Why does India always do the opposite of what the rest of the world is doing? There are altogether too many examples now to be ignored as random aberrations.
Regardless of whether it’s politics, economics, sociology or international relations, India nearly always does the opposite. Not just that. It insists it is right.
Take the latest and most egregious example. Just when the others are rolling back welfare schemes or reforming them, India is expanding them, never mind reforming the existing ones. The political consensus here is the opposite of what it is elsewhere, never mind the fiscal consequences.
In exactly the same way, when others liberalise their financial, product and labour markets, we do the opposite. As so many market experts have repeatedly said our markets are amongst the least liberalised.
When others follow a low tariffs regime in international trade, we follow a high tariffs one. And vice versa. When others look to join large trade groups we prefer bilateral ones.
At the WTO in the late 1980s and early 1990s we were refusing to sign the services agreement when others were. We signed in the end on unfavourable terms.
Where others look to increase the scale of factory output is, we start making production units smaller. We give them fancy names but the effect is always the same: low productivity and efficiency.
Rules, not complied
When others make as few rules possible to govern economic activity, we make hundreds. When others follow those few rules, we do it only in the breach. We call these compliances that are never complied with fully.
Or take resource allocation. When others were leaving it to the forces of supply and demand, we chose centrally directed allocation via the Five-Year plans. Now when the rest of the world is talking of industrial policy, we are sitting back and leaving resource allocation to chance.
And tax policy. Other countries tax everyone. In India only 86 million out of a population of 1,400 million people file returns. Not just that. Over half file zero returns. Other countries have just one VAT or GST rate. We have six. Their rates are reasonable and understandable. Ours are neither.
India used to use environmentally friendly packaging like jute or paper when the others were using plastics. Now they are giving up plastics and we have taken to it in a massive way. The same thing has happened with handicrafts also.
It is possible to go on with these examples. But the point is clear: we are contra-minded in the extreme. And this tendency isn’t confined to the economy. It can be seen in foreign policy, public administration, technology, you name it. We revel in doing it differently, never mind that it mostly doesn’t work.
Take, quite randomly, our nuclear policy. When the rest of the world was signing the non- proliferation treaty we, quite rightly, refused to sign it. We also refused to sign the comprehensive test ban treaty when all others were signing it. These were two of the very few decisions that have worked well for us.
Govt work privileged
And public administration. In other countries the lower bureaucracy tends to be honest. Here it’s the other way round. In other countries people don’t want to work for the government. But here we have made government service highly lucrative and profitable. We need a lot more babus but don’t have them. That makes for longer service time per person who needs the service and therefore greater scope for bribery as speed money.
Or the justice system. Others believe in speedy disposal of litigation. We believe in the opposite. It’s not deliberate. It just is. That’s how the system is set up. Then we have our Constitution. Everyone swears by it but it’s been amended over 110 times. In contrast, the US Constitution has been amended only 33 times, the Australian Constitution eight times, the Irish Constitution 33 times and France about 30 amendments.
Or even language. When others, like even France, Japan and China, accept English as a necessary tool and skill of commerce, we say no, let it be Hindi.
Why, we even drive on the left. Only 77 others, tiny British colonial vestiges, do it. The rest, 178, drive on the right.
One must, in the end, ask if this preference for difference does any harm. In most cases, no. But in some, yes it does make a difference. Wisdom lies in being able to tell one from the other.
We are different there as well. We aren’t able to.
