There are good reasons why Japan has been able to propser post WWII and India did not. Fist and foremost is that Gen McArthur saw to it that Japan areceived the Asian equivalent of the Marshall Plan which was provided to Europe to rebuild their shattered economies. Poor India had no such luck. Secondly, Japan has always been a homogenious society - everyone bascially of the same race, religion and language - no internicine infighting amongst themslves as happens in Indian politics. Also until the late '80, for all intents and purposes, like Taiwan and SKorea, Japan had a benign-dictatorail one-party 'democracy' - that's why govt could make tough decisions and carry them, not like happens in democratic India, where doing nothing is de requeur for good governance. Fourthly, Japan had access to US technology, capital and materials, and untrammeled access to US markets, without the need to reciprocate. Fifth, Japanese are a disciplined people, because historically, for centuries they've always lived under a totalitarian govt system - they did as they were told or were severely punished - death was a favored punishment -hence thier high level 'discipline'. Sixth, Japan didn't have to spend all her resources and energies protecting herself against enemies surrounding her from all sides -Uncle Sam took care of that, leaving them free to use that money on developing their economy. Also, Japan opted for a capitalist system, albeit with a heavy-dose of govt 'help', especially
RE:Japan, India break trade impasse over lunch
by Chaman Chambu on Aug 22, 2007 10:45 PM Permalink
that's good analysis..i agree
in a way i wish india were as properous as japan..but a part of me is still worried about re-colonization of the country..so we may be slow, but we are sure-footed..and our changes are our own..
RE:Japan, India break trade impasse over lunch
by Abdul on Aug 22, 2007 10:36 PM Permalink
There are service centers which exists like SONY AUTHORIZED CENTER etc. which gave millions of jobs to technicians. Now a days, these were gone, and those decent guys who got decent income are doing fruit stalls. Rediff can interview one electronics guys interview in the rediff column, he will tell you the story.
RE:Japan, India break trade impasse over lunch
by stav on Aug 23, 2007 05:57 AM Permalink
Simpleast reason Japanese made it and we did not was the quality of people, lets face it, one can always point out to crap like multi race etc, thats quite a lot of nonsense, other than some communities (eg parsi) in india no other people post w war II were enlightened enough or hard working enough. We as a people were lazy and corrupt. Japanese too had their share of corruption, but they were hard working and focussed.
