India Arriving: Chapter 1

Chapter 1--India: Not What it Seems

I really enjoyed the first chapter of this book and I look forward to the other information I am going to attain from reading this book. The book is about changing India--how it is changing today and the implications of these changes. This first chapter spent a good deal of time explaining India's identity (or lack there of) and how that causes problems for the country.

The author, Rafiq Dossani, explains that "the biggest difficulty in knowing India is the absence of national identity." India has problems with deep rooted poverty and illiteracy which makes it difficult to have a positive national identity. Language is often a key identity tool for a nation--yet there are so many native tongues and languages in India, this does not allow for a national identity to arise from this arena. Also, religion is another area in which a nation can gain a specific identity, but again, there are so many different religions represented in India, this also does not lead to a national identity.

Another reason for difficulty is the fact that India is globalizing the economy differently from other countries. India is globalizing by professionally training people and offering their services to places across the world. This is evident when Westerners interact with Indians--they are typically impressed with Indians' professional skills, technical experience, etc. India has a high quality of technically skilled workers. India also focuses on the service industry rather than manufacturing unlike countries that surround India. This is makes it difficult to know exactly where India stands in the global economy and it makes India difficult to "label" in terms of national identity.

I also found it interesting, while reading this chapter, that the author mentioned the poverty in India but also compared it to cell phone affordability. According to statistics, 80% of the people get by on less than 2 dollars a day, and 35% get by on less than 1 dollar per day. The author says that this statistic is very misleading. He says that if cell phone affordability is any indication of economic change, it is easily seen that something dramatic is happening that the statistics of poverty are not showing. The author describes a trip to India and while looking out of his hotel window, he saw fifteen cell phone towers from the single room. He didn't go into any further explanation, but I thought it was very interesting to use cell phones as an indicator of poverty, or the way the economics are shifting today. I am hoping that in chapters to come the author will take time to explain this further.

I really enjoyed this chapter, and it was really encouraging to enjoy the reading and understand the author after the difficulty I had with the previous reading. I look forward to what I am going to learn through the rest of the book to see how India is changing, and to understand the implications of these changes.