Today in India, two races are afoot. The first is the race between a creative society, a society that shows much energy and is surging upwards on the one hand, and on the other, the scaffolding of the state which is being hollowed by termites. The second is the race between those who are making the new India — primarily, the entrepreneurs and middle class professionals — and the political class that is stoking the old India — for instance, by pumping in the poison of caste — to keep itself in business.

If things are just left to proceed at will, the outcome may go either way: a dynamic economy and those forging it may be so hobbled by the worsening of governance that they may put enough pressure on the political class to mend its ways, to improve governance or let governance deteriorate to such an extent that Bihar and UP are generalised, and economic growth is once again pulled down.

Why is it that, to take the obvious contrast, in industry new leaders are emerging by the year, leaders who are doing better and more innovative things; but in public life second-raters are giving way to third-raters, politicians are giving way to politicians dependent on criminals, and the latter to criminals-who-have-become-politicians?

Why is it that while our entrepreneurs are venturing into newer and newer fields, that while they are registering conquests in more and more distant countries, that while they are thinking and planning farther into the future and transforming their operations today so that they may outdo the world in the distant future, why is it that while in one sphere we see these features, in the other sphere, our politicians are stoking ever narrower sections, why is their horizon becoming shorter and shorter?

... contd.