Trenchant critics of India's galloping IT-led globalization have commented, quite rightly, about the 330 million Indians whose lives have barely changed in the hubbub of India's software-saturated ethos of the twentyfirst century. India's underclass continues to be the largest in the world, and there are no easy signposts as to where economic and political policy should be headed to solve the problems of poverty, margnialization, and urban decay.
Those out of power in New Delhi, or the state capitals, of course have the easy answer: Get the bums who are in power out of office! As we all know, this rings quite hollow. Those other bums ruled for four decades, and they did not make much of a dent in the size or situation of the underclass.
There is, however, a much larger demographic challenge than the 330 million number.
India's workforce, even if we generously include the burgeoning American-accented but barely IT-literate Call Center workers, is perhaps 2 million strong. So, where does that leave the rest of the 998 million Indians? Leaving aside children, we are still talking of 500-600 million people for whom IT is as foreign as Redmond, Washington.
The year 2004 started in India with the top politicians declaring the advent of a strangely-named "feel good" revolution of rising expectations and consumption. The opitmists hope that this Ladder to the ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) Heaven will continue to shoot up to the ether and beyond, pulling more and more Indians up the India Shining rungs of this ladder.
Yes, colleges are exploding and technical graduates in 2010 could be double the number in 1995.
But in the demographic cauldron that is India, these IT-trained numbers will melt into the workforce without much of a trace.
Yes, even the illiterate farming family now dreams of educating some of its children for good jobs in the cities.
Yes, the notorious Trickle Down theory so favored by Ronald Reagan will come into play, but the trickles will be absorbed quickly into multitudes of India's exploding demographic centers -- the cities.
The educational revolutions and the income-lifestyle revolutions will be slurped and soaked up by the parched demographic sponge that we call India. For the half-a-trillion on the wrong side of the digital divide, there are no easy answers.
Picture this: The Ladder to the ITES Heaven has its upper rungs stretching into a misty ethereal Paradise of Pleasures. But look, there are no lower rungs of this ladder planted firmly on India's rural soil! This is a floating ladder, not the fabled beansprout that Jack planted, which stretched from strong roots in the earth all the way to the moon!
Nik Dholakia
