The Proverbial Contest: Book Review of Super Power in Business World

The Proverbial Contest
Raghav Bahl's Superpower? is a 50-50 game that provides a defensive Indian view of why we are better but does not weave a cogent analysis out of the multiple threads
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India is good, but can never get as ‘sexy’ as China. It is a land of contradictions. We make good hotels, but will not bother about getting the road to the entrance right. We speak impeccable English, but are xenophobic. And so on. This is the starting point of Raghav Bahl’s journey into the now-clichéd India-China debate. Are we better than China? If China has bridges and roads, we have a young populace and speak English. The book, which makes the more patriotic Indian feel good, is a 50-50 game.

Bahl continues this comparison throughout. There are slices of history, politics and religion thrown in. Religion, though, seems incongruous; neither Hinduism nor Confucianism is akin to the Protestant ethic that, according to sociologist Max Weber, had influenced growth under western capitalism. The relations with the US also have their place somewhere. Reams have been churned out by the likes of Financial Times, The Economist and the IMF on the subject. Does Bahl have anything new to offer?

His analogy of hare and tortoise is novel. But a bit puerile at times, as we lose track of which one is ahead of the other. On infrastructure, China scores. We do better with language, legal system, entrepreneurship, stockmarket, etc. Often, western analysts are condescending about India, and talk of lost chances and the fact that China is bigger and more open. Bahl feels we are actually not that far off and it is a matter of time before we can get there, provided we want to.

The book is full of examples of what China ‘has’ and does ‘not have’. Its non-democratic government gets things done easily, and the success is manifest in economic data. Land acquisition is clear in China, but a hindrance in India where it comes in the way of progress. But China’s growth, which is based on investment and exports, may not be sustainable. People do not consume, but save, and hence India scores over China. We have three engines — liberalisation’s children, women consumers and rural economy. Chinese banks have been forced to lend and their non-performing assets could be higher than stated. Besides, its data is unreliable. It is a classic case of four ‘un’s — unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable.

For every success story in China, there is also a Google or Danone or Rio Tinto. Also, China’s growth model after the Cultural Revolution has pushed entrepreneurship back, with the state solely controlling production. Foreign brands using China as an outsourcing hub is a mirage.

Though Bahl says India’s strengths have to be harnessed, he does not connect the dots. For example, he talks a lot on India’s young population, against China’s ageing. Concurrently, he shows how our social infrastructure, especially mass education, lags China. So, what is the use of such a large youth class, which will take to streets? Further, he says our robust financial system helped us escape the Lehman crisis. The truth, critics would say, was that we were too scared to innovate and self-eulogies are not tenable. China’s model has worked without the strength of English. Hence, it is not a limitation.

Bahl’s portraits are at times blurred, given that the hare and tortoise have different expressions of feeling at the end of each chapter. It would have been interesting if a roadmap was drawn, especially since the objective appears to have been to leverage these advantages. The action points could have covered those that can be done and should be done, but not immediately attainable given the limits of democracy.

The epilogue has just three pages, where the author blows hot and cold over everything. The disparaged Chinese set-up suddenly ends up having the ‘drive’ that India should not miss. And the much-touted democracy in India may not mean much. To play safe, Bahl comments that it is ‘advantage China’ though the odds are on ‘India’. Can you guess what that means?

So, how could one rate the book, which says things we know already? It provides a defensive Indian view of why we are better than what we thought by looking at an oft-debated issue with an Indian flavour. But it does not weave a cogent analysis out of the multiple threads. Nonetheless, it leaves the reader with the sense of feel good. India Inc. has endorsed the book, as one deciphers from the praises on the cover. And one hopes it has understood the India tilt in Bahl’s book correctly.