This past week, NPR’s Morning Edition has hosted a series called The Ganges: A Journey Into India. Philip Reeves travels from the headwaters of the mighty river Ganga in the north of India to its confluence with the Bay of Bengal to the southeast. While it certainly isn’t a geographic trip into the nation, Reeves focus is India’s place in today’s global economics with an understanding of India herself – her cultures, traditions, politics and socio-economic realities – and the interplay of past and future.
As an example of India’s extremes, yesterday’s segment ventured from Varanasi, a most sacred Hindu city, to Bihar just to the east, a state plagued with political corruption, poverty, low literacy rates and rampant crime. (Bihar itself is a dichotomy as the headquarters of large and privately owned Tata Steel, home to corrupt politicians like Laloo Prasad Yadav and host of various acts of brutality such as the recent murder of Patna University professor, Papiya Ghosh.)
Before launching into the topic of Indian economic development, let’s consider for a moment the similarities and differences between India and New Orleans, a city openly joked about as America’s own Third World. I’ve stated before that major indicators of Third World-ness are a) low importance placed on education at all levels, b) small middle class and the resultant gap between rich and poor, c) political corruption with limited citizen involvement, and d) an overall lack of forward thinking. Over the course of my three-decade lifetime, India has slowly moved away from these characteristics, while New Orleans has been growing into it. What changed in both cases? More importantly, however, at what cost?
This morning, Reeves was in Calcutta (West Bengal state), where the Indian government, following in the footsteps of China, plans to delineate Special Economic Zones (SEZs) with tax breaks and other economic incentives for investors. (Sound familiar?) The price here is the one villagers pay when booted off their farmland, their only source of income, to make room for each SEZ. One such proposed eviction was thwarted by a group of protestors and, as Reeves says, though many Indians believe their country needs industrialization, the plans for SEZs may have to be slowed down – the price India pays for being a democracy.
An Educated Worker Base
How has a nation like India thrived and “overtaken Japan as home to the most billionaires in Asia” with so much holding it back? And what“s keeping New Orleans back? The rest of this post is centered on how and how not to move this city forward and what cues we can take from the case of India. One thing Indians have always valued is education and innovation, but what they finally nailed was investment in technology-oriented higher education and the simultaneous attraction of foreign investors. This essentially stanched the immense brain drain to foreign countries and promoted the growth and retention of local businesses.
Another direct result was the emergence of a strong middle class, i.e. an achievable goal for those languishing in poverty for decades. When applied to New Orleans, City Hall had better partner with the Orleans Parish School Board, the Recovery School District and local universities to further its own interests of economic development. Dear Mr. Nagin, Dr. Blakely and your associates, if you build it, they will not come, not when the offer is shiny new buildings with a poorly educated human resource base. This is so obvious that that such a plan – a waterproof and secure plan to groom New Orleans’s young ones to take good local jobs – does not exist means our city leaders have no care for the city“s economic development and only their own.
The Will Of The People Being Necessary To The Security Of A Free State
Again, an educated worker base given over to incentivized investors and developers is great, but at what cost to the people? Totalitarian China has no problem moving poor farmers from their land to concrete bunkers of apartment complexes (the equivalent of projects, really) in order to make room for dams, factories and software shops. Tommy Hsu has written a thorough paper on the Yangtze Three Gorges Project, which includes the effects of resettlement on impacted villagers. Thankfully, India and America are democracies, but it is only organized and socially active populations within these nations who can and do control their collective destiny. In the aforementioned Indian case, Calcutta is synonymous with citizen unrest, and its citizens march or call their politicians if the milkman is two minutes late in arriving.
Therefore, it is the responsibility of citizens and government to promote social awareness, educate themselves on the issues, form social networks and a united voice, not let people make decisions for us in the name of democracy, and achieve a democratically-arrived-at goal suitable to that particular community. The alternative is to simply stand there with toothbrush in hand when the bulldozers arrive one morning, and complain loudly after the fact. Democracy is like a marriage it doesn’t just work because the concept is supposed to and on alternate Tuesdays, we have to make it happen every minute of everyday.
Now Add Unique Issues
Education and democracy only scratch the surface of the development question – if only problems were that easily addressed. Take the case of New Orleans again: Before Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood, New Orleans experienced a huge divide between black and whites, enhanced by the nationwide flight of whites and money from urban centers to the suburbs. Almost two years after the disaster and into recovery, this racial chasm only deepens in the fight over resources and how to rebuild and for whom.
Add to this the Katrina diaspora – the concept of community has been turned on its head or, in some cases, wholly broken – which makes democratic decision-making hard at a time when constituents are physically and mentally scattered. Even so, if the spirit of democracy prevails, tools exist to get around these geographic and logistical barriers. But, again, the prerequisites are openness, viable communication tools (and not technology for its own sake) and the ability and willingness of all stakeholders to participate.
As city dwellers, one advantage New Orleanians have is that they are not sharecroppers attached to their land for economic survival. An ironic resettlement has already happened due to the Katrina debacle, or will involve moves within and to the city and reimbursement by the government. In the name of progress, Chinese and Indian villagers have been forcibly moved completely elsewhere with no means to support themselves, while New Orleanians have a chance at employment with development.
Only The End Without Good Schools And Real Citizen Participation
The development of an economically dying area is not bad; I dare say it has improved the quality of life for many all over the world. Everyone in India and this city that rolls their eyes or pitches tantrums at the mere sound of the word really needs to take pause, put aside political dogma and think forward to the real questions and consequences: Can this development occur at a pace acceptable to citizens? Will it really bring about prosperity directly proportional to the educational level and labor of its community? Or will it only be a burden and create more problems, like urban squalor, if not properly staffed or the material resources become unavailable (is it shortsighted)? Most importantly, does it jibe with the democratic will of the surrounding community?
In other words, New Orleans will develop as the market can bear, but we’re a big part of that market. What we contribute to it (education, democracy) and get out of it (prosperity, democracy) is ultimately our responsibility.
Perhaps NPR should make a journey down the Mississippi and ask the same questions of Americans? We have worlds within our own nation; socioeconomic disparity and the struggle to survive are easily found in our very own homes and backyards. At the end of the river, they will find the Crescent City. Its extremes of ancient and modern, rural and urban, and rich and poor will put India to shame.
Education is the key, but it is not a priority. The purpose of the road to hell program is to allocate money to government, its parasites, then to debt, then to buildings. Nothing about this once in a lifetime chance to do something is focused on the next quarter, much less, the next generation. Why?
Very eloquent and thought provocative.
FI only people with the power to have effect would think.
FWIW, I created a “Federal Flood” page on wikipedia. Let’s see how long it lasts…
Maitri, this is an excellent post. Especially this:
Can this development occur at a pace acceptable to citizens? Will it really bring about prosperity directly proportional to the educational level and labor of its community? Or will it only be a burden and create more problems, like urban squalor, if not properly staffed or the material resources become unavailable (is it shortsighted)? Most importantly, does it jibe with the democratic will of the surrounding community?
What’s the cost? What do the people want? Not just the well-to-do people. Capitalism let loose to run rampant does not necessarily work to the advantage of all. And don’t I sound like some damned commie?
Congratulations on your job as guest-poster at First Draft. We’ve got to stay on Scout’s case to make sure she takes good care of her Louisiana kitty.
This is what boggles my mind – if you had the chance to start from scratch and fix all the things that were broken, would you do things the same way again? The people of New Orleans who want it to be better than it was economically (and not a city in decline) need to take a long, hard look at the past and future of the educational system. The system can’t be designed, as it appears to be now, to give advantages to people in affluent areas. All children in New Orleans are part of the fabric that is ripped and torn. It seems foolish to piece that fabric back together when it was a rag to begin with. All children deserve to have the best possible education.
“The system can’t be designed, as it appears to be now, to give advantages to people in affluent areas.”
I’ll preface this by saying that my two sons were only in the NOPS system through 6th grade, after which we moved them to private school. The younger’s last year in the system was the year prior to Katrina. And about 35 years prior I did the same K-6th NOPS stint myself.
That being said…the main way in which the system is designed to “give advantages” to people in affluent areas is that we have an educational system that relies on parental involvement. Where parents care enough about their children’s education to be available every day if needed for homework assistance, where they join the PTO and attend parent-teacher meetings, where they have open communication with their children’s teachers…even our local education system works. But I don’t mean “the system works for any individual family who makes these efforts”; in truth, a reasonably high percentage of the families at any school must all accept these practices for the “system” to work. If two families per class have all the parental involvement in the world, but the rest of the students’ parents completely neglect their parental responsibilities regarding their children’s education, the children of the “involved” families will end up doing “busy work” while the teaching staff spends all it’s time dealing with the problems inherent in a classroom full of children whose parents view school as a daily babysitting service.
The main problem with New Orleans’ public school system is simply that it’s a “traditional” school program designed for the typical community where the education of children is important to the whole community…and in New Orleans, there are just way too many parents for whom education for children is either immaterial to them, or something that they are completely unable to support. In way too many families the children are in a school because social services says they have to be, not because the parent(s) is stressing education’s importance. In other cases you have children raising children, and the parent(s) is just devoid of the skills necessary to supply the support their children need.
In the course of my two sons’ stays in the NOPS system I detected a direct relationship between the test grades for the school as a whole and the membership of the PTO and attendance at parent-teacher conference night.
This is a wonderful, thought-provoking post, Maitri. I especially appreciate the way you’ve drawn parallels between the economic and social development in rural India and New Orleans.
During my recent trip to India, I even passed by several landmarks of rural unrest during a drive in West Bengal: a burnt-out field; graffiti brandished on army trucks; and a bus struck on fire in the name of protest. The broad base of “Naxal” movement tends to draw from a crowd that hasn’t the means or wherewithal to determine what will be their best option for development. Their corrupt leaders often resort to arcane methods (fasting) as protest, ultimately focusing the debate on their bodies and not on the malnutritioned bodies of their constituents.
Puddinhead’s comment illustrates another facet of the “problem,” namely that of cultural clashes. Formal education in schools, colleges, and universities is a boon to those who make the most of their time there. However, it is not always a viable option for many who can hardly sustain their selves. In an ideal world, it shouldn’t matter where and how one receives their education so long as they’re able to master the rhetoric and math needed to function, survive, and succeed in society. That day has yet to arrive, a parallel that persists in both rural India and, to some extent, in New Orleans and many other underdeveloped urban pockets and forgotten enclaves of the United States.
Papiya Ghosh was a devoted educator, a woman who staunchly remained behind in Patna when most educated elites would have accepted positions abroad. Her primary research topic (the Muslim diaspora in Bihar and Bengal after Partition) dwelt with many of the questions you’re asking today. She sacrificed her comfort for the sake of students who came from all over to further their selves. Such educators exist in the Bayou, but their efforts can only go so far when the foundation is hardly sustained.