“Will India be able to learn from the missteps of the West regarding ecology, energy and education?
Ecologic products are not common not even in big cities like Mumbai but I think there will be more and more but it will take some time. I know some restaurants owner that are planning to start on having a ecologic business but to get it widespread in India there are a lot of years to go. To keep in mind when lifting this topic is the agriculture in India. A lot of people will rather earn 10 rupees today than earn 50 next weeks to be certain they have food on the table. I am not quit curtain how the reformation of changing from normal agriculture to ecologic agriculture works in India but in Sweden it takes a year to do the reformation to legality call it ecologic. The Indian system works something similar to the Swedish which results in that the income will come after a longer term and therefore also affects if the families will have food on their table or not. Therefore I would say that they would be able to learn from western ecology missteps but the social and financial system of today makes it hard to implement it.
I have seen examples of it in the backwater, in the south of India where they were using electric power plants on small water springs to gain energy. Sun cells are also to be found on both houses here in Mumbai but also on houseboats in Kerala. On that concern they use different kinds of methods to gain energy in a more sustainable way. But traveling around India you will find strings for electricity all over the country and in a system where the main source is divided into to many small strings which waste energy on its way. So they have learned some, reinvented some by themselves and missed out on the main system pretty badly which wont change in a long while. But the energy topic lies mostly on a higher level where the problem of implementing it is hard and not on top one to be solved now.
Concerning the education system it is still today mostly focused on learning from books says Chandita Mukherjee, filmmaker and active in children festivals in Mumbai. She mean that there is not one right way of learning but that the Indian School education system insists that the approach to learn is through text books. Keeping this in mind I am happy that there are already today organizations like the Comet Media whom has focused on educational communication in the topic of diversity. But I still would say that the system is pretty narrow which also can be explained with the fact that the status of ones job is still very important in all areas. I would say that they are on their way but they will not learn enough since the living conditions are quite different from Western. There are still a lot of children that live on the street on do not get any education. With that some parts of the education system is very far ahead and on other parts it is still excluded for a lot of people.
Will they recognize earlier in their economic and social development that material resources are finite yet human resources (such as creativity, innovation and expression) are infinite?
Traveling on most of India’s south coast I have seen the country from different views. I would not say that they have understood the finite of materials. Or more they haven’t understood that they have millions of human that could work in a different place where they could be more effective and use their creativity more. I think the understanding of that they does not have to fit in to the picture for them to be and see the human resources in another way. Taking Richard Florida’s example of the agriculture growth though creativity where the tools develop the development or the time and space to develop is limited here. To speak in general about India I would say no, it is a pretty limited concerning seeing and understanding the creativity that is happening on grassroots level.
Will India achieve a true global consciousness that recognizes the unique contribution of all cultures?”
The next generation of India is more aware about India as a part of the rest of the world. Cultural habits in the city are more and more brushed out by the new generation. But still we see conflicts in the north between Muslims and Buddhist. Moving around in cities like Mumbai, some parts will be opened to you as well as places in the south where I have been where being different is ok. But when moving around in the smaller cities and villages appropriate dressing is a fact, which for certain is a great part of the Indian culture. I also see an effort at many places where they try for example to combine the Indian food with the western which often makes it taste worse than making it western or Indian. What I miss is seeing the charm in all cultures and aspects of it in its own way. The contribution is seeing the special culture as it is and praise it and learn to differences it and therefore also see how it can contribute to their own culture and add taste to eat without taking something away.
On the other hand they have a female president, which is more than we in Sweden has succeed to have. Where I would say that they are one step before a lot of countries in the rest of the world. And at some certainties I would say that they will gain a global consciousness around different cultures but as in countries like Scandinavia it will still take a long time before people recognizes the contribution of all cultures.
