Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
India: A Million Statistics Now
I wrote this article about India for the Spring issue of City Journal. It just came out from behind the paywall, so I figured I’d share it with you.
What I didn’t realize when I began working on this piece a few years ago is that writing an accurate article about India is like the reverse four-and-a-half somersault of foreign correspondence. The degree of difficulty is almost off the charts.
The problem–or one among many–is that we’re talking about a country of 1.2 billion people. Maybe. I say “maybe,” because if you look it up on the Internet, you’ll see that figure everywhere: 1.2 billion people. You’ll see it so often that you’ll assume it’s a fact, the way “Delhi is the capital of India” is a fact. Then (if you’re me), you’ll find yourself standing in a huge crowd in India and thinking, “How exactly did they count everyone here? There are so many people in this country. That must have been quite difficult to do.”
And just out of curiosity, you’ll try to figure that out. Then you’ll realize the only source of information about Indian demographics that could even conceivably be connected to reality is the Indian Census. Who but the Indian government could conduct a census in India? No one. Anything short of a properly-conducted census would just be a wild guess.
Then you’ll learn that the government last conducted a census in 2011. That’s when the number “1.2 billion” number became an official fact. No one’s counted since then. So basically, anything you read about India now could be off by hundreds of millions of people.
This happened to me with every statistic I tried to nail down. I’d try to figure out where it came from and get tugged into quicksand. Total fertility rate? We don’t know. We’ve got figures on the bigger states. I reckon it’s safe to say it’s well above the replacement rate, because in no state where they’ve actually counted has it been below replacement. So maybe by now the population of India is 1.5 billion. Plausible. But the difference between 1.2 and 1.5 billion is a country the size of the entire United States. Anyway, as I mention in the article, Indian health care statistics are fascinating and challenging.
Man, doesn’t that sound like a snoozer? The fascinating challenge of interpreting Indian health care statistics? Hey, I don’t blame you. That’s just what I was thinking!
—until I was mauled by Sippy the Dog. Sippy was named after the Study India Program. A student visiting on a lightning study tour had found the lost puppy in the street and left it with Nick and Meetu. But the dog was now full-grown and exhibiting behavioral peculiarities. I figured I was a natural-born dog whisperer and would set things straight. Long story short, Sippy-cum-Cujo attacked me, and I wound up without a nose. Meetu rushed me to Moolchand Medcity, a facility chosen for its proximity to IndoGenius. When you walk into a hospital with your nose in a paper cup, you’re not hoping to perform a randomized trial on Indian health care. You’re hoping for the best health care in the world. I got both.
It’s actually nowhere near as boring as it sounds. Trust me.
Published in General
I’ve heard that Indian dogs can be rather violent.
I can definitely say that the dog in question was violent. I don’t think it’s because he was Indian, though. I think he in particular had a screw loose. Yours truly got between him and his food. A very stupid thing to do, because I knew he wasn’t fully sane. But I’d been hanging out with him for a few weeks, and I thought we were cool with each other. I figured he was aggressive with other people because they were letting him get away with it, and that he wouldn’t dare try that on me.
Quite wrong.
I saw the piece the other day & meant to say something about it. I’m sorry to hear about your coming to harm, Miss Claire. Congratulations on putting the adventure in writing.
I keep coming back to only one thing–medicine. This has always been the hard sell for modern democracy–since Bacon & Descartes, neither of whom was a doctor. It seems, if they keep this up, they’ll be doing good business.
Modernity has never come this way, though. It’s always something else, not medicine, that does the work. You can see why–modernization is mess business, too ugly to think of in terms of health, & precedes a popular consensus around individualism.
Medicine in some way is too reasonable–you live in a dangerous world, you could use a doctor, so it makes sense to work to be able to afford it. If India can keep up corruption in politics, this could work out–corrupt people are not madmen or visionaries. But it seems implausible–what you relate does not say enough about what life people think they should live. There are yearnings in the heart-
I read the City Journal article yesterday — Claire, I’m glad you linked it here. It reinforces what I’ve come to understand about India. The place is one of the few countries whose future I’m optimistic about, and one of the few I’ve chosen to invest in.
Could you explain why you’re confident it’s got a future?
This sounds like Obama and Putin but don’t mean to imply you are that naive.
Having lived in India when my dad was an Assistant Naval Attache in New Delhi we were told to avoid the Pi-dogs. They roamed during the day and the jackals had the run of the alleys behind the house at night. We were also told that if the monkeys wanted what you had in your hands you let them take it.
I’m not sure I can fully articulate why. Much of the reason comes through obliquely in Claire’s linked article. Even though there’s a lot of crime and corruption and messiness, the country’s trajectory is positive. In contrast to nearly all the developed world, India (its political establishment, but more importantly its culture) is focused on the right kind of education and development. As Claire describes in the article, there is a groundedness, a clearheaded readiness to confront reality, that we no longer see in the West. Meanwhile, in contrast to the rest of the developing world, India has a deep and abiding cultural commitment to democracy. I expect these two strengths to reinforce each other in the coming years in a way that will continue to unleash the creative and entrepreneurial energy of the country’s people, leading to growth and development unlike any other country (except perhaps Israel, where I see a similar mix).
This makes sense. I agree that this somehow emerges in the article. Color me skeptical–I am not trying to be annoying or depress you. But when I think about all the prosperity & the work done, all the scientific education, I get a fear that the yearnings in the heart will arise–perhaps not in this generation, but their kids. Unlike you, I do not see solid ground. Liberalism tends to follow on terrible wars, as does democracy. I know of no exception. Maybe India will be it.
What are you investing in? I agree the opportunities for investment right now are amazing.
One thing about India that I’d like to learn more about is the fuss over appropriation of small farms for industrial use. The WSJ editorial page, often a defender of property rights, has come out in favor of laws that would make it easier for small farms to be bought, against the will of the owners, for industrial development. My instinct is to protect the rights of small landowners, no matter the supposed efficiency of big industry. It would seem that even though Son of Spengler and others might want to invest in some of the big industries that would gobble up these small farms, it would make for a better political atmosphere for business and entrepreneurship for the rights of small holders to be protected.
As a general rule, I subscribe to Bogle’s index fund approach. I’m not able to devote enough time to researching undervalued and overvalued individual names, so I’ll piggyback on the work of those who do. Also, I am much more confident in my ability to analyze big economic and political trends. So mostly I buy exchange-traded funds. For India, that’s INDA (trades on NYSE).
For what it’s worth, I also own EIS (Israel), and a little bit of EWA (Australia) and EWC (Canada). I own a couple of individual US names because I like their management, but my big US play right now is VXZ — an ETF based on the 6-month VIX (an index of option implied volatility).
Now this is just what I’ve been looking for to jump start a reading list on India. I haven’t done so yet mainly for the reasons you mention – there’s just so much to the place (or the places) that I can’t even figure out where to start. The article is now in Pocket (download the app and use it, by the way; it’s great) and ready for my vacation reading this week.
India moderates everything.
Marxism? Yes.
Fascism? Yes.
Islam? Yes.
Yearnings in the heart? Very likely.
Liberalism? Probably also.
My first tip, if you just want to start with a great overview, would be Khushwant Singh’s India: An Introduction. (He just died, by the way. Very sad–I wish I’d met him.) I’ve put a ridiculous amount of thought into “How to summarize this country that’s way too complicated to be summarized in an engaging way without totally confusing the reader,” and I came away thinking that he did a better job of it than anyone else.
There are thousands of great books about India out there, of course, but that’s a first-rate introduction.
Just finished reading a book about the “Raj” i.e., British imperial India. Among many other fascinating things was reading about the incredible stew of ethnicities, religions, castes, and other cultures and subcultures that made up the population. Even after Partition, it seems the country teems with such a myriad of “communities” as makes pretty small beer of what passes in the US for diversity. Challenges on an unimaginable scale.
I just don’t know much about this. My guess is that it’s a complicated story. Very.
Nice piece, Claire. I’ve never been to India, but the ones I’ve dealt with professionally have been skilled, resourceful, and just plain interesting to work with. Well, perhaps not universally (just remembered one who was a bit of a pill), but overwhelmingly.
Son,
I have been told that there are two approaches in India. Either you view it as a European country of about 50 million (those who can afford the goods) or you try to figure what you could sell to the 1.2 billion that Claire can’t verify but it might be more.
What’s your take.
Regards,
Jim
You didn’t ask me, but the answer is you can do the first safely but the yields will be low. Like selling something to a European country with 50 million people. People who take the very high risk on the second and get it right are going to be the wealthiest people the world has ever seen.
But that’s not for dabblers. That’s for people who can keep their heads when all about them are losing theirs. People who can be even in the face of triumph and disaster. I’d also ask yourself if you can wait and not being tired by waiting, because you’ll definitely need that skill.
Claire,
I’m so glad you are back from sunny Italy. I’m sure you are rested and refreshed. Your photo says so.
As far as finance in uncharted waters, one might always consider a partner.
Regards,
Jim
My take is closer to the second, but with a longer term view. Given India’s cultural strengths, over the next decade or two (at least), I expect more and more of the 1.2 billion will join the middle class. I expect overall productivity to grow faster there than in most of the world — and those who produce more get to consume more. So while I can’t tell you where specifically that growth is going to come from, I am bullish on India’s growth prospects overall.
Glad to see someone putting Kipling back into India, so to speak-