Killing the Golden Goose

We all know the story of the goose that laid the golden egg, so I won't bother retelling it here.
India is blessed with a couple of geese laying golden eggs. Sure enough, everyone wants instant money, and can't keep their eyes on the prize long enough to realise that they're starting to kill their geese.

Tourism is a huge business in India. I'm really finding that it isn't just backpackers, there's a lot of people with money coming to see the country. If you have enough money, you can tour the country with a level of comfort that would verge on obscene. I'm not going to talk about those people, instead let's talk about the people coming to India as either backpackers or as more upscale tourists.

The first scene that people face when they arrive in India is taxi touts trying to forcibly take their luggage and direct them to beaten up old cabs. All this for the hope of a couple of rupees. Fine, there's a service of questionible value being provided here, but when you give the guy a couple of rupees he starts to berate you for not tipping well. Some of the taxi drivers (especially the ones who don't take the prepaid taxi chits) try to direct you to alternate hotels. Even if you do go to the prepaid booth, the supposedly fixed prices aren't all that fixed. Upon my arrival, I was first quoted Rs. 650, and then a moment later someone else said Rs. 850. This was not a good start. (BTW, when I went to the same hotel from the prepaid booth at the domestic terminal the fare was about Rs. 250)

Every taxi driver and tour guide spends most of their time (to make it worse, the meter continues to run while the taxi people try this) directing you to shops where if you buy something at the overinflated prices, they'll get a commission. My tourguide in Agra spent more effort trying to get me to buy crap at overpriced stores than he did showing me the sites. When I said that I wanted to see the Taj at night, from across the river, he seemed to be put off by the fact that I wanted to do that, but didn't want to go see shops instead. No matter how many times I told him that I wasn't interested in buying a carpet or marble inlay work, he wouldn't let up. Finally, I told my driver that if we stopped at another shop, he was to leave as soon as the guide got out of the car. That eventually ended the shopping excursions.

When you pull up at a train station, people jostle you, and try to grab your things claiming to be porters. If I want to carry my own bags, that's my business... If I'm already carrying my bags, there's no reason for anyone to try to grab them from me.

A lot of this seems like nickel and dime stuff, and it is. But it's grating on the nerves of a lot of the tourists. The number of people that have said that their trips were being ruined by the constant hassle is surprising. India is a land that can really capture a person's imagination, but if everyone continues harassing the tourists to try to get their slice of the pie, the tourists won't return. Or at least the profitable ones won't.

But it extends past the tourism business. High tech businesses have offshored a lot of development jobs. The companies that have brought the jobs in are now in the targets of the politicians here. Unfortunately, India is a country divided, there's the prospering booming urban India, and there's rural India in which not a lot has changed (in a long long time). Rural India, unlike rural parts of the west, is the center of the population. Despite having huge cities, India is a country where most of the people are in villages. Village life hasn't really been improved by the arrival of high tech jobs to the city. Politicians are now trying to play to the crowds by imposing roadblocks on the development of new high tech areas in cities like Bangalore. This seemingly plays well. What is really despicable about it in my mind, is that the arrival of high tech has increased the taxation base for the country.

High tech hasn't changed village life, but it isn't some sure fire cure-all magic fix. It's just another industry like steel making. The difference is, when there's a drought, people from the villages come to the city to get jobs. They can aspire to a job at a steel refinery, but everyone knows that they don't tend to have the education required to become part of the tech-elite. The tech employees are getting more money than other sectors, and in turn are becoming more western in how they handle cash and their lives. Women tend to marry a bit later if they are in tech, and they tend to be pickier about grooms. Men and women tend to spend more money on enjoying life, instead of the traditional saving that Indian society embraces. These excesses and deviations are seen as problems caused by tech. Instead they are changes that tech has afforded. The politicians cynically rail against the building of new technology parks, but eventually back down after posing for the cameras (and probably taking a bribe).

The political grandstanding would be understandable, if the politicians could show that tech was hurting village life, instead of simply complaining that it wasn't helping village life. Corrupt politicians attack businessmen with reputations of honesty, and allege that they are lining their own pockets with missappropriated funds. It's a matter of the pot calling the kettle black (possibly an electric kettle nonetheless). The corruption that is rampant in the country is like a cancer.

Civil servants withhold approval for otherwise acceptable requests until a bribe is paid. Cops pull people over for no apparent reason with the expectation that they'll be bribed. If you get caught speeding, the fine is payable on the spot, which simply encourages police corruption. Cops are filmed taking bribes and it isn't always possible to get them thrown off the force. Judges have been shown to have accepted bribes, but can't be removed. There is now the expectation that most of the civil service is on the take. Government officials too.

All of this comes down to one thing. Personal and immediate greed. There's nothing wrong with greed per se. As Gordon Gekko said, Greed is good. It inspires us to reach further, which is good as long as you're not reaching into other people's pockets.

I'd be a bit wary of launching a business in India. I think that most people get over the hesitation because it's a market with a huge upside potential. But to realise the potential of this country, all of the country, city and village alike, people need to stop trying to grab as much as they can immediately. This isn't a game of Hungry-Hungry-Hippo. I know that there are poor people just trying to make ends meet, but it stretches well past that point.

Unless the corruption that has become systemic is removed, there is no way that India will ever become anything other than a cheap place to develop things. And the problem with only differentiating yourself on cost is, that there's always going to be someone cheaper. To succeed in the long run, India will have to innovate, and the biggest problem that it has right now is that innovation is stymied by greed and corruption.

So would everyone, tout and civil servant alike, just cut everyone a little slack and give us some breathing room. You might not get it all today, but everyone will be better off for it in the long run.