and late 1980s focused inward rather than on export-led growth?
If you find these questions irrelevant, hold your verdict. If
South Korea, which won independence exactly two years before
India, is a model of economic success, do remember that until
the 1960s, it was as developed as sub-Saharan Africa. Today’s
basket case North Korea was more industrialised than its
southern cousin. “(South Korea) required a government that was
single-mindedly focused on economic growth,” writes Dani Rodrik
in his incisive book The Globalisation Paradox. It needed to
grow “so it could counter any possible threats from North
Korea”. If problems are opportunities, India has no dearth of
geopolitical issues (China, Pakistan) or internal ones
(Maoists). Now bring ideas and the goal of becoming a developed
nation together and what do you get? A state crying for growth
but whose politics is failing its economics. As we debate
endlessly, countries like Indonesia, which became independent on
August 17, 1945 and Malaysia (August 31, 19