haven’t been developed.
T he results of U S ambivalence tow ards India have sometimes
been pretty ugly. R ight after independence, in the early 1950s, India
had a very serious famine, in w hich millions of people died. U S
internal records show that w e had a huge food surplus, but T ruman
refused to send any, because w e didn’t like Nehru’s independence.
W hen w e finally did send some, it w as under stringent conditions.
(T here’s a good book on this by the historian Dennis Merrill.)
W hat w as your overall impression of India?
T he questions being debated in India—w hether to use import
restrictions, or to adopt neoliberal policies—can’t really be
answ ered in general. Like debt, import restrictions aren’t good or
bad in themselves—it depends on w hat you use them for. In Japan,
Taiw an and South Korea, w here they w ere used to build up a
domestic industrial base and market (as in Britain and the U S in
earlier years), they proved to be a good idea (for the home country,
at least). But if you use them to protect an inefficient system and
the super-rich w ho profit from it, they’re bad.
Here’s a personal anecdote that illustrates things that are very
real, but that you can’t measure. After a talk in Hyderabad, some
friends w ere driving me to the airport. W hen w e w ere about tw o
miles aw ay, the traffic completely froze up. Every inch of the road
w as covered by a bicycle, a rickshaw, an oxcart, a car or w hatever.
T he people w ere sort of quiet; nobody w as making a fuss.
After about tw enty minutes, w e realized that the only w ay to get
to the airport on time w as to w alk. So my friends and I started
threading our w ay through this immense traffic jam.
Finally w e got to a big highw ay that w as blocked off. T here are
lots of cops and security forces everyw here in India, but here there
w ere tons. My friends talked them into letting us cross the road,
w hich w e w eren’t supposed to do, and w e finally made it to the
airport (w hich w as semifunctional because it w as cut off from the
city).
W hy w as the highw ay closed dow n? T here w ere signs next to it
saying VVIP, w hich I w as told means Very Very Important Person.
Because some “VVIP”—w e later found out it w as the prime minister
—w as expected at some indefinite time in the future, the city w as