<b>Letters:</b> Daunting challenge

What is required is possibly two decades of unity and sacrifice by all for nation-building

With reference to “Can India sustain growth at 7-8%?” (April 13), the long list of action points outlined by Dr. Shankar Acharya is daunting. Being a demographically young Asian country does not guarantee a repeat of the Far Eastern miracle of the dragon countries. India faces a few special situations. The first is our high defence and internal peace-law and order maintenance cost. The second is a severe shortage of domestic savings in financial assets. The third is the new global scene of slower physical world trade growth, increasingly technology-intensive methods replacing labour and terror-induced rigidity on people movement. And the fourth, I believe, is a shortage of land and water in India, unless we forget about environment, forests, land losers’ rights and the processes of law and democracy.

What is required is possibly two decades of unity (not forced conformity) and sacrifice by all for nation-building. Domestic savings can go up only with lower consumption. The central government has the numbers in Parliament and in major states; it is backed by India’s largest volunteer force, self-proclaimed “trained and with discipline”. If this ruling combination can’t deliver, can’t pull all the people together, assure the people of growth, equity and clean efficient administration, then India might always remain an emerging economy.

P Datta   Kolkata

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