Shashi Tharoor - India : The Future Is Now

INDIA

THE FUTURE

is NOW

Text and photograph: Respective contributors

Cartoons: Sudhir Tailang

Conceptualisation: Shobit Arya

Editorial Coordination: Meenakshi Kumar

Wisdom Tree

First published 2013

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ISBN 978-81-8328-336-6

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Contents

Shashi Tharoor

An elected Member of Parliament from

Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor is the Minister of State

for Human Resource Development, Government of India.

Tharoor graduated from St Stephens College, New Delhi and

finished his higher education with a doctorate from The Fletcher

School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, USA. A former

Under-Secretary General of the UN, his twenty-nine-year-long

career at the United Nations included peace-keeping

and working with refugees.

In 1998, Tharoor was named a Global Leader of Tomorrow

by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He joined

Indias political cauldron in 2009. Tharoor was the Member-

Convener of the Parliamentary Forum on Disaster Management,

a Member of the Standing Committee on External Affairs,

the Consultative Committee on Defence, the Public Accounts

Committee and the Joint Parliamentary Committee on

Telecommunications. He is also a best-selling author, with

thirteen previous books. He has won numerous literary

awards, including a Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Young Leadership and the
Future of India

S HASHI T HAROOR

The young parliamentarians who have authored the dozen essays in this book have taken on a broad sweep of the nations problems. Anantkumar Hegde discusses agriculture, education and the environment. Anurag Singh Thakur focuses on national security. Hamdullah Sayeed, the youngest of the lot, concentrates entirely on education. Jay Panda, amongst the oldest, discusses economic growth (including the inevitable comparisons with China), education and caste politics. Jyotiraditya Scindias emphasis is on inclusive growth, with special reference to agriculture, education and social justice. Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo discusses hunger, corruption and political change, particularly welcoming the role of regional parties. MB Rajesh offers a critique of economic reforms and suggests an alternative approach to addressing urgent problems of inequality. Milind Deora examines development at a time of rapid urbanisation. Nishikant Dubey seeks to bridge the urban-rural divide, particularly in skills, health and tourism. Poonamben Jat covers corruption, agriculture, education, human development and womens empowerment. Priya Dutt Roncon discusses education, health and the welfare of women and children. And Sanjay Jaiswal examines manufacturing, health and clean energy.

This is an impressive list, and it points to the urgent concern with Indias compelling problems that animates young Indian leaders across the countrys political divides. The contributors span the spectrum from left to right, represent both the Government and the Opposition and hail from both rural and urban constituencies. Their essays offer a good idea of the range and breadth of what young Indians with an eye on the future believe matters, as they navigate their way through the national political minefield.

For Indias challenges are considerable, and theres a reason why were still emerging, rather than, as President Obama so flatteringly put it in his November 2010 address to Parliament, already emerged. Our teeming cities overflow, while two out of three Indians still scratch a living from the soil. We have been recognised, for all practical purposes, as a leading nuclear power, but 400 million Indians still have no access to electricity and there are daily power cuts even in the nations capital. We are the worlds leading manufacturers of generic medication for illnesses such as AIDS, but we have 2.3 million people living with HIV-AIDS, another two million with tuberculosis and tens of millions with no health centre or clinic within ten kilometres of their places of residence. India holds both the world record for the number of cell phones sold, and also for the number of farmer suicides (an estimated 15,000 per year, because when harvests fail, farmers are crushed by a crippling mountain of debt and feel the only way out is to take their own lives).

And, as we all know, inflation, particularly of food and fuel prices, lurid stories of corruption and rising interest rates are causing concern to investors and have prompted some to see India less as an emerging market than as a submerging polity. There is no room for complacency.

Where do young political leaders in India fit into this uncertain future?

India is a remarkably young country. The nations average age is 28; indeed, 66 per cent of the population is under 35, which means that the young are already a majority in India. But they are not the ruling majority; according to The Economist, India holds the world record for the largest gap between the average age of the population and that of the Cabinet (which is 65). The young are entering leadership positions, but still with diffidenceand they continue to be outnumbered by their seniors.

And yet Indias youth population could be an asset unlike any other. We have a great demographic advantage in 600 million young people under 25, which means we should have a dynamic, youthful and productive workforce for the next forty years when the rest of the world is ageing. But we also have 60 million child labourers, and 56 per cent of the children in our government schools drop out by the eighth standard. We have trained world-class scientists and engineers, but 350 million of our compatriots are illiterate, and we also have more children who have not seen the inside of a school than any other country in the world does. We celebrate Indias IT triumphs, but information technology has employed a grand total of 5 million people in the last twenty years, while 10 million are entering the workforce each year and we dont have jobs for them. Many of our urban youth rightly say with confidence that their future will be better than their parents past, but there are Maoist insurgencies violently disturbing the peace in 165 of Indias 629 districts, and these are largely made up of unemployed young men.