Sunday, April 13, 2008

Crouching tiger , Prancing dragon

I have always envied China, for its decisive one party government. Its rate of development has been meteoric when compared to that proffered by the direction-less coalition governments in India.

But two recent incidents have made me reconsider, a few months back when Tibetans protested for greater autonomy, China smothered the region with brutal repression. At the other end of the spectrum Bhutan(whose defense and external affairs are handled by India) became a democracy, in spite of the people there being satisfied with the Monarchy.

Bhutan has set a trend for the world by measuring its progress by gross national happiness whereas Tibet, once a Shangrila of sorts, has been turned into a simmering volcano.

I now wonder, is the development really worth the sacrifice of freedom of speech,expression and religion? not to mention cases like the man made famine of 1959 which caused millions of deaths.

I also wonder if the drastic difference in the development rates is simply a reenactment of the hare and tortoise story?Will the crouching tiger leap? and is the story of the dragon a mere myth?

1 comment:

Balaji Chitra Ganesan said...

oh, come on Chinese progress is just bs. In the period of so-called growth, China has lost thousands of years of culture and heritage.

Besides lack of freedom has a direct correspondence to poverty. Think of the Dalits.

and your take on coalitions is a little ironical. India has not had a single party majority since 1989 and this has probably been the most productive period since independence.