Tuesday, October 30, 2007

China v India- brought home to me…

At the fortune global forum, New Delhi, and, got really involved in a conversation around how China and India were different. I will not try and put together a laundry list of what is different- enough has been said about democracy (and the lack thereof), infrastructure (and the lack thereof) etc., however, I think One particular interchange really got across the point to me.

The panel on Indian growth was asked a question about why india's performance in sports did not reflect the size of population (in short, it "sucks"), and why India could not do what China did, and improve sports performance. On introspection, my view is the following:

China is quite capable of taking a problem, and putting together an army to work on this problem, and churn out oceans of athletes, swimmers, sports players, etc, but I cannot ever imagine India doing that. Things are much too free flowing, much too democratic, and much too "free willed" for the country to go from Zero to 100 medals in 2 olympics… things will happen, but they will happen much slower, and will happen with consensus- people need to have bought in etc.

Now the good part is that people's opinion will count. The bad part is that things do not get done..the issue seems to be- there is no organization- and hence Brownian movement prevails- every individual doing a bunch of things by themselves- which makes for brilliant individuals (hence the demand for Indian talent), but does not make for a very cohesive society.

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