22 Million Rag Pickers

Recently one of my colleagues from the U.S. traveled to Mumbai. He was very excited about the idea of traveling to India - for the very first time. He had been to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore in the past, and in head, without googling around, had a pretty similar conception about Mumbai.

So he travels to Mumbai, and returns as a shocked man - lot of symptoms of sensory overlead . He found, Mumbai (generally India), as a place that is laden with contradictions - wealth right next to poverty, general neatness on the inside and marked with trash & garbage outside, Rolls Royce Phantom right next to Nano, dazzling malls right next to slums, fancy tall residential apartments right next one that looks like it might fall apart etc etc. Of course certain things were constant too - Traffic, Blaring Horns, Pollution, Crowd, Filth & dirt. Too much to take in and get it all processed!

Of all the things, one thing that got on his nerve was filth. Having noticing people's tendency to treat the whole city as a big garbage dump - just dump you trash where ever and when ever you want to - he made this comment. If every single denizen i.e. 22 million+ do their bit of not dumping their thing about - better yet if can they pick it all up - we will have a "spic and span" Mumbai.

Of course, great suggestion. My long explanation as to why this not possible which included people general sense of hierarchy and a place for each human in the society and inefficient government didn't make any sense to him. His view was that, Indians tend to place blame on government and democracy, and how hard it is to get anything done, but in reality the problem lies deep within each one of us. The crux of all the issues in India, from his point of view, is simple - the concept of caste and who can do what in a society.

If India were to have a government similar to that of China - efficient, authoritarian, and market oriented - the problems in India wont go away. India does not have a degree of egalitarianism that china has (i.e. no caste system and every one is equal when it comes down to religion etc) and there are ton inequalities in every single dimensions. The solution is simple, but will require leadership and political will. If executed well without losing steam, it will take one generation to wipe out what is regarded as bane of India society - Caste and Social Hierarchy!