To compete with China, Sridhar Vembu says that India must relaunch its civilization, not just its GDP. In an article on X, Vembu says that real transformation begins when a nation does not consider itself an economy, but as a civilization ready to go up.
“The Chinese have never considered it simply as” developing the economy “. They considered their national project as” reviving their great civilization “”, wrote VEMBU, dealing with a parallel with the arcs of Japan and Korea, which both suffered cultural and economic awakenings before taking their place on the world scene.
That is to say that this is the only idea that India must internalize urgently.
“This crucial point is so easily missed in a purely economic discourse. It is culture and civilizational state of mind as much as technology and industry. ”
For India to really develop, he argued, its people must believe that they are at the beginning of a civilizational revival-not only another cycle of GDP expansion. “We are not just developing GDP and meeting quarterly figures, as important as they can be in the short term,” wrote Vembu.
He said that the 1,000 years of history of domination and looting of India – which the Chinese call their “100 years of national humiliation” – has left a deep psychological scar. “We have to look beyond, as difficult as it is,” he added. It is only then that the nation can maintain the morale and the endurance necessary for a long -term transformation.
He also urged readers to understand what China has endured to reach where it is today. “Please read the history of China, the last 100 years,” he wrote. “Study the era of Great Leap Forward 1958–62, when Mao asked poor farmers to do steel in their backyards and when about 30 million people perished by killing the owners and intellectuals and the poor hungry to death.”
He then described the cultural revolution of a decade from 1966 to 1976, when schools and colleges were closed and patriotic citizens were denounced as owners, intellectuals or “capitalist roaders” – many persecuted or killed. “So much sorrow and sorrow. So much human sacrifice to Maoist frenzy,” wrote Vembu.
And yet China has relaunched. “They survived all of this and have somehow rekindled their nation,” he added, stressing that even Deng Xiaoping “had not at all easy” and barely survived three purges.
“We, the Indians, had much more easily,” said Vembu. “I am not saying” easy “in absolute terms, but in relation to what the Chinese endured, it was much easier. We have to keep this perspective. Chinese history is an inspiration. “
This change in thought, according to Vembu, also changes the way citizens react to the system. “We will not complain about this gap or bad tax policy. We will not even complain too much about the corruption of our fallen political system. ”
He again underlined China, where entrepreneurs have been faced with all the same challenges – more the risk of disappearing if they fell from political favorite – and nevertheless remained the course.
“Let us solve to ourselves that what we are working on is nothing less than the renewal of our great civilization,” he wrote.
