Why is India a poor country?

India as we all know has historically been "THE richest" region/country in the world throughout the recorded history up untill the British took over the subcontinent and we have seen a constant decline ever since with the exception of the last couple of decades when things have started turning around..

An average Indian lived a very lavish life as per the world standards in any era you can think of.. so what on earth happened that we became so poor that we could hardly feed our population? What went wrong?
The british killed our industries in a systematic ways and only developed the infrastructure that helped them keep this nation under their rule.. The industrial revolution couldnt have come at a worse time

At a time when we were declining like hell the another aspect which not many people talk about is the fact that we were a silver based economy back then and silver prices were declining by the day where as USA and UK and a few other European economies shifted to gold for backing their currency and Gold as we all know went up and up because as opposed to Gold the cost of production has not changed much and unlike silver there has not been many new discoveries.

I dont know about others but I blame the Nehru/Gandhi family for India being pushed to the wall by 1990's... At a time when other Asian economies like Japan and South Korea were growing at 10% + per year we were doing a 2.5%-3% a year.. thanks to the socialist chacha Nehru... and those who followed his foot steps.

Widespread corruption in todays India is another hurdle we have to jump across if we want to see our country get rid of the "poor" tag. Unplanned cities is what frustrates me the most apart from corruption.. What is wrong with the government of India? Why cant they plan new cities instead of letting every one have a free hand at doing whatever they want to.. I still see agricultural land around Delhi being cut into small plots and construction going on all over the place..

When will India get back its lost glory it always had? I hope to see that day in my own life time when people in USA and western Europe will be queuing up in front of Indian embassies in their respective countries to try their luck with an employment visa for India.

Misplaced enthusiam, the socialistic idealism, etc. are many reasons of today's problems.

It is so easy to blame the British - they came, they conquered, they destroyed local industries, etc., etc. This does not cut too much ice with me. The industrial revolution would have killed the Indian industries - imperialism or no imperialism.

And Parminder is right in saying that at the end of the war (WW II), countries like Japan, Korea, Germany, and many others were in the same boat.

Nehru visited USSR and was really taken by the Communist/Marxist ideals. Having just won independence and seen the bourgouise of the British, it was easy to believe that capitalism was bad. Nehru abhored industrialists and enterpreauners. He sincerely thought that state control was the answer. So came the so called jewels of the state run industries. The five-year plans were a straight lift off from the Russian model. Unfortunately, Nehru did not realise that the state's job is to govern/administer and not to meddle in manufacturing and industry.

But if Nehru was living in mistaken ideals and utopean dreams, Indira Gandhi, in spite of her strong points, worsened the matters. Circa 1969, when it was becoming clear that state control is not working and state run industries were making huge losses, Indira Gandhi went ahead with even stricter controls. First came the nationalization of banks and then came the license raj. Now everyone was supposed to produce as per license and if you wanted to do something, you needed a license.

The licesense raj brought forward corruption to the lowest level and became even more deep rooted.

India, today is paradoxically a better place, because the economy was decontrolled in 1990 and we allowed enterpreauners to flourish.

Hey admin a good news.
According to Gartner's prediction we can become the software superpower by 2020
Read further:-
India may become global software superpower by 2020: Gartner-Software-Infotech-The Economic Times

Not only that Britain(who made us slave during the colonial period) thinks we are already a superpower.
Read this quote from zeenews.com

London: India is already a superpower, says Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

"My thoughts on the 60th anniversary of the Indian Constitution is that in one particular way India is a superpower already," Miliband told a massive gathering of the Indian diaspora here Tuesday.

"India is a superpower in its soft power, a superpower in the soft force of its democracy, and superpower in its intellectual advance and a super poser in the world of business," said Miliband, standing in for Prime Minister Gordon Brown at a celebration of the 61st Republic Day.

But what to do corruption has become an obstacle in the way to India's prosperity.

I think all the governmental bodies should walk transparently.
We don't know where the taxes we pay are being utilized.

The poverty in India is because the change of system. I agree that British has done their part. But Indian society was there for a very long time that it got soiled through generations of varna system. There was no chance for poor and talented to come to the main stream and contribute to the country's growth. A small group of people were enjoying all benefits on the basis of varna system. A country cannot progress unless the talent human resource is brought to the main stream and utilized by the nation.

Nehru and Gandhi family are certainly responsible for India's today position. But I will say in a positive way. Look at Pakistan, Bangladesh and many other countries which got independence at the same time as India. They do not have such a stable and democratic system as we have. The credit goes to the Gandhi family who built a strong nation. 60 year is a very small age for a country. We are stable and united as a country. I h ave my own difference in opinion about the deeds of Gandhi family. But still they have done a good job.

PS: I am no fan of congress

Do you know what work is done at Infosys and the wipros and tech mahindras?

The IT sector in India is mainly the lowest form of work in the trade... The so called programmer at Bangalore is really a coder in reality copy pasting all day long. (There are exceptions as well but its a small minority)

Get the inside view of the IT sector in India and you would find out about the reality of our IT growth story..

The only power we really have is our lower wages and a huge population that speaks fluent English out of which a few know how to tap their fingures on a keyboard.

Education sector needs a lot of investment and if the government stops oil & gas subsidy and stops the PDS crap then we would have enough resources to put our education into top gear.

The ration from PDS does not go to the needy that is a well known fact but none of the governments wants to take the blame of being anti poor and loose precious votes... Nehru's socialist ghost is still haunting this country and our school text books have made people like him larger then life figures... National television cant stop praising them for screwing this nation...

Agricultural income is tax free doesn't matter if you own a thousand acres of land.. and this will not change in our life times... if it does atall..

Atleast the politicians are rich in Swiss bank Ledgers.....

Accountability for politicians and freedom for media is the key to a better future.

Education will change the face of this nation.. If a voter doesnt even know what economic growth is all about and what the government is doing or not doing to grow this country then how can we expect them to vote the right people or the party with the right agenda?
People still vote just because so and so is from such and such cast or religion..

Right to education will bring a lot of change and that's when the right kind of politics can be expected based on real agendas... This will take another 20 years to bring in real change in the politics.

Admin,
But see now youths are pretty much educated and can distinguish between bad and good.
Take the case of this forum itself. You can find members like hitler, vorazeal posting high quality threads on the current disbalance in the nation. whether it be corruption or ragging issues. And yes members like meetdilip, you admin, just4kix etc.. post such great replies on this issues.. So if I'm right the above members are youths and I guarantee there are plenty of such youths across the country. Its only uneducated and poors who vote the wrong persons during election as they are given money by the candidates contesting elections during their campaign.

You are right HACKdown.... I'm just one of the many frustrated youths in the country...
There are many who feels let down and curse own own country. The existing system in our country really needs a look at.

The only thing that we can do as citizens is to vote. But all these years of voting hardly transformed our country.

It is not because we don't have the potential or resources, we just miss the right guidance and support from our government. All the big companys of the world, viz. Microsoft, Intel... owns a lot of their success to Indian brains.

Atleat in forums like IBF, we are able to express and share our views.

60 percent of poor population is Muslim. If they can make their things better "PERSONALLY" than half of nations problem will be solved

Originally Posted by mickey

60 percent of poor population is Muslim. If they can make their things better "PERSONALLY" than half of nations problem will be solved

There are poor people in every section and region of the country. When some development comes, it should be useful to every section of the society.
Whenever our country was divided on basis of religion, there were huge setbacks.

^^ I am talking about population control..

Over population was never made compulsory in Islam or any religion.. to enjoy populism Muslim clerics are teaching wrong things to the coming generation which is very bad not just for a section but for the whole development of the nation because muslims are also part of the country...

Govt. does many things to teach these people about population control and polio drops for ex. but they are so doomed by their own clerics and thinkers that they wont give polio drops to their children because clerics said so...

Funds go to each and every part of the sections of the country.. the problem is that noone dares to change these people, neither they want to change themselves..

alas, Muslims will fail because everyone except them is making it good.

Right to education and prosecution of those who deprive a child from the basic education he/she has a right to will make sure things get better in future..

religion and Caste are the killers of our country.....just by getting rid of those, the nation will have made huge progress.

People select people of their own caste while voting and not by seeing how that person really is.

In government bodies, people of same caste/religion are always given the upper hand and promoted, i have seen this personally, really sad state...


what can we do ?

we got to get rid of some people...











i meant corrupt people.. 'Hilaa diya naa"

Look at Kerala. People of Kerala has standard of living compared to United States. All these are result of land reformation and education which Keralites enjoy as right. There is no compulsory law for right to education. Still most people (even seriously poor) send their children to school and make them study till 10 th standard. Each village has at least one school and the education system is one of the best in India.

There was a land reformation act by the first communist government of the world elected through ballet. The land was given to those who work on it. As a result the accumulated money flew to the hands of poor and allowed them to meet their basic needs. If other states could follow the example of Kerala's success, soon Indians will be on top of the world.

Originally Posted by meetdilip

Look at Kerala. People of Kerala has standard of living compared to United States. All these are result of land reformation and education which Keralites enjoy as right. There is no compulsory law for right to education. Still most people (even seriously poor) send their children to school and make them study till 10 th standard. Each village has at least one school and the education system is one of the best in India.

There was a land reformation act by the first communist government of the world elected through ballet. The land was given to those who work on it. As a result the accumulated money flew to the hands of poor and allowed them to meet their basic needs. If other states could follow the example of Kerala's success, soon Indians will be on top of the world.

Thanks dilip... those were nice words about Kerala(I'm from Kerala )

We can't take it on religion basis as it would be wrong. But so far as I know if we people starts taking risk to avail opportunities which comes oce in life, may be we would definitely contribute to national GDP and hence the day will come soom when we would not be counted as such.

You are right about kerala .