hindu rate of growth
rajan, ex-governor of reserve bank of India, said that india is fast gravitating to hindu rate of growth.
the question is what is hindu rate of growth.
the term was first coined by raj krishan, an economist. it was the heyday of nehru philosophy of development and nobody had the guts to ask raj krishan what he meant by hindu rate of growth.
if there is hindu rate of growth, is there an islamic rate of growth, christian (protestant) rate of growth, christian (catholic) rate of growth also. in which category the growth rate of china will be placed – probably budhhist rate of growth.
when the term was used for the first time, the country was fully committed to economic development programme of nehru. the programme was based on the russian concept of state control of means of production. because of the claims of being follower of laski, the private sector was not abolished as in soviet union but it was in name only. the private sector was under total state control due to, what is called, permit, licence, quota raj. no programme, no industry could be launched without the approval of the planning commission, an extra constitutional organisation imposed on the administration whose chairmanship was usurped by the prime minister with all members being nominated or officers of government.
just how meaningless this control was and how anti-development is illustrated by one example. balco was a government owned organization turning bauxite into aluminium. one of the requirements of the process is caustic soda which balco was purchasing from the market. the management thought that if they could have a captive plant for manufacture of caustic soda, it will be beneficial both financially and logistically. the proposal was shot down by the planning commission on the ground that there was enough caustic soda manufacturing capacity and extra production is not warranted even though the beneficiary would be a government organization. actually, what had happened that a licence for manufacture of sulphuric acid was taken out by an industrialist. this was added to the production capacity even though the plant was not working and the industrialist had no intention of doing it as it might have reduced the sales price and the profits.
such was the situation which acted as brake on the progress and had nothing to do with religion of the majority of indians but was related to only a handful of politicians and administrators in charge of taking decisions.
but the question remains. why call it hindu rate of growth and not nehru rate of growth or russian rate of growth or some similar name.
the reason was simple. the mindset of educated indians had been led to believe that hinduism represents everything that is not worthwhile. whether the question was of social structure, or educational structure or any other, that which is below par has been ascribed to hinduism. for these persons steeped in macaulayism, the inverse is also true. everything below par should be ascribed to hinduism. as simple as that. hence low rate of growth is hindu rate of growth. this mindset can be seen in a variety of ways in the fifty years following independence but examples will be given its due place elsewhere.
with hindutava coming into its own and growing to be a matter of pride for many emerging persons, forcing people to rethink about its status, there is an overreaction by the so-called liberals to bring back the good old days when being hindu was being a degraded one, a reactionary one, a fundamentalist, a lazy, uninspiring person. the latest is rajan's statement. it is in the same category as city people calling the village people as ganwar (uncouth). give the dog a bad name and hang him seems to be moto of these liberals smarting because they have been thrown out of power.