why isn't india experiencing the same economic boom as china

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The Green Bean

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2003
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Even though I am a Pakistani, I've been to India more times than any other country. I would like to add my view on why India has not been China. The main reason is that India's legal and legislative system is based on British legacy. A few years ago, India changed the names of a few cities to make them more Indian, BUT, I find it ridiculous that they are still known as the Republic of India. "India" is an English word and the if the Indians want to progress, they need a better sense of identity and give up the outdated British form of law. The same needs to be done in Pakistan.

1) Corruption. There is so much corruption in the lower tiers of society (police, CID..), that it makes the corruption in Pakistan seem small scale.

2) Religious bias: this does not include just the rural area, but a member of parliament was recently denied permission to buy a house in India's economic capital just because she was Muslim. It wasn't a legal matter--housing societies frequently reject Muslim applicants from purchasing houses. The same happens in other areas of life. This was the main reason why Jinnah felt Pakistan should be created--because of bias in secular affairs, not because of faith.

3) Poverty. India has one of the highest poverty rates in the region. Only the rich have benefited from the current economic boom. Even though India is so poor, they have one the highest number of billionaires.

4) Insurgencies and wars. Let's face it: If India was at peace with her neighbours, things would have been very different.

5) Democracy means a relatively weak centre: India is a huge country with diverse opinions. Everybody state has a different policy and so the federal government is much weaker than that in China.
 

Baasha

Golden Member
Jan 4, 2010
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How is it worse than mainland Chinese government corruption?

I'm not sure how rampant corruption is in mainland China but in present-day India, corruption is there are every level, from the highest echelons of power to the simplest things like getting a driver's license.

Corruption has percolated down the social strata because of rampant poverty. A good example is police. In America, cops make a relatively decent living (~$100k/yr.) and so can afford a place to live on their own, support a family etc. In India, due to the immense population, the number of cops are very few per person (ratio). The cops there are paid next to nothing and so there is rampant corruption. If you get stopped on the road, a simple 100 Rupees (~$2) will usually see you let off from a ticket. They earn less than $1000 a month in most places and so they try to maximize their earnings any way possible. That is just one example but there are many such cases.

I'm not sure how much corruption there is at the 'low' level in China. I mean, if you want to get a driver's license, do you have to bribe the govt. official? And, I believe Chinese anti-bribery laws are extremely stringent. In India, there are similar laws, but they are hardly enforced. A law unenforced is useless.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
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LOL @ green bean talking about religious bias. Do you even have any Hindu left after killing them all off? Hell you guys slaughter Muslims "not quite Muslim enough" Ahmadiyyas. Get real. They don't even teach what muslims did to india in school cuz the are afraid to piss you fanatics off.
 

The Green Bean

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2003
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LOL @ green bean talking about religious bias. Do you even have any Hindu left after killing them all off? Hell you guys slaughter Muslims "not quite Muslim enough" Ahmadiyyas. Get real. They don't even teach what muslims did to india in school cuz the are afraid to piss you fanatics off.

I have a hindu neighbour, a close christian friend and was taught by 3 parsi teachers. And where did I say religious bias does not exist in Pakistan? I would still say that Hindus are treated better in Pakistan than Muslims in India. If you want to talk about murders and massacres, nothing like the Gujarat massacre that was state-sponsored has ever happened in Pakistan.
 

The Green Bean

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2003
6,506
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I guess Operation Searchlight was just a myth, right?

That was not a religious massacre. That's the problem with Indians, they always justify their wrongdoings by implicating other for similar crimes. That's why they don't progress.
 

dali71

Golden Member
Oct 1, 2003
1,117
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That was not a religious massacre. That's the problem with Indians, they always justify their wrongdoings by implicating other for similar crimes. That's why they don't progress.

Gujarat massacre - 1267 to 2000 people killed

Operation Searchlight - 300,000 to 3,000,000 people killed

Similar crimes? I don't think so.
 

wwswimming

Banned
Jan 21, 2006
3,695
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all we hear on the financial news outlets is how fast china's economy is growing. yet we hear nothing about india.

they have similar populations so their human resources should be comparable.
they handle most of our tech support calls. they are an educated society for the most part.

why are they not enjoying equivalent success as the chinese?
is chinese manufacturing pulling them that far ahead?
are there other reasons, perhaps political?

with China there's the slave labor factor & the centralized government ... command economy, the mixture of communism & capitalism.

with India, it's mostly free market.

they both have about 1 billion people. Jeez India must be crowded.

but India is doing very well - in some areas. one of the "power couples" from my college food fraternity has left their home in Palo Alto to go manage start-ups in India. they had 'everything' ... but he was from India, later got a Stanford MBA ... they had enough $$ that they could work where they wanted.

they actually moved to Mumbai shortly after the attacks there. i guess Mumbai has a lot of high-tech. those of us in the frat got one of those "dear everybody" type Christmas-type letters telling about the move.

basically Mumbai is more like Silicon Valley in the early days, a combination of low costs, venture capital, and brainpower that is resulting in awesome sustained yearly growth rates.

BUT ... that doesn't mean there's jobs for everybody. just people who can learn C and/or derive Snell's law from Maxwell's equations ... tech folks.
 

piasabird

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
17,168
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In India they are breeding like rats. In China families can only have one child. Maybe it is just Chinese culture is different than the culture of many in India, some of which are muslims. Maybe it is the fact that people in China get sent to prison camps if they mess up.
 

Raghu

Senior member
Aug 28, 2004
397
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basically Mumbai is more like Silicon Valley in the early days, a combination of low costs, venture capital, and brainpower that is resulting in awesome sustained yearly growth rates.

Not really. Real estate is as costly as SantaClara if not more, for a city with wages that are one-fifth of SantaClara.
 

Baasha

Golden Member
Jan 4, 2010
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I would still say that Hindus are treated better in Pakistan than Muslims in India.

Cool story bro! :rolleyes:

On a serious note, is that why the Hindu population of Pakistan went from 24% at Partition to about 1% today? Whereas the Muslim population of India has increased tremendously in the same period?

Plus, there have been three Presidents of India who were Muslims. All elected by Hindu majority. How many Hindus in high office in Pakistan? Mohammad Ansari is VP of India today.

You Pakistanis not only have your facts messed up, but you refuse to see them when they stare you in the face!
 

peonyu

Platinum Member
Mar 12, 2003
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India is still growing...literally. Their population is already 1.2 Billion and its population will hit 3 Billion or so at current estimates before it starts to stabilize. Compare that to China, who has a slowly growing population due to the 1 child law and its not hard to see why they are performing differently.

China has to many people as it is but luckily they stopped massive population growth 40 years ago, they will peak at 1.7 Billion then start to decline [which is good for them]. India is just fucked, its economy is presented as super rosy to us in the US but that is just the outsourcing jizz coming from our CEOs who love them for working slave wages for us [or rather for them, to make them the CEO rich]. Your typical Indian lives far worse than the Chinese do, comparable to Haitans.

If anything China has a nice future for them [due to Communist 1 child policy, only good thing Communism did for China imo], India's future looks bleak since they are going to drown themselves with to many hands to feed, not enough jobs to go around, and increasing social tension due to lack of food and jobs.
 
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peonyu

Platinum Member
Mar 12, 2003
2,038
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Cool story bro! :rolleyes:

On a serious note, is that why the Hindu population of Pakistan went from 24% at Partition to about 1% today? Whereas the Muslim population of India has increased tremendously in the same period?

Plus, there have been three Presidents of India who were Muslims. All elected by Hindu majority. How many Hindus in high office in Pakistan? Mohammad Ansari is VP of India today.

You Pakistanis not only have your facts messed up, but you refuse to see them when they stare you in the face!


Also, while Christians are discriminated at times in India...Its unheard of to hear of Hindus suicide bombing anyone. I could fill a book up with attacks from Pakistani muslims on Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus or anything that is not Muslim..
 

Broheim

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2011
4,587
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ramblings


you praise India's economy, but fail to realize that per capita you're some of the poorest fuckers around, you rank below half of goddamn Africa including but not limited to motherfucking Djibouti.... what an economic powerhouse you are!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

and just because you like PPP (although I've always found it to be a flawed and arbitrary system)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
 
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Tom

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
13,293
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sorry if Im repeating something..

Corporations prefer slave labor to all other forms of labor. China has a very simple to deal with system for providing slave labor. So lots of investment there.

India has a much more complex system, even some democracy. And their poor are possibly too poor to be productive.
 

Abwx

Lifer
Apr 2, 2011
11,938
4,912
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India, despite having scores of comptetent people, is litterally crushed
by her huge number of inhabitants...

Out of a 3.2 Millions km2 total surface , more than 2 millions km2
would be necessary to barely feed the billion or so of population,
and that would be possible only if using a highly productive agriculture
capable of two times the yield/area of the US agriculture , and on par
with the european one...

Just reaching this level would mandate hundreds billions $ , and more
surely, many trillions $ of investments..

To say it shortly, such a project is not realistically on reach,
so for future generations we can only be extremely pessimistic
about what has no possible happy outcome...
 

gevorg

Diamond Member
Nov 3, 2004
5,070
1
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China's economic "boom" is a bubble waiting to burst. State-controlled construction projects and slave labor is not economic boom.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
41,068
10,311
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There are some very important differences:

The Chinese historically have been distrustful of outsiders, other countries and their intentions. Thus, they've guarded their autonomy. Yes, they were invaded and ravaged by the Japanese during WW II, but they were not colonized and run like India was by the British.

China's economic "boom" is a bubble waiting to burst. State-controlled construction projects and slave labor is not economic boom.
Bubble my ass. They were an agrarian culture, barely taking part in the industrial revolution. They have turned things around at a breakneck pace. There will be no bubble burst that will send them back to primitive life styles short of an asteroid striking the planet.
 
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Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
6,861
3
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Thank you all for the discussion, I have learned a lot.

The difference between China and India seems to me like a stock car race. When you have two countries, India and Pakistan, battling each other, then a third Country (China) can easily pass by.

Two Religions, sparring, meanwhile a Government State goes flying by.

-John
 
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tvarad

Golden Member
Jun 25, 2001
1,130
0
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Thank you all for the discussion, I have learned a lot.

The difference between China and India seems to me like a stock car race. When you have two countries, India and Pakistan, battling each other, then a third Country (China) can easily pass by.

Two Religions, sparring, meanwhile a Government State goes flying by.

-John

Actually, Pakistan has become less and less of a brake on India after 1971. If anything, India has not indulged in mindless militarization which is a bonus in itself, since the military is firmly under civilian control. Most of India's problems are self-inflicted. The main cause was the quasi-socialist "license-raj" system that existed until the early 1990's (when, for example, a toothpaste producer had to apply for government permission to increase production!) that squandered more than four decades and left India a full decade behind China in terms of development. When the IT boom threatened to take away the control of bureaucrats, they actually wanted to tax a software program by the number of lines of code in it! The other drag comes from the democratic system wherein the five year election cycles means that long-term, essential investments like in infrastructure are difficult to implement because the different political interested based on caste, religion etc.. want benefits now rather than wait a decade. Third, the political system has been heavily corrupted; there is no structured way for parties to raise money so whenever one is in power, the bureaucracy's main function is not to provide citizen services but to make money off of them and push it upward to the political class (while they keep their cut). So India works despite it's feckless Government and bureaucracy, not because of it.
 

tvarad

Golden Member
Jun 25, 2001
1,130
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2) Religious bias: this does not include just the rural area, but a member of parliament was recently denied permission to buy a house in India's economic capital just because she was Muslim. It wasn't a legal matter--housing societies frequently reject Muslim applicants from purchasing houses. The same happens in other areas of life. This was the main reason why Jinnah felt Pakistan should be created--because of bias in secular affairs, not because of faith.

Actually, I would say that Muslims have been one of the main causes of the sub-continent's backwardness because of the massive amount of resources that have been squandered to appease the feudal muslim mindset that brought about Pakistan. Nothing can be provided better proof than the current state of Pakistan. Considering the hell muslims have created in India with partition, it says something about the country that they have been accommodated as free and equal citizens. Your whining is the same as the mindless whining of Muslims in Britain, France, Holland, Sweden, Denmark who are now coming around to the fact that it is very difficult to accommodate totalitarian Muslim thought in democratic societies.
 

dmcowen674

No Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
54,889
47
91
www.alienbabeltech.com
Corruption. There is so much corruption in the lower tiers of society (police, CID..), that it makes the corruption in Pakistan seem small scale.


Poverty. India has one of the highest poverty rates in the region. Only the rich have benefited from the current economic boom. Even though India is so poor, they have one the highest number of billionaires.

That doesn't make any sense. How would the poor affect themselves?