Eighteen is hardly an age to take stock of your achievements. At 18, there is a lifetime to look forward to and no time to look back and brood over missed opportunities.
The teen years are those of unbelievable growth, of an identity evolving, of finding new dimensions and hidden talent. You have heroes and you are not ashamed to ape them. And if you have done it right, even partially, it gives you the confidence to look up to the world when you turn 18. Hopefully, there is an understanding of responsibilities to make sure that you are on the right path. You are deemed adult, ready to make choices.
Turning 18 is cause for celebration. The hazy ideas of a teenager have begun to take concrete shape. Enough for the world to stop and acknowledge. The India of today was born 18 years ago. On July 24, 1991, when the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh sought to free it from the clutches of government controls.
An unbelievable 18 years. Looking back and at today, all grown up is not a misnomer. Naysayers may accuse us of being brash occasionally, but India has had a good track record of being a responsible country. The formative years have been tough, but then which child grew up without teething trouble?
Today, India has over a billion faces. And a billion hopes and aspirations. Naturally, then, turning adult is reason not just to cheer, but to understand that a huge responsibility must be shouldered.
A nation where 26 per cent of the people are still below the poverty line, barely managing two square meals a day, needs to wake up. When one out of three people is still illiterate, a host of lessons need to be learnt afresh. Where the organised workforce is less than 10 per cent of the 400 million workforce, industrialization needs to spread beyond the urban clusters. Where, when a village gets a road not only does it help the produce reach the local market, but, figuratively speaking, leads to a road for a more prosperous future.
Not impossible for a child born out of tumult.
In 1991, the Indian economy was teetering on the brink of a collapse, foreignexchange reserves were dangerously low, rating agencies were ready to hit the panic button and India already had its fourth Prime Minister in less than two years. Nothing seemed to be going right. India had to pawn its gold to live through the foreign exchange crisis.
Back in 1991, there was no IT/software industry and outsourcing was not part of the Indian lexicon. Pepsico was present in India and sold its cola drink as Lehar Pepsi since the political leaders thought the global name could have run over the Indian brands. Telephones were run by the Department of Telecom and it could take five to seven years before you could get a phone connection. There were no mobile phones. Say that to a teen today and watch him gawk.
You didn't stroll into a showroom and drive out a vehicle of your choice. Getting a Bajaj scooter was like winning a lottery since you had to wait in the queue, sometimes for 10 years, before you could drive one home. The long-reigning Ambassadors and Premier Padiminis had new a competition from a tiny Maruti, which had stormed its way to over 60 per cent market share by then.
There was no Sunil Mittal, NR Narayana Murthy or Nandan Nilekani, the poster boys of the liberalisation era, to look up to as heroes. Azim Premji, in fact, had to focus on a lot of businesses other than software. Sunil Mittal had not yet started his telecom services business in 1991.
There was only Doordarshan and no television news channels.
Stocks like Premier Auto, Voltas, GE Shipping and Peico were part of the 30-stock index, Sensex. None of them are part of the Sensex today, if that gives some idea of the churn that corporate India has seen. There was no National Stock Exchange, which was to be set up some years later. A picture of the growth in these years can be measured by the Sensex, which peaked at 21532 in January 2008, having closed at a modest 1,486 on 24th July, 1991.
India was not a consumption story to tell the world then. India’s population, still well under a billion, was considered to be the biggest liability for the country. An economy which was well under $250 billion then was not something that could entice the biggest global investors to bet on India.
It was in such circumstances that the economy was unshackled and the Congress nursed India through its toddler years. The troublesome child first rocked the Congress cart when rising prices led voters to throw the party out of power in several states in 1994. Two years later, voters across the nation confirmed the decision and the baton to bring up baby was passed on to the Third Front.
The parties that constituted the Third Front battled among themselves, but could not stop the liberalisation unleashed by the Congress. In hindsight, they proved unworthy guardians - few moments of stability, frequent change of Prime Ministers -- hardly the kind a growing child would need.
The nation, now a billion strong, asked the BJP to take responsibility as it prepared to take baby steps into the 21st century.
Sometime in 1999, nearly five years after mobile telephony was launched in the country, India reached a magic figure of one million mobile phone subscribers.
The dotcom boom was round the corner and new stars were born. Azim Premji and Gururaj Deshpande became the richest Indians in the world. By the turn of the century, Infosys, which raised capital at Rs.95/share in its IPO, just managing to prevent the issue from devolving in 1994, became the first Indian company to list in the US market. That was the giant step that the Indian IT industry needed, and it has hardly looked back.
The dotcom boom had driven the Sensex to the then peak of 6150 and after the bubble burst in March 2001, it was only downhill for the markets. Sensex hit 2840 in April 2004.
Raising money in such a difficult environment was difficult and only the braveheart could have survived. As India entered its teen years in 2004, the BJP thought it sensed a new confidence among the people and it could see ‘India Shining’. India was, in fact, whining. Its leaders later admitted that while urban India was shining, rural India, often referred to as Bharat, was not.
The Congress managed to come back in Delhi, left with the difficult job of handling an oft troubled teen. It did not help that it was a large and varied family of caretakers, where the Left would not allow several promises to be kept. So, if the Finance Minister proposed to raise foreign investment limit in insurance, the Left said it was not right. If the Congress thought disinvestment was right, "wrong" said the Left parties in unison.
If the state of the airports was sought to be improved, unions, largely led by the Left parties, made it impossible for the plan to be executed.
It has been a matter of debate whether their vociferous opposition to government policies has been positive or negative. But the Left has now been left out.
India needs global capital to drive the investment of $500 billion to improve its creaking infrastructure. Some has already come in, a lot more is needed.
During the boom period between 2005 and 2007, Indians are estimated to have added over $300 billion to the GDP and sometime in 2007, India’s GDP crossed the $1 trillion mark.
The promised 250-million-strong middle class, that has global companies salivating, is just waiting to be tapped. India now has the second largest telecom subscriber base in the world. We are reaping rewards of investments made and adding nearly 10 million subscribers every month. The top two IT companies are looking to enter the elite list of the top 10 in the world.
Gujarat now has the largest and one of the most modern refining hubs in the world. New rural banking and mobile banking models are being experimented with in India, which could be replicated across the world later. As the global media watches, the cheapest car in the world, almost a miracle on four wheels, has been rolled out in India. The list goes on…
This nation is dreaming big and its baby steps – Nano steps, if you will – can now only give way to firm, big, global strides.
This is the story of liberalisation and India's big leap. Unfortunately, not everyone has reaped the benefit. The have-nots are a reality. Though that is not an India-specific concern. The world over, inclusive growth is the buzzword. Some are calling it the B24B or business to the four billion who are untouched by progress. Leaders are talking about business beyond business.
In India, the mild man called Manmohan Singh seems inextricably entwined with the nation's destiny. And progress. In 1991, the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh had promised liberalisation. Now, as the Prime Minister, he is marching ahead with the liberalisation programme, giving it more than just a dash of socialism.
The founding fathers had always imagined India as a mixed economy, where the public and private sector co-existed. Perhaps, we also need a mix of liberalisation and socialism.
From the promise of liberalisation in Budget 1991 to more than just a dash of socialism in Budget 2009, the wheel has indeed come full circle for India.
Such was the state of the nation in 1991 that it was difficult to imagine reality. Such is the state of the nation in 2009 that, as an adult, it is difficult not to dream.
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