Transcription
Please identify yourselves. Yes, my name is Anu Singh, and I'm also a student of the Liyanu School, originally from India. Five years ago, at the founding dinner, you had predicted great things for China and India, and cited India's secular democracy as key to its future success. Five years on, I just wanted to ask your opinion on how well you think India's government is doing in separating religion and politics, and perhaps what advice could you give to India's new breed of leaders?
I think all the governments want your advice. Nearly, it's nearly as sensitive and difficult a question as the last one, but I'll give you, uh, my experience of India. I think despite all the failings, highly bureaucratic red tape, uh, inefficient, uh, linkages between central and state governments, unwieldy coalitions in the center, and unwieldy coalitions in the states, the progress that's made is quite remarkable. Six, seven, eight percent growth once Manmohan Singh and, uh, Chidambaram opened up in the '90s after the IMF said, "You've got to open up."
I think India's is under some constraints, not the result of the politicians, but the result of the nature of the Constitution and the nature of the society. China is homogeneous, 90% Han. So when the president stands up and the TV is on, more than 90% understand because the minorities are also learning Chinese. So, given those constraints, it's done well. Any Indian leader speaking in any language at one time doesn't reach more than, say, 40%. You speak in Hindi, you might get the Hindi North. You speak in English, you get the upper classes throughout the country, maybe 30%. You speak in Tamil, you get 70 million in Tamil Nadu and, uh, uh, you speak in Malayalam, I don't know how many, 40 million. So that is an enormous, uh, diversity which makes it difficult to get the same policies through. And you can see that after each election, you get a tussle of how to form governing coalitions. But on the other hand, because it's kept this, uh, Constitution fluid, so a country with about 30, 40 different ethnic groups and 320 dialects and languages has held together. That's quite an achievement.
Then you have the problem, the Constitution. I was in Bombay two years ago, and, uh, now this is a fact, I don't think the Deputy Chief Minister will take offense at my recounting what actually took place and his position. So he asked me if I would spend three hours discussing how to make Bombay a world financial center. So I thought, well, why not? So he brought all his main ministers, state ministers, and his officials. Halfway through the dialogue, I asked him, "Who governs Bombay?" He said, "There's a committee that runs Bombay." I said, "But who provides it with the revenue?" He said, "We do, the state government." "What happens to Bombay's revenue?" "It goes to the state government." I said, "Then how do you dispense with the revenue?" Says, "Well, we spread it throughout the, uh, state because there are so many, uh, farmers and so on, everybody has got to be looked after."
I then said to him, "If you want Bombay to become like, uh, Shanghai, you've got to make it a self-governing unit, which the Chinese have done in Shanghai, in Tianjin, in Dalian, and a few other cities recently. Then they deal direct with the central government. The central government gives them the funds for the infrastructure, and the revenue is shared with the central government, not with, Shanghai doesn't share revenue with either Jiangsu or Zhejiang or any of the neighboring states. It shares it with the central government, and the central government has invested enormous sums of money to make it a dragon head that goes up the Yangtze River, right up to the Tibetan mountains. And, you know, there was a period when you had empty building blocks, but it doesn't matter. The central government has decided this is going to be a great international center, and they set out to make it one, and now it is one."
So I said, "Do that." He looked at me and said, "What will happen to my farmers?" I said, "You just got to deal with the central government." Says, "Central government won't give me anything more." So the discussion ended there. So I said, "Well, then, how do you solve this airport which is not world-class, the road from the airport to the city which is not what you expect of a first-world financial center, and the city itself, the planning is not as good as it would be if it were governed separately?" This can't be done.
So two days later, I was, I was in Delhi, and I met the Prime Minister. I said, "This problem can be solved. You see, China makes it an independent unit." Prime Minister looked at me and said, "You don't understand. I will never get this passed through Parliament." I said, "Why?" "You have to go to Parliament." "Yes," said, "All this requires an amendment in the legislation, in the Constitution, and that requires a two-thirds majority or some in the central government and in the states. We'll never get it passed." So Bombay will always be at the mercy of the Maharashtra government, and the Maharashtra government, quite wisely, takes its revenue and gives it to the farmers because they are the people who voted them in. So until you break that chain, how do you break the chain?