Introduction: Being Responsible for India

In a sense, this whole book is an outcome of my feeling responsible to and for my country. Caring for India and being involved in the Indian narrative has been the mainstay of my intellectual life for the last thirty years. This process has implicated me in the question of what it means to be a citizen of India and also what India itself means as a nation, state, civilization, and cultural entity. Who are we? How did we come to be this way? Where are we heading? Such questions inform much of the reflections in the chapters that follow. However, instead of beginning at the other end, with speculations about the meaning of India, I thought a productive way to start was to reflect on the idea of responsibility itself from which this book originates. What does it mean to be responsible? How does one show this responsibility? My opening chapter will try to address this question by trying to take stock of India as a nation and civilization, before going on to ask what responsibility means to us.

India is a very ancient and complex living civilization that is larger than the present nation-state called the Republic of India. This nation, which would be more appropriately described as a civilization-state, is also the custodian of a diverse and plural culture, which has many layers, regions, languages and subnationalities.

About one hundred years ago, in 1909, Mahatma Gandhi published Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. Not only was this the first book that he wrote, it was also the only book of his that Gandhi himself translated into English. Written originally in Gujarati between 13 and 22 November on board the Kildonan Castle on his way from England to South Africa, it appeared in two installments in the 11 and 19 December issues of Indian Opinion, a journal Gandhi used to bring out. In January 1910, it was published as an independent booklet by Gandhi's own International Printing Press from Phoenix Farm, Natal, with an English version appearing two months later in March.

Hind Swaraj was an imaginary dialogue between a Reader and the Editor, the latter presumably standing for Gandhi himself. This dialogue covers a range of topics including the Congress Party and its officials, the state of India, the reasons for India's colonization, the meaning of svaraj (self-rule), the best means to attain it, Gandhi's vision of an ideal society, the definition and practice of satyagraha (‘truth-force’), the qualities required to be a satyagrahi, Hindu-Muslim unity, railways, lawyers and doctors, and English education in India. The book became notorious for its attack on machinery and modern,Western civilization. Yet, more than that, it contained the earliest, most comprehensive, exposition of Gandhi's philosophy. Extremely influential politically, Hind Swaraj was soon banned in India.

If the first part of this book looked mostly at political and historical aspects of the Indian nation, the second part concentrates on the linguistic, cultural and educational facets. This chapter is concerned with Hindi, while the one that follows it, with Sanskrit. I wish to examine how both these languages helped to form and underwrite the ‘Indianness’ of India.

Speaking of Hindi, I should have been writing this chapter in Hindi. Not just this one, but several others—and perhaps, poems, stories, book reviews, too. Many years ago, in a fit of joyous exuberance, I actually wrote several pages of my daily journal in Hindi. It happened after the language suddenly sprung to life in my inner being—at least partially.

I was doing a Pre-University Course at the Madras Christian College. My second language option was Hindi. We had two teachers, Dr P. K. Balasubramaniam and Dr Ravindra Nath Singh. I remember both of them very well. The latter, a young man then, had a PhD from Allahabad. I assumed that he was from the North, but was told that he was actually from Tamil Nadu, where they also had ‘Singh’ as a surname. How little I knew about India, let alone Tamil Nadu. The senior teacher's initials, ‘PK’ led to the usual jokes. PK or peeke means (having) drunk. When terribly enthused, he did look a bit inebriated, though he was a teetotaler.

Introduction

Science and technology (S&T) and innovation have been a strong force in Chinese economic growth. They are expected to play a more important role on the road to building a prosperous society according to the National Plan 2006–2020 for the Development of Science and Technology in the medium and long term.

S&T and innovation policy has been playing a key role in enabling China to catch up and move forward to become an innovative country. But in past decades, China had a different strategy for policy making and adopted a variety of policy tools. Some policies had a great impact on economic growth, some did not. As China has achieved double-digit economic growth for more than ten years, some would like to ascertain the role played by S&T and innovation policy in this long period of growth. The purpose of the paper is to analyse the origins and development of science, technology and innovation policy in China since 1978 and the challenges ahead.

Science policy is about how to promote science in a country. It was given the status of a special policy by Bernal in 1939 (Bernal, 1939). Later on, Vannevar Bush further clarified the role of science in the famous report Science: The endless frontier. According to Bush, the purpose of science policy is to contribute to national security, health and economic growth (Bush, 1945).

Until the end of the last century, generation of scientific knowledge was concentrated mainly in three regions of the world – Japan, the USA and Europe. The last decade has brought a marked shift towards other major players. Today the ‘BRICS countries’ – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are contributing strongly to knowledge production.

This change in the global research landscape, together with the urgent need to tackle jointly key global challenges, such as climate change, energy and food security and poverty reduction, created a need for Europe to step up its international cooperation on science and technology (S&T) with other parts of the world.

The ‘Strategic European Framework for International Science and Technology Cooperation’ adopted by the European Commission in September 2008 and endorsed by the EU Member States in December 2008, was the European Union's answer to this need. The aim was to create the conditions for a more coherent and coordinated approach to international S&T cooperation based on strategic partnerships with leading countries and regions.

These strategic partnerships need to be based on an analysis of the comparative strengths of potential third-country partners and of Europe alike. Such analysis would lay the foundation for determining the scope and opportunities for cooperation and the potential mutual benefits.

This book is expected to contribute to such analysis. It presents research findings about the national innovation systems of the five BRICS countries and compares trends in their science, technology and innovation policies

Introduction

In this last chapter of the book, I wish to come back to Mahatma Gandhi. Not just Mohandas Karamchand, but Mahatma, the great soul. In contrast to this exaltation of Gandhi, it would be useful to bear in mind that his nearest and dearest called him by a much more intimate appellation, Bapu, or father. When I speak of the availability of the Mahatma, I am also simultaneously speaking of the availability of Bapu, a father, an ancestor.

Much of this book has been about India, especially the nation that is India today, how it sought and found altered destinations, becoming in the process what it uniquely is. No single individual has been more important in this seeking and finding than Bapu. It was he who taught us how to stand up to greater power without being afraid, thereby reversing the usual order of things as we know it in the material world. No wonder Bapu is most important to my own project of reclaiming India and redefining its priorities today.

But Bapu is no longer available to us as he was to his close followers or even to previous generations. There's a huge gap between his time and ours, as there is in his thinking and ours. That is why in order to formulate what I would call a Neo-Gandhian praxis, I would like to consider the broader issue of the availability of tradition, before turning more specifically, to the availability of Mahatma Gandhi himself.

Introduction

Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and related aggregate income measures are widely used to assess the economic performance of countries. Economic growth that measures the rate of change in per capita real GDP has become a standard economic indicator. Despite the popularity of economic growth as a measure of success, there is increasing recognition that it is an inadequate measure of a population's well-being. Higher economic growth does not necessarily mean a higher level of well-being.

GDP, as conventionally measured, excludes many factors that contribute to well-being while incorporating other factors that have an adverse effect on it. For example, GDP does not include nonmarket production in the economy. The contribution made by housewives to output can be quite substantial, but is not included in measuring GDP. As growth leads to increased air and water pollution, people spend more money protecting themselves from these ill effects. These expenditures are included in GDP, but they do not add to well-being. Instead, pollution contributes to people's ill-being.

Economic growth is important for well-being. It provides people with a greater command over goods and services, which translates into greater utility. Economic growth gives people more choices. However, these do not necessarily or automatically translate to well-being.

Furthermore, the benefits of economic growth are seldom shared equally. Some people may enjoy a large share of benefits, while many others may be completely bypassed by growth. Thus, economic growth does not necessarily imply a higher level of well-being for everyone in the society.

Introduction

The challenge of innovation is clear – if businesses fail to change what they offer or the ways in which they create and deliver those offerings (product and process innovation), they risk being outpaced in an increasingly competitive global environment. Even those with the capacity to innovate their products and processes risk challenge from others with alternative business models or marketing propositions. So innovation is important – but the key issue is not in the innovation itself, but rather the capability within the organization to repeat the trick, to produce a continuing stream of innovation in a dynamic and shifting environment.

We have a growing understanding of the elements that make up such ‘innovation capability’ (IC) derived from extensive research on the innovation process. From a comparatively early stage interest grew in looking at innovation not simply in terms of its nature (i.e., radical or incremental) or the sources (i.e., knowledge push or demand pull), but rather how the process was organized and managed (Tidd et al. 2005). A variety of studies began to draw attention to the range of managerial and organizational factors that affected whether and how a firm innovated (Carter and Williams 1957; Langrish et al. 1972; Rothwell 1977; Cooper 2001).

Other strands of research have also contributed to our understanding; for example, development studies focused extensively on issues of learning and of technology transfer and helped us understand the nature of the capabilities needed to move from a position of technological dependence to one of strength (Lall 1992; Bell and Pavitt 1993; Figuereido 2001).

Introduction

The case for international specialization is firmly based on considerations of economic efficiency. The world is not rich enough, to be able to despise efficiency. The optimum pattern of specialization is governed by the principle of comparative advantage. This principle remains as valid today as it was in Ricardo's time. And yet there is some question whether it alone can give all the guidance needed by countries whose dominant and deliberate aim is “economic development” (i.e. increasing real income per head).

Trade between countries rests on the realization of mutual gains. Objection may be raised to the “uneven” division of these gains. Within the range of opportunities for gainful trade, it is true that one country may be able to improve its terms of trade at the expense of another. For a single country, therefore, the logic of the classical position does not necessarily lead to a free-trade recommendation, but only to one of some trade as opposed to no trade at all. Moreover, the effects of trade restriction on a country's barter terms are not necessarily offset by retaliation, since different countries have different demand and supply elasticities. It may be that primary producing countries are in a relatively favorable position for playing this kind of game. But even for them the possibilities suggested by the so-called “optimum tariff” argument are limited and in practice very unreliable.

Introduction

Innovation, and economic development for that matter, was born in small and, by today's standards, even in microstates like Renaissance city-states. Cities like Venice, Florence, Delft, and others were extraordinarily successful at innovation – using knowledge to create economic gains – and in out-competing nations much larger in geographic, demographic or almost any other measure of size (Hall 1999; Landes 1999, 45–59; Reinert 2007). In these cities, it can be argued that smallness was one of the key factors that contributed to an institutionally highly embedded and yet diversified economy – both then already seen as pivotal ingredients of sustained growth. Indeed, early key political economists such as Giovanni Botero (1590) and Antonio Serra (1613) juxtaposed small citystates with great economic and often military power to natural resource-rich large areas that were economically backward. Today's wisdom seems, instead, to regard smallness as a source of multiple constraints on innovation and economic development in general (e.g., Armstrong and Reid 2003; contrast with Easterly and Kraay 2000). These constraints can be summarized as follows (Walsh 1988; Freeman and Lundvall 1988; also earlier, Robinson 1963):

1. 1) Almost by definition, small states (particularly the less-developed ones) have small home markets that limit the possibilities for economies of scale and geographical agglomerations.

2. 2) Small home markets and dependence on exports threaten small states with overspecialization, lock-in, and low diversification of the economic structure.

3. 3) Small states do not have the financial capabilities or human resources to invest into cutting-edge science, research and development, which makes prioritization, selectivity and adaptability key in policy design.

Introduction

The economic policy response to prevent the cycle of speculative attack-capital, flight-financial crisis, adopted by both crisis-affected and other non-affected emerging economies since Mexico's 1994–95 financial crisis, but particularly since the 1997–98 East Asian crisis, has been simply to increase liquidity through the accumulation of international reserves. Developing countries' international reserves ‘have risen from 6–8 per cent of GDP during the 1970s and 1980s to almost 30 per cent of GDP by 2004’ (Rodrik, 2006, 255). Furthermore, today, around two-thirds of international reserves are held by developing countries (Aizenman, 2007).

The dominant explanation for the build-up of reserves is that it simply represents precautionary behaviour designed to provide insurance against the high output and other costs associated with earlier crises. Countries following this strategy are evidently hoping to emulate those economies that escaped speculative attacks and/or capital flight (e.g., Chile, Columbia, China and India) and maintained policy autonomy, thereby providing ‘a way of reducing the risks of future crises and of minimizing the need to turn to the IMF if crises occurred’ (Bird and Mandilaras, 2005, 85). A second, alternative but not exclusive, explanation for reserves accumulation identifies it with an active policy of export-led industrialization characteristic of several countries in East Asia (especially China). This is the mercantilist interpretation of reserve accumulation, in which increased reserves are a by-product of maintaining a competitive exchange rate designed to expand tradeable production (see Aizenman and Riera-Critchton, 2006).