India's Advantages to China

Indian parliamentary elections in next year will be the same as before , becoming the largest elections in the history. In addition, it will also become one of the most remarkable elections in India .

Considering the fierce competition between the prime minister candidate of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party  Narendra Modi and the  descendant of the dynasty family of the ruling Congress Party Rahul Gandhi ? between, this election will be primarily a personal appeal dispute. However, this fight is also to provide an ideological voter choice: to choose the former which can  improve the governance, and fulfil economic reform of the right-wing agenda, or to choose the latter which concerned about the social welfare.

However, despite this election is a real clash between different ideas , or a deeper debate on India's development vision, it is certainly difficult to achieve the hoped-for results, and it will be drowned by the country elections battle with a population of 1.2 billion. It is in this context that the book similar to the " reimagined India " should be welcomed by the people .

This book is compiled by the consulting firm McKinsey, including about 60 articles of the anthology, considering about the concerns about the unsmooth development of a Asian superpower ' country. As the preface of the book, said: " India is in recovery of an important position in the history in the world economy. It is proud of its ' rise ' and ' Flash' - but whether this rise is rapid enough , the flash is brilliant enough? "

Author of this book gives the answer. The author is a series of remarkable characters, mainly  is business leaders, academics and reporters, but also includes a noh actor, a restaurant owner and a chess master stunt . ( "Financial Times" Edward Luce and Victor Mallet also contributed several chapters . )

A series of business leaders , including Mukesh Ambani and Indian billionaire Sunil Mittal, etc. , as well as Bill Gates is specially eye-catching. Unfortunately, these people contribute articles are often the most unattractive, mainly because the tone of their articles is mild and optimism, which rarely show their dissatisfaction with the Indian business environment or the political leadership.

People are more interested in the chapters that examining the development of contemporary India from a historical perspective. India is often portrayed as a rather chaotic state, but as scholars Ashutosh Varshney pointed out that India's stability is more better than the decades after independence in 1947. One of the reasons can not be ignored is that India faces " an existential threat " (referring to the existence huge differences of the areas and ethnic may lead to fragmentation of the country ) is receding .

The most satisfying is the author that active criticise the India's economic policy-making. It is these decisions that led to India's economy stagnated in recent years - economist Ruchir ? Sharma said, this period is the great opportunity that India missed. During this period, India occur a series of problems including the lax fiscal discipline, " the central government officials surplus" , the country of corruption have arisen.

The more Rhetoric article wrote by the novelist Manu ? Joseph. He criticized India's wealthy , saying that these people blame the shortcomings of the country resulting from the India's poor have elected a non-useful leader ." and they often complaint that their privilege is not enough. " India's middle class brain fever, " said Joseph, the craze incited them require more and more: the establishment of nuclear arsenals, the implementation of costly space missions ...... (and) strongly urged to electa ruthless Hindu chauvinism leaders " this is the seldom place that Modi mentioned the polity. The most obvious limitation of the book is that it do not want to get involved in more provocative topic of governance and political leadership.

Another drawback of the book is that, on the whole it did not give a rich methodical analysis of  India's future. This may make some readers disappointed though anyone interested in India  certainly will find a lot of content to satisfy their curiosity from the book.

But it is worth noting that, regardless in the election , or in a smaller range ( for example, in such a book ), the discussion of India's future is open, which tend to includes a degree of introspection from the country's business elite.

This is in stark contrast with China. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CCP recently held in Beijing, was aired for a crucial meeting of decissing the development direction of Asia's largest economies, but the public can not see the process of the meetings.

This view that involving China appears in a compelling article of the book which author is the scholar of MIT named Yasheng Huang. Yasheng Huang was born in China. He criticise the view in Mumbai and Delhi elite prevalent, which indicated that the shortcomings of India is the inevitable result of its democracy, and authoritarian China will bring to India an insurmountable competition advantage. " In the circumstance that lack of evidence, we should not accept ' authoritarian regime dominated ' theory ." Yasheng Huang wrote. He convincingly argues that the evidence of this is much weaker than people generally believe. " The possibility of the  representation political system of China to India is much bigger than the one in turn."