the CIA fact-site. I read through it. A few comments (by the way, I'm not an India "hater", just don't see it progressing as quickly as, say, China).
My comments in italics:

Hello JP.

Hi.

You have a convincing argument and I didn�t know quite what to say. So�.

I decided to look at the CIA world fact book at https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html
and the information was overwhelming. But this is what I have gleaned from the data.

1,129,866,154 (July 2007 est.) total population of those 60,000,000 are Internet users. Which is 5th largest in the world
the 1st being the EU
2nd US
3rd China and�
4th Japan

India�s GDP WAS 4,042,000,000,000 which was 5th largest in the world
The 1st being the US
2nd EU
3rd China
4th Japan

When taking these two facts into account, we also have to take into account that India has an absurd number of people. Some say it has now overtaken China as the most populous country in the world. It stands to reason, then, that India would have a large GDP and great number of internet users.
For example, in the first factoid, the sheer number (60 million) looks like a lot, but, percentage-wise, it's only 5% of the population that uses the internet.
The same idea holds for GDP.

They listed the real growth rate as 8.5 % the 25th largest in the world,
The 12th being China
The 148th being the US
When I looked at the real growth rate comparison of all the countries in the world, I was surprised. Counties I have never heard of were way up there (Azerbaijan: 35.50 %, Mauritania: 19.40 %) and when you look at the growth rate of India, China and the US, well they didn�t look as impressive compared to the rest.

This is a bit misleading. It is understood that a country that is already wealthy will have a slower growth rate than a poorer country. I'm simplifying, but let's look at it this way:
Person A has $1000
Person B has $1
Person A has a growth rate of 10% ($100), and Person B has a growth rate of 100% ($1), which brings their totals to $1100 for Person A, and $2 for Person B, respectively.
As I said, it's too simplified, but you catch what I'm throwing.

The general overview of India was: �Despite impressive gains in economic investment and output, India faces pressing problems such as the ongoing dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir, significant overpopulation, environmental degradation, extensive poverty, and ethnic and religious strife.�

They missed a few problems, some of which I touched on in earlier responses (too lazy to reiterate).

The economic overview was: India is capitalizing on its large numbers of well-educated people skilled in the English language to become a major exporter of software services and software workers. Economic expansion has helped New Delhi continue to make progress in reducing its federal fiscal deficit. However, strong growth - more than 8 percent growth in each of the last three years - combined with easy consumer credit and a real estate boom is fueling inflation concerns. The huge and growing population is the fundamental social, economic, and environmental problem.

I've nothing to say here.

I couldn't find any figures on the size of India's middle class.

I could look, but updated numbers on India are notoriously "estimates" for a variety of reasons. My point is that the middle class, while undoubtedly "emerging", is not growing at the breakneck speed some would posit.

So, what this means is that India looks like it is changing and changing fast but it has some big problems that may prevent it from being a world power. But the same can be said for China.

I understand what you're saying. However, China's problems do not inhibit economic growth like India's. I will restate that I think India's system of representative democracy is actually hindering its economy; I'm talking only in pure economic terms (not in terms of human rights or political freedoms).

Take a look, JP, at the CIA website, because I didn�t cover all the data about this dynamic country. But I have this general impression that this is a very different India from the India of 20 years ago, and it hasn�t stopped changing and that change is accelerating and I can�t help but feel that it may acquire world power status in our life time, maybe with in the next decade.

India is changing, no doubt. However, to infer from the Web site you mentioned that it is growing, and doing so commiserate with China's is a fallacy, IMO.
BTW, it does have a certain "world power status", in that it has nuclear weaponry and sheer numbers of people.

As for the collapse of US IT if you took all the Indian engineers away being pure hyperbole, well I heard that statement but I can't remember my source, so you may be right there.

It just sounds too "catch-phrasey" to me. Undoubtedly, a great number of highly skilled computer engineers are working in the US or for US-based companies, but I have a hard time believing that the entire industry would collapse if they were taken away.

Jack Rabbit

JP

[Stephen Jones]

If you're going to quote GDP figures then you should quote nominal GDP as well as Purchasing Power Parity GDP. India and China look considerably less impressive using the former figure.

The great strength China has over India has been that it has used its autocratic system to build infrastructure without having to bother about pesky complaints and law suits from those whose land has been stolen.

To ask for a number for the Indain middle class is as stupid as asking for a number for the American middle class. Define what you want.

[jpvanderwerf2001]

Stephen,
Good points on the purchasing power and nominal GDP. Both obviously play large parts in what I was saying about the sheer number of people skewing what looks to be an impressive GDP standing. I would venture a guess and say that both PP and nominal GDP are higher in China than India; although neither would be impressive as compared with, say, Switzerland or Norway--or even Malaysia.
Your point about the autocratic system in China further illustrates my point regarding political systems: By pure economic terms, China's system of government allows it to make greater strides than the handcuffs that India's version of democracy clamps upon its economic (and infrastructural) growth.
However, is it more desirable to grow economically at the cost of human rights? That's the $64,000 question...

[lizard]

hey JPV... Just thought I'd let you know that yes, that overpass over airport road is now DONE!!! (well, it seemed to be mostly functional)

I know... I was surprised when I saw it, but I drove on it myself! Cool, huh?

Taking this amazing speed of construction into consideration, I'd actually have to vote that yes, EVENTUALLY, India could become a superpower... there's no time limit, right?

[BELS]

If you want to give GDP economy figures then let's have a look at Britains figures alone, apart from EU figures. No doubt it, Little England is in the Premier league of the World

http://www.rbcc.com/about/uk_info.html

[Travel Zen]

I say yes!

India has been a superpower in the past; far wealthier than most European countries in the 1400's and 1500's. Read about the first few embassadors going to India...they were laughed at becasue of their paltry presents to give to the Sultan. Even the Portugues couldn't sell their whares on the streets because nobody wanted them ! Amazing.

I believe India needs one thing nobody has suggested: A strong hand to govern. Their ancient system of doing things demands strong and powerful leaders to lead them to success.

[jpvanderwerf2001]

Actually I did mention that China's "strong-handed" system correlates with its amazing growth. The same does not hold true for India because of its style of government.
Although your anecdote about how things were a half-millenia ago was intriguing, it's not a very convincing argument for India's possible emergence now. I mean, the Mongols were the largest empire known to man; does that mean Mongolia is destined to become a superpower?

[Travel Zen]

Hmm.

Things have changed for Mongolia, but not so much for India.

It still has tremendous resources (besides tea!) and it has a huge population. At this stage of human technology, population, mass production and resources can only be a bonus for a good government. What they need is massive automation, combined with a firm and calculating government that can be followed by all the people.
Not Communist, they suck. Not Capitalist, they are worse for places like India and Africa.

I can understand the point of culture being a hinderance, but culture can (and does) change with the times...even 1000 year old culture.

I only wish Mongolia could rise again, but not in our lifetimes