The recent visit of the Chinese Prime Minister to India was quite
remarkably low-key. It is true, of course, that the relationship between
India and China has always been a complex one, and the current interaction
reflects many layers of that convoluted past as well as unstated
uncertainties about the future.
But it is also true that Indians are, in general, largely unwilling to
reveal the true extent of their fascination with China. The rather puerile
notion of the countries as Asian "rivals" is not the only reason for this.
Too often, it appears that the Chinese social experiments are not only
bolder and more ambitious, but possibly more successful in certain ways,
and this of course makes us feel uncomfortable. And then there is the
other tendency, of uncritical glorification of processes in China, which
is just as problematic.
This may be why there are
hardly any serious attempts at the comparative study of India and China
from within this country. But a new book edited by G. P. Deshpande and
Alka Acharya ("Crossing a Bridge of Dreams : 50 years of India and China", Tulika 2001) goes a long way towards filling this gap.
The title is evocative, even romantic. But the romanticism is speedily
dispelled by the ironic quotation from a poem which forms the
fronstispiece. The poem is by Lady Sarashina, who lived in early 11th
century Japan :
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Cross it, trouble lies ahead
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Do not cross, and you are still trouble-bound
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Truly a troublous place
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Is the Ford of Shikasuga.
The editors’ freewheeling
introduction touches on this basic contradiction between India and China,
and also of how the consequent inability to engage together productively
vis-a-vis the wider world has been associated with growing dominance of
the North Atlantic structures in both countries. The current impetus
towards economic liberalisation and globalisation is situated in the
broader historical context of the urges towards "modernisation" in both
societies over the past two centuries.
For many Indians, the most fascinating aspect of Chinese development over
the past decade (or indeed, over earlier decades) has been the changes
being wrought about in the economy. One section of this book is devoted to
detailed consideration and comparison of the Chinese and Indian economic
reform processes. All too often, Indian economists writing on China have
tended to fall into the mainstream western trap of simplistically treating
the Chinese reforms as an example of how markets work better than state
intervention. Mercifully, most of the articles here avoid this to take a
more nuanced view.
Utsa Patnaik shows how the
withdrawal of some forms of state intervention have been associated with
cropping pattern shifts in both countries which can undermine staple grain
production, and affect the basic nutritional status of the masses. C. P.
Chandrasekhar explains the differences in industrial growth performance in
the two countries in terms of the very different role played by FDI, the
ability of China to spread production links between export-oriented
foreign firms and small enterprises in the hinterland, and the fact that
state enterprises have continued to be a significant part of the
industrial sector. In other words, pre-reform elements of the Chinese
economy have been significant in ensuring the post-reform industrial
success, especially when compared with India where the achievements in
terms of industrial growth have been much less remarkable.
The tremendous economic changes that have formed part of the last decade
have obviously had their counterparts in polity, society and even
geopolitical strategy in the two countries. Here too, the volume edited by
Deshpande and Acharya goes beyond the conventional and obvious analyses.
Manoranjan Mohanty considers the nature of party systems and ideology in
the two countries. In a thoughtful piece, Hemant Adlakha interrogates the
notion of "civil society" and the mainstream western writings on it in
both China and India.
The major achievement of
China in comparison with India is unquestionably in the field of human
development, and several articles on health, education and environment not
only discuss these but also analyse the causes of difference in terms of
internal political economy. But a very significant chunk of the book is
devoted to what could be called strategic or geopolitical considerations,
and are concerned not only with the past, but with what can be expected
from the future.
Of course, this emphasis is quite natural at one level, because India’s
interest in China must certainly be comprised in large part of the wider
implications of what China does in strategic or diplomatic terms and how
that in turn impinges on India. And several of the articles do make the
point that the focus on the West, in both India and China, and the
relative downplaying of the possibilities for strategic co-operation and
interaction with each other, have meant that the effective power of both
has been less than it otherwise might have been.
Many would argue that the Chinese have always been prone to
see themselves at the centre of the world, and the Indians by contrast
have increasingly been happy to latch on to the margins of what they see
as power. But in both countries, there is much more recognition of
international pressures, and perhaps more willingness to make those more
influential in domestic policy. Yet the sheer size, complexity and
multi-faceted nature of both of these societies makes the interaction with
the wider world necessarily more fraught, and possibly more divisive
internally.
To cope with such pressures, and even to manage the as yet unfinished
project of development in both these countries, it would obviously be
useful to have much greater understanding of each other’s experiences. So
a volume such as this is indeed welcome, since it not just recognises the
bridge of dreams, but also provides the early attempts at building a
bridge of understanding.