India’s daring exceptionalism

Americans are obsessed with how exceptional their country is. Driven by criticism from Republican presidential candidates that America is waning, US President Barack Obama resorted again to flagrant boasting to assert that the US has the strongest, most durable economy in the world.

Ten time zones away, it is India that looks exceptional as the country celebrates its 66th Republic Day. The State of India’s Union is strong but not because of the efforts of the Indian government. It is strong despite the government’s continued failures to get anything meaningful done to help the common man.

India is a vibrant country because it is the textbook example of what a real, free-market economy ought to look like. It is where innovation and capitalism are thriving and driving growth rates that other countries, including the US, can only dream of.

And this is happening in the wake of rising population rates and depleting natural resources — constraints that the average Indian has little control over.

Driving to a store and finding a parking spot a pain? No problem. Indians are gladly embracing the convenience of online shopping.

Expensive to maintain your own car and navigate traffic? No problem? Car pooling solutions from Uber and Meru bring taxi rates per km down to the lowest in the world, lower than the vaunted autorikshaw. The government doesn’t print enough coin change for cash transactions? No big deal. Use prepaid wallet solutions where you never have to worry about carrying exact change.

Want to re-order your gas cylinder that just ran out? Send an SMS message to the dealer and you get instant confirmation of your order. Want to make a call across the state or even around the world to promote your product? Use WhatsApp on an inexpensive data plan and talk for free.

And then there’s the outstanding skilled-labour service industry. Your printer ran out of ink? Take your cartridge to get it refilled at 4 per cent of the cost of buying a new cartridge.

Not only do you save money but you also help save the environment. Your laptop or phone or appliance not working? You don’t throw it away — you just get it fixed for a fraction of the cost.

Compare India’s incredible market-oriented economy to the world’s supposed bastion of laissez faire principles, the US. The irony is that the American economy is doing well largely because of unprecedented action by its government.

Adam Smith would be turning in his grave. The country continues to run deficits as far as the eye can see and is already $19 trillion in debt.

Were the US not able to freely borrow in its own currency — a privilege that has been reserved to it since World War II — the country would have been no different from Greece.

The US auto industry was rescued by Obama after injecting $85 billion in equity into GM and Chrysler, and extending auto parts suppliers interest free loans to the tune of over $50 billion — all borrowed.

No other nation could have afforded to do this. America could, because of the dollar’s unique position as the world’s reserve currency.

And then, there was action by the US Federal Reserve, which printed nearly 6 trillion dollars creating money by fiat and keeping interest rates at zero for as long as 7 years. Ultra-low interest rates allowed Obama to borrow at near-zero costs and spend and spend to keep the economy afloat. No other country could have done this without its currency tanking in value.

Ironically, it was the private sector, and one that Obama practically hates, that has come to his rescue in recent years.

The oil industry, which has sparred with Obama every day since he got elected, was severely constrained following the Deepwater Horizon crisis in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Obama administration suspended oil drilling on federal lands while simultaneously tightening the noose around the coal industry. He killed the Keystone pipeline which could have brought even more oil safely from Canada’s tar sands into US refineries.

But Big Oil kept innovating and pumped so much oil through fracking that it helped convert the country from an oil importer to an exporter.

The price of world oil has fallen so much that Americans have now been getting the equivalent of a huge tax cut every week.

It is remarkable that Obama never thanked Big Oil in his State of the Union speech for the money that Big Oil has helped put in people’s pockets

In the social sphere, Americans are deeply divided. In India, you don’t see people jealous of others who have money. In America today, redistributing income is an art form. A full 50 per cent of the population does not pay a single dollar in income tax but income inequality is the top concern for Obama.

American students on campus are so spoiled that they can’t stand the slightest microaggression — the everyday verbal and nonverbal “insults” that Indians are so used to — and are driving institutions to rewrite history. Want to see an example of this whining? Just Google “Shrieking Girl” to see a student at Yale express her need to be “safe” from Halloween costumes.

It is India that is exceptional. The Indian attitude is one of tolerance and adjustment, a skill derived from being perennially abused by the powers that be.

The average Indian does not complain — he just gets things done, quietly and efficiently.

Obama, who is used to lecturing everyone ought to learn from India, for a change. That would truly become change that everyone can believe in.

The writer is MD, Rao Advisors LLC