By IANS,
New Delhi : A thousand years after India slid into an “age of decline” from its pre-invasion years in the 11th century, the country’s stars are again on the ascendant, Deutsche Bank chief economist Sanjeev Sanyal says in his book “The Indian Renaissance: India’s Rise After a Thousand Years of Decline”.
The book probes India’s journey across 10 centuries and homes in on its recent economic upswing as the country re-awakens not just as an economy, but as a civilisation.
“One of the reasons why I wrote this book is to find out through research why ancient India went into decline. I investigated the matter and found that it had been declining for a long time.
“We somehow took ourselves away from the world. When we began to close down in the 11th century, we were repeatedly attacked. The essence of my book, as shown by the cover of four surya’s (sun) horses, indicates hope for a new sunrise,” the author said.
The book, published by Penguin, was released by senior bureaucrat and parliamentarian N.K. Singh and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani in the capital Friday.
The author takes a look at the powerful social and economic forces that are working together to transform India. He explains how the exploding middle class is changing the demographic, political and social landscape of the country and demanding from the system all that had been promised to them.
The issues that Sanyal explores to substantiate his argument of change ranges from demographic shifts to rising literacy levels and two important revolutions – the opening of minds and changed attitudes towards innovation and risk – that are fundamental if India is to take advantage of the 21st century.
The book is about India at the crossroads – its passage to this point, the obstacles that it still needs to negotiate and the future that it may enjoy. With clarity, understanding and insight, the author tells the story of the new India through the eyes of the Gen X – who are reaping the harvest of change.
The book begins with a spotlight on the country’s golden age, charting its trajectory from independence to economic freedom, the entrepreneurial explosion, the resurgence of the great Indian middle class explosion and its limitations, the economic disparities, the frontiers of control, the two revolutions and institutional reforms.
It ends with a speculative and analytical section on how will India change and whether the country’s rise is inevitable.
Sanyal grew up in pre-liberalisation India, drifting between Kolkata, Sikkim and Delhi. When India liberalised its economy in 1991, he was studying at the Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University. He went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and spent years studying Asia’s rapidly changing societies – their economies, financial markets, demographics. He now splits his time between Singapore and India.
Sanyal presents a very optimistic future of the country’s knowledge scenario.
“Literacy will touch 90 percent by 2020. Primary education has exploded in rural India. Villagers send their children to private schools in the morning and public schools later in the day, even if it is for the free midday meals. It does not matter because the government has managed to push its literacy system through,” Sanyal said.
Releasing the book, Nilekani said: “He (Sanyal) has dwelt at length on the primary education revolution in India, a result of the economic revolution, which is very fortunate.”
“No matter how much the governments change, people, even in the villages, still send their children to private schools,” he said, commenting on Sanyal’s research in the context of the prevailing academic milieu in the country’s heartland.
It would be very difficult to control the aspirations and the demands of the burgeoning middle class unless the country drastically opened up education, Nilekani suggested.