Fig 1: India's future growth model

Introduction

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Economic models of the past (especially pre 1991 era), it just does not matter, but we all do need to agree that there must be a robust and responsive socio-economic growth model for India in the future; if we need to develop India into a prosperous nation. 

On purpose, I have chosen the word 'Prosperous' Nation instead of the term 'Developed Nation'; and that is for a reason - and that reason is that a 'Developed' nation somehow, rightly or wrongly - gives an impressions of 'too industrialized' or 'too-dispassionate' i.e. lacking a soul, a concept that is so alien to the people of ancient civilization like ours.

To become a 'prosperous' nation, our developmental model will be slightly different from the model or path that the currently developed nations such as the USA or Western Europe or Australasia adopted. The difference is that we need a multidimensional and all encompassing growth - growth that no doubt strengthens our economy but at the same time, still enriches the wisdom of our rich heritage. I would say that a Japan like growth model would suit us most.

Before we get into any details, I would like to state that the growth would be 'primarily' driven by the 'Great Indian Middle Class' (See Fig 1), mainly in the service sector, that will carry on building the steel like spine for the nation. Clearly, this would be a continuous process for all time to come, till we have achieved our objective of a 'Prosperous' Nation and at least till we have eliminated poverty to bring the poor population within the realms of the middle class.

Apart from that, I would like to highlight some salient features of the growth model as I foresee them. These features in the order of priority are as follows:

Mass Literacy

The literacy of our country should be approaching 100% as far as elementary education is concerned. To my mind, all children (girls and boys) should be able to read Hindi (along with native language or mother tongue) and the language of the Internet - English which further implies our people should be well conversant with browsing the Internet at least in these three languages. Private and NGO sponsored education must be allowed as much as possible and should be taken to the rural/poorer areas of the nation. In Sanjeev Sanyal's book, The Indian Renaissance, he has proposed that:

"Small numbers of privately run schools have long existed in rural India but their numbers have grown explosively since the late nineties. They are usually quite modest affairs - charging less than Rs 80 per month and have less than a hundred students each. However, they sprung up across rural India on the private initiatives of thousands of small local entrepreneurs" Further, "what is interesting is that it is the poor who prefer to send their children to these fee-paying schools rather than to free government-run schools."

All these facts indirectly point to how keen are poor people in our country to educate their children, which of course is a desire for prosperity and 'better life' as the underlying driving force.

Women Empowerment

The above mentioned mass literacy efforts won't bear any fruits if the women of our land, the mothers of our posterity, that comprise half of the population as well, are not empowered. Hence, the next priority has to be the empowerment of women.

M. Gandhi, J. Nehru and Dr Rajendra Prasad had realised that so long as women of the country were not uplifted and granted equal status with men in all walks of life, India could neither progress nor make any significant advance in any field.

Since Independence of India, Women have occupied top ranks and attained immense success in all fields such as sports, politics, performing arts, police, administration, and medicine. Kalpana Chawla, P. T. Usha, M. S. Subbulakshmi, Kiran Bedi, Sushma Swaraj, Indra Nooyi (ex CEO Pepsi), environmentalist and social activist Medha Patkar and writers like Arundhanti Roy have become great names in their respective fields of work.

With the encouragement of co-education, women have cast off the imposed inferiority complex and are marching side by side with men in every walk of life. Women are proving to be academically better and socially more active. When we come across the results of competitive examinations in all India civil services and Indian universities, we are happily surprised to see that women capture most of the merit seats. They are also aware of the fast-changing social milieu and they are making sustained efforts to scale the ladders of social progress by dint of their zeal and dynamism. They are contributing extensively towards the social transformation and building of the nation.

Yet, the story of empowered women is not even done fully! Unfortunately, the sad fact is that we still have millions and millions of wretched women in our country, who are uneducated and feel extremely powerless. I need not say more because the inhuman news of gang rapes are so frequent in the media. All this is due to the fact that the culprits or the 'so-called' men are not men enough and have turned into worse than wild beasts. And, an equally valid argument is our women are still vulnerable to such exploitation. The only solution is to strengthen them even further. 

A lot needs to be done to make women of India stronger, intelligent and wiser as equal partners to the men, if not better. No doubt women empowerment agencies do exist in the nation but we need more of them and strengthen the existing ones. In this case, more is less! Also, they need to be a lot more empowered so that they further empower each and every woman and girl child in the country.

Healthcare

Healthcare must be made available to all the population of the Nation in future. Again, this needs to open up for the private/charity sector and simultaneously, the internet must aid the health workers while dealing with the patients in remote areas. This will also allow us to maintain a centralised record of the health of the whole population of the country. To begin with, we can take inspiration from the UK's NHS (National Health Services), a system that provides absolutely free treatment to all the citizens ranging from high grade cancer treatments to seasonal vaccination to prevent population, ranging from children to senior citizens, from catching cold and flu.  

Right nutrition is also going to be a key for children, both in urban and rural areas. We can maximise the production of 'organic' farming, along with sophisticated and water conserving methods of irrigation and build sophisticated systems of checks for the quality produce that feed to our children (more on this in the next section).

Revive Environment

There is no doubt that in the haste of Industrialization and Commercialization of our Country, especially since 1991 reforms, we have destroyed our ecology to a very large extent and it is no hidden truth that some animals and birds species are on the verge of extinction. The pollution level in cities like Delhi and havoc caused by annual floods are the supreme examples of environmental crises. All these disasters call for an urgent attention to revive/restore our Environment and Ecology that had been intact for centuries previous to that period. Here are some of the important steps that we need to take, without much delay:

Reforestation: In the year 2000-2001, all the afforestation and reforestation projects in India were integrated to form the National Afforestation Program (NAP) Scheme at the same time to keep the focus on decentralising the implementation plan. NAP is being implemented through the 2-tier structure of the forest department at the division and village levels. This is where all the citizens, including the children, can contribute by planting trees in their vicinity. By planting trees, we will not only bring back our lost flora and fauna, but the forests would be the natural deterrents to the flooding as well! Again, by making use of the Internet we can centrally collate the data of the trees that our people plant.

A classic example where social efforts are being synergized is a famous and proud village of Piplantri, in Rajasthan that plants 111 Trees for every girl child born in the village, thereby synergizing environment restoration along with the 'save the girl' mission. 

Domestic Animals: People, especially in the rural areas, can start raising domestic animals as well, such as cows, buffalos and goats that have direct benefit to our growing children as they supply milk, a rich source of protein and other vital nutrients like calcium. The fodder for these animals could also be easily procured locally. On the similar lines, we can revive poultry to supply 'organic' eggs, again a great source of protein.  

Keeping health consciousness in mind, at the same time, we can set up an independent agency, to certify the eggs (and other agricultural products) as 'organic'. Actually, there is no end to what can be achieved in this domain. For example, in almost all the western countries, every container of organic milk or every tray of organic eggs can be tracked to the producer/farmer by scanning the QR code printed on the packaging. There is no reason why such a system cannot be setup across the whole of India. 

Housing: Environment can be restored to a large extent, if the residential and commercial construction is done in an environmentally friendly manner. For example, the 'Earth Architecture' could be a way to construct houses. These houses have much less tendency to heat up in extreme summers and hence even less need to 'air-condition' the house, which in turn, clearly implies lesser heat generation, due to the ACs in the environment.

In ancient times, India had a concept of 'Vastu shastra', that laid out principles of not only the layouts of temples but also of the design and layout of houses, towns, cities, gardens, roads, water works, shops and other public areas. The core concept of this Shastra was to build everything in an environmentally friendly manner. A classic example that comes to my mind is that the kitchen should be east facing. That makes sense to me because the kitchen is the place, where every household starts its daily chores and in our modern times, the first thing we do is to make bed tea in the kitchen and if there are early morning sun rays falling in the kitchen, that gives a serene and refreshing start to the day. 

Of course, there are lots of rules and guidelines in the Shastra, but not all of them might be practical to apply in the present day. But the key message is to do construction as much as possible in an environmentally friendly manner! In our times, Earth Architecture guidelines can be published on the Internet for easy accessibility for all of the Indians. 

Indigenous Technology

There is no harm in importing Technology from other nations, after all there is no point in reinventing the wheel if a solution already exists somewhere else to solve our problems too! If one nation has invented something and is an efficient solution to the problem, the technology could be deployed to the same or similar efficiency in other markets as well (think touch screens of tablets and mobile phones for example, solar panels and many more). However, that does not mean that a Nation, and in our case India, must not develop indigenous technology. 

India must learn from Japan's growth model of the 60's and 70's, that was solely made on innovations according to the needs of the population and the time. One example that comes to my mind is the 'walkman' that was invented/ introduced by Sony as a compact (and personal) cassette player. Similarly, all the top of the range music equipment for the modern age are the creation of the Japanese electronic industry and not to mention their automobile industry that made Japan amongst the top 3 car manufacturing nations in the world since the 1960s. 

It is paramount that we also develop cheap, effective and environment friendly indigenous technology to make Bharat truly prosperous. It is my personal view that we can manufacture products ranging from simple stationary to solar cars at home. And here is my brain dump, of what we can achieve in future:

Solar Cars: While the world moves towards all-electric cars, we can make use of abundant sunshine to make cheap and cost-effective Solar cars (and other light vehicles). An example of this was found in Nasik where a mechanic Mr Rasool Pathan for his family outing single handedly built an all solar car (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfODjNx4TVs), which I personally found a bit more impressive than the solar-hybrid version created by ISRO. See ISRO car at the following link: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yMMhq5ALPg). The key point that both these examples demonstrate is that we can certainly mass manufacture these environment friendly vehicles.

Solar Panels: We can build our own Solar Panels that will not only be used in Solar farms to generate electricity but can even be used to build environment friendly residential homes and government and corporate offices. That way we can make use of the free source of energy that we have in our country in abundance - solar energy! Hence, making use of the sunlight that we get for long hours during the day and most of the days throughout the year.

IT Infrastructure: India is a world's leading superpower to build software and that is a writing on the wall. With such technological prowess in us, there is no reason why we cannot manufacture low cost and yet highly effective hardware that our poor co-humans can afford. The items can vary from microprocessors to PCs, laptops, tablets and of course mobile phones. Using the same domestically developed technology, we can easily mass build several embedded systems for our people as well such as solar cookers, solar powered street lights and much more. 

EBRs: Since we will aim for revival of the environment/ecology as well, we can reduce the paper waste and CO2 emissions by not cutting trees and by simply creating “Electronic Book Readers (EBRs), for all the students, from primary to P.H.D across all schools, colleges and universities. Imagine, with just a simple press of a button or a touch, a student can download all the curriculum and the reading text in seconds from a central server. Similarly, with a touch screen, or with a stylus, a student can write as well; to take notes and/or to submit homework to the same/similar central server.

Health Care: On the similar lines, we can develop a healthcare system for our own specific needs, of our population. I do not see any reason why we cannot manufacture low cost yet effective medicines and medical equipment to treat patients and at the same time to boost up our economy. The reach of our dedicated doctors and medical practitioners can be taken to the remotest corners of the country and they can take charge of the wellbeing of the most needy.    

In summary, the ideas for Indigenous Technology would be endless once we get started. Imagine a simple writing device such as a writing pen, of high quality, giving very smooth writing experience, has a marking 'proudly Made in India'' and imagine that pen being held in every hand of the nation - equally proudly!

Population Control

Sanjeev Sanyaal in his book 'The Indian Renaissance' reports that according to the projections of the UN's Population Division, India's working age population will rise from 691 million in 2005 to 829 million in 2015 and 942 million in 2025 before stabilizing at around 1050 million in the late 2030s. Since the UN is a credible agency beyond doubt and Mr Sanyaal is an equally respectable and credible intellectual, we can certainly take his statement without any doubt.

However, my only keenness is - even if we say that the working population will stabilise at around 1050 million by 2030s, what harm can it do if we still apply the population control measures in a very gentle and liberal manner in our Country? After all, every effort we put in controlling the population would be worth the effort.

The most humane policy that comes to my mind is adopting a 2-child policy. As per Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_India): 

"Multiple Indian states have adopted a limited two-child policy. The policies are implemented by prohibiting persons with more than two children from serving in government. The most recent policy to be implemented was by Assam in 2017. As of 2014, there were 11 Indian states that implemented the two-child policy, in hopes to reduce the number of children per family."

"The policy was geared mainly towards politicians, future and aspiring, to limit their number of children to two or less. Those who held political posts have stricter policies in hopes that they will set an example for the community, if one were to exceed the limit of two children while employed, they would be terminated from the job. Non-politicians may also receive consequences to exceed the two child limit, the government begins to withhold health care, government rights, face jail and fees." 

"A criticism of these policies is that it decreases the number of women in government positions, and encourages sex-selective abortions."

Clearly, a good start has already been made and as far the criticism is concerned, that is valid as well. However, we do hope that with time, as we start to apply all encompassing development models in the future, the fears raised in the criticism (of sex-selective abortions) will vanish too!

Extending the argument further, in order to put a cap on the population, the government can take custody of the third child and raise her/him in care homes as responsible citizens of India, i.e without any regional/religion/caste identity.

Legal Reforms

All the above listed proposals are the spokes of the wheel of progress that need to firmly connect with the Hub. And that hub, though sounds very strange, is Legal Reforms.

Again, Sanjeev Sanyal in his book The Indian Renaissance proposes a need for second-generation reforms: 

"They are about adjusting existing institutional arrangements in order to support the new 'market-based' economic system that has emerged as a result of liberalization [or first-generational reforms that began in 1991]". He also states that "next generation of reforms should follow up with changes such as full-fledged privatization and changes in labour laws"

Also,

"The next generation of reform is about reforming the State itself and helping it play its rightful role in the new India." And, 

"The legal infrastructure is the key institutional framework through which the State provides general governance. Broadly speaking, the legal infrastructure is made up of two elements. The first element is the body of laws and regulations. These are the rules of engagement. The second element consists of the arrangement that enforces the laws—the police, the judicial courts, tribunals and so on"

Sanjeev Sanyal has also very eloquently made a case for more autonomous regulatory bodies (including tribunals) for specialised Jurisdictions.

As more of these autonomous regulatory bodies get established, they can have the jurisdiction over all the domains mentioned above from mass literacy to population control. Some of these quasi-judicial bodies that I can think of could be:

• A body to resolve disputes arising out of public or private participants in the field of mass literacy, such as settling reasonable school fees by the private players, especially in the poorer areas of the country, and where competition does not exist as yet.
• A body to resolve disputes arising out of women empowerment, that are not criminal in nature, but still have potential to curb the growth of women, especially in rural areas. E.g. demand for Dowry in rural/remote areas or family upholding girl child's education.
• A body to attest the quality of the medicines and medical equipment and their efficacy before they are actually used in healthcare. Similarly, any dispute that arises in the operations of the healthcare would be adjudicated by the body.
• An environment agency that can be established in parallel to the Ministry of Environment and Forests, but strictly independent, to resolve all the issues arising out of the efforts to restore the lost Environment.

All these bodies will make use of the Internet to register the cases and publish the development of the cases for the general public to watch on a 24x7 basis. This way, the public scrutiny in each and every case would be a continuous one.

Simplified Spirituality

Our ancient wisdom is based on spirituality, which is primarily wrapped in the Philosophy of 'Advaita Vedanta'. From time to time, sages rose and preached the masses about this philosophical concept to the masses. From Gautam Buddha, to Adi Shankaracharya, Guru Nanak and Swami Vivekananda, they all have Vedanta/Advaita Vedanta in the heart of their teachings and preachings. 

However, I feel, the crux of Advaita Vedanta is not difficult for any reasonable person to grasp either and can be introduced in the classrooms, even in primary schools. It is all about Brahman (infinite Cosmic or Universe) and its Atma (equally infinite soul or spirit in the infinite Universe). Since everything around us is infinite, we each logically become the center of that infinity. Moreover, since we correlate this Infinite Entity with God, hence goes the logical conclusion that God is nowhere but within us! My whole point in stating this observation is that as we spread literacy to our poor fellow human beings, it should not take too much of an effort to introduce the core philosophy of Vedanta as well to them.

With this simple fact, which is a universal truth, our people can come out of superstitions and religious 'claws' and would be able to take their destinies in their own hands and still stay spiritual in their own heart. At the moment, the masses are ignorant about this simplified truth and seek God somewhere outside of them. They continue to live in the dark, whereas with the simple education (even an elementary/primary level will do), everyone can grasp this truth.

Another huge benefit is, if we all are the centre of the Infinite Universe, and we all have God within us, then religion that we practice (or not practice), ceases to have any meaning. We began to see everyone else as co-human and that would be an end to all the misunderstandings in humanity. And very soon, most of the violence and wars in the world would be brought to an end, which have always been fought, overtly or covertly, in the name of religions.