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| Thirty years ago, India and South Korea established formal diplomatic relations. To mark the completion of these three decades, the Korean government has organised a series of events, one of which was a conference of economists this week in the South Korean capital, Seoul. The theme was the future of Indo-Korean economic relations.
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| The most striking things about the conference, which was billed as the first meeting of the Korea-India Economic Forum, was its sharp focus and attendance only by those who were directly interested in the subject.
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| Unlike in India where the success of a conference is measured by the number of people who attend it, rather than the sharpness of the discussion, only those directly interested in Indo-Korean economic relations attended. It made for good discussion.
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| Another contrast was the fact that while the Korean presentations focussed on commercial and business issues, the Indian presentations tended to be abstract and theoretical.
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| Although this might seem not to have served immediate objectives, it did fulfil a larger purpose, namely, of acquainting the Indian economists with the nitty-gritty of international business and of acquainting the Koreans with the larger issues involved in economic management.
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| However, for this latter purpose to be achieved, these meetings will have to become a regular feature, rather than being sporadic or one-off events.
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| Although this has been said before, on balance, I think the upshot was that India has to learn a lot from Korea. The lessons lie not so much in what the Korean government and businesses do or did to make Korea such an extraordinary economic success, as in the amazing degree of cooperation both of them receive from the people.
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| Whomever I asked about the political mechanism by which, say, Korea was able to overcome the 1997 crisis, there was only one answer that I got: the cooperation of the people.
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| At the end of the day, this is what distinguishes Korea from India. Whereas here, for a variety of understandable as well as inexplicable reasons, popular cooperation in tough measures is virtually impossible to get, in Korea there seems to be a huge inclination for voluntary compliance in an appeal for submission for the greater good.
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| Whether it is simple things like not spitting on the road or on more life-and-death issues like wage cuts, the ability of organised groups to view the issue from a larger perspective is truly remarkable.
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This is not to say that narrow interests are not pursued
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