Is India a developing country?
Today my colleague Chandrachudan was reading an email aloud (he has this not so pleasant, but at the same time sweet custom) and the email had something to do with a prize for which developing countries could apply.
"Is India a developing country?" he said out loud. And he smiled.
I took the provocation. I normally do. The academic Meri could have given him 20 reasons of why we should include India in the developing countries's bag. However, being in the office surrounded by other 10 Indian colleagues...I thought, who am I to tell them what they already know (from experience) and not from books (like myself)? This people, they do not need any Harvard lecture from me telling them their HD, GDP indicators!
"Chandra, development is relative to a reference point, right?. Is India developed for you? Yes. And to others? Not."
I simply did not know how to make a comment without sounding as the typical foreigner coming to India to tell them what's wrong here. Chandra looked at me and from his face I read that to him New York was not a developed city, but more a noisy, busy, hyper place to have no life.
Do we call development to the same thing? I wondered. Are we all in the same page here? Before lecturing anybody on how to develop his/her household, country...etc, I might make sure first that we are all in the same page. Even if those pages are from different books on so many occasions..
"Is India a developing country?" he said out loud. And he smiled.
I took the provocation. I normally do. The academic Meri could have given him 20 reasons of why we should include India in the developing countries's bag. However, being in the office surrounded by other 10 Indian colleagues...I thought, who am I to tell them what they already know (from experience) and not from books (like myself)? This people, they do not need any Harvard lecture from me telling them their HD, GDP indicators!
"Chandra, development is relative to a reference point, right?. Is India developed for you? Yes. And to others? Not."
I simply did not know how to make a comment without sounding as the typical foreigner coming to India to tell them what's wrong here. Chandra looked at me and from his face I read that to him New York was not a developed city, but more a noisy, busy, hyper place to have no life.
Do we call development to the same thing? I wondered. Are we all in the same page here? Before lecturing anybody on how to develop his/her household, country...etc, I might make sure first that we are all in the same page. Even if those pages are from different books on so many occasions..
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