Answer for Ron Pompei

Question: Will India be able to learn from the West regarding ecology, economy and education?
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?
Will India achieve true global consciousness that recognizes the unique contribution of all cultures?

The answer is yes. But the way to get there is not obvious. There are some initiatives that look promising, the new metro in Delhi which make communication more effective and lowers the use of taxi, introduction of the green and yellow auto rickshaws that run on environment friendly fuel and people recycling plastic in dumps and slum areas. But it seems to me that there is lack of seeing ones own contribution to the system. The ruling philosophy when people transport themselves is to be in front of everyone. Trains are often delayed because everyone want to board first. Garbage is often disposed of at location because there is almost no trashcans, and even if there were the trucks for emptying cans these would fill the streets and block most traffic.

One thing that is a huge success though (even though Indians may not agree with me) is the peaceful way different cultures coexist. I would like to compare with former Yugoslavia that, like India, have different religions and ethnicies, and had been living under repression and limited rights. The difference is that the differences and numbers of different social groups are pretty small compared to India. And India still has peace (even though the road have been, and is, winding and difficult). I think India’s great strength is to incorporate good things from different cultures.

India will not make the same mistakes as West has done, at least not to the same extent. If they did civilisation as we know it would end because of how many they are.

Next step is collective learning. It is better if everybody learn half of what is needed than if half learn everything. Signs of this you can see in some places. Crowd control in the metro is achieved through repeating very clear rules all the time. The biggest challenge from this perspective is dialogue, not between cultures but between classes. The recycling in the slum is not visible for the government (at least they do not seem to reflect and act to support it) and the goals of the government to acquire clean air is not present in the mind of the large masses.