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VIEWPOINT: ECONOMIC GRAFFITI
Muito
Obrigado, Portugal
The
organisational skills that helped European colonisation are missing in
India
By Kaushik Basu
Is it expected to
rain today?" I ask the liveried porter at our hotel. "I 'ope
not, sir," he replies. "I also hope not. But will it rain today?"
I persist gently, trying to find out what the weather forecast is. "Sir,
that is what I am telling you, I 'ope not." I abandon my meteorological
quest. But his hope turns out to be true. As we step out for our first
day in Lisbon the weather is gorgeous, like the Delhi winters of my student
days in the early 1970s, with blue skies and an invigorating nip in the
air. Lisbon lies sparkling in the sun, like an old feudal mansion, jaded,
gutted, overrun by crowded homes, but still undefeated and proud.
 Our
first day is spent walking aimlessly in the city. Alfama, spread along
the side of a hill, is a run-down old part of Lisbon, criss-crossed by
narrow lanes. The lanes in places give way to stairways, where there is
a particularly steep slope to negotiate, and then, spectacularly, to marble
terraces where the passerby can stop to view the ocean.
It was on this very sea that Vasco da Gama had
set out to discover India for Europe and also to raise Portugal from ignominy
to a major European power. It was their hunger for the gold and spices
of the East and the urge to spread the word of God that propelled the
Portuguese outwards, to Senegal, Sierra Leone and, ultimately, India.
In India they mastered the technique of controlling masses of natives
not by bringing in a large conquering army but through an ingenious form
of organisation and managerial skills among a small number of "ruling"
Portuguese, thereby giving birth to the system of colonialism. The technique
would soon be learnt by the British, who would then out-manoeuvre the
Portuguese.
One of India's continuing tragedies has been
its failure to learn the importance of coordination and what may be called
"organisational capital". When the 60,000-strong Indian army
was defeated by Robert Clive's 3,000 soldiers in 1757 at Plassey, the
defeat could clearly not be put down to an imbalance in numbers. Nor was
it caused by an asymmetry of fire-power or individual skills. According
to historians, lack of coordination and loyalty made the Indian forces
look not so much like a defending army as a rioting mob. It was essentially
what in business schools today would be called an organisational failure.
An English friend of mine once observed after
a visit to an Indian hospital that he found the chasm between the immense
talent of the doctors and the utter chaos of the hospital impossible to
reconcile. It may not be entirely a matter of chance that India has so
much talent in classical music but no tradition of the orchestra.
Our next stop is Porto, the world capital of
the fortified wine, port. The street corners are full of little port shops,
where one can buy a bottle for anywhere between $5 and $500. The bottles
of vintage port are dust-laden, the dust signalling their age, which can
run into several decades. At the roadside alcohol shop in Patparganj,
east Delhi, bottles manage to get the same dusty look within days-I wonder
if the owner has ever thought of exporting.
Porto reminds me of Kolkata with its crowded
streets, helpful people and haphazard network of tram lines. One side
of the city is marked by the river Douro and on the other side is the
even more crowded suburb, Gaia.
We travel to other memorable towns: medieval
Coimbra, with its stunningly beautiful university (and some stunning inhabitants
thrown in for good measure); Evorra, with its Roman ruins and a city centre
marked by a beautiful, forlorn square. In Evorra, just as I begin to feel
that we have at last come to a place where the ubiquitous Indian has not
reached, a lady in salwar kameez walks up, looking completely at home.
She is from Daman and has been living in Evorra for many years now, running
a small grocery shop with her husband. In halting Hindi, she tells us
little bits about her life in Evorra and before that in India. Pleased
by this opportunity for nostalgia she breaks into the one language she
is clearly comfortable in and thanks us profusely: "Muito obrigado."
On the last evening, after a late dinner, as
we walk past the main railway station in Lisbon, the roads are deserted.
It is that time of the day, when the plaza, with a few scattered remains
of the day, is a picture of desolation. A young, pleasant-looking African
man folding up his pavement business of village crafts, stops on seeing
us, smiles and breaks into, "Main pal do pal ka shair hoon..."
He sings it perfectly-the complete song (without understanding a word,
he later assures us), the lilting tune drifting into the emptying Praca
Rossio. He is a refugee from Senegal, a fan of Hema Malini, saving money
by selling wood and leather crafts from Senegal, because, he tells us,
he wants to go to India, get married there and live happily ever after.
(The author is professor of economics
at Cornell University.)
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