Reflections on India

When I first arrived in India, I was overwhelmed. The country was so complex, had so many different languages and cultures, and embodied so many complicated histories. And so I began to read and learn everything I could about India, in as many languages as I know (French, German, English). I also started to learn Bengali, a magnificent language spoken by nearly a quarter of a billion people, which is just one of the hundreds spoken here.

Since then, I've managed to visit a few other Asian nations -- Singapore, South Korea and Thailand -- in order to begin to understand what Asia's high-income, upper-middle income and middle-income economies look like, what kind of societies they are, and how they function. These trips were especially valuable because they gave me an intra-Asian metric to understand India, a metric which wasn't the United States or one of the wealthier nations of the European Union.

I've been enormously impressed with the economic energy, political savvy, and cultural sophistication of every single country I've visited. Asia has some of the most remarkable artists, intellectuals, literatures and culinary traditions in the world, to the point that I cringe whenever I realize just how provincial I was when I first arrived in Kolkata (prior to 2017, I'd traveled around Europe and the Caribbean, but had never visited any Asian nation).

However, all of this new knowledge has a price tag.

That price tag is a responsibility to the truth.

One of Gandhi's most profound insights was the saying "satyamev jayate", which means "the truth will prevail". The truth is indeed mighty, yet Gandhi would be the first to acknowledge it is also fragile and vulnerable. Because the truth can be damaged, destroyed or suppressed. To properly grasp the truth, we must be willing to pay the price for defending the truth -- by rejecting lies, deception and deceit.

Knowing what I know, I cannot in good conscience remain silent any longer about what is going on in India.

I know full well that the repressive arm of the authorities (more on this in just a moment) may descend on me at any time.

That is the price tag of the truth.

Because the truth isn't simply the telling of true things. It is grounded in the fundamental principle of solidarity: the notion that other human beings can seek out and discover the truth for themselves, that all 7.7 billion of us on the planet are fellow participants in an amazing adventure, the democratic co-shaping of human destiny.

But the painful truth is that India is in deep, deep crisis.

It's true that every single nation on Earth is experiencing a crisis these days, as the old economic models break down, and as plutocrats everywhere run roughshod over democracy. But India's crisis matters more than that of any other nation, due to its continental size of 1.3 billion people and its extraordinary internal diversity.

The truth is that India is one of the most polarized, unequal and hierarchical societies on the planet, and this polarization and inequality have been intensifying with breath-taking speed.

The truth is that India is where the richest of the 2,000 billionaires extract the labor of the poorest of the 7.7 billion.

I don't say any of this out of anger towards India. Quite the reverse: I have the greatest love and respect for the ordinary people of India. They are an extraordinarily talented and gifted people. They've treated me with the utmost kindness and respect, and I will be forever grateful to their hospitality.

But the truth is that India's rural farmers -- and it's worth emphasizing that two-thirds of all Indians live in the countryside -- are in an appalling state of immiseration.

The truth is that India is one of the youngest nations in the world, but tens of millions of youth cannot find jobs.

The truth is that India's tropical location and dependence on the monsoon cycle make it terrifyingly vulnerable to climate change.

The truth is that India's growth has fallen from 9% in the late 2000s to 7% today (a measly 5.6% in per capita terms), while the investment rate has plunged from 41% in 2009 down to 31% in 2017.

So what is the government doing about all this?

Lying about GDP growth rates, censoring the internet, jailing human rights activists, underinvesting in renewable energy (India's total investment in renewables was literally one-tenth that of China last year), and delivering bogus "post-truth" budgets:

In short, as the crisis gets worse and worse, India's political elites have responded with ever more brazen revanchism, while its economic elites engage in ever more brazen looting.

The national train is headed straight towards the abyss.

To paraphrase Walter Benjamin, the upcoming national elections this April or May are the very last moment the people of India can pull the emergency handbrake of 21st century history and ward off catastrophe.