The Very Long Term

Back in Goa again. Took the dawn train from Mangalore and am happy to report that ours is a truly beautiful country with immense potential. And nowhere is the potential higher than here on the beautiful Konkan coast. My train, which started off from an ancient port city, passed many other ancient ports, like Honavar - but these are no longer cities today. While in Hassan, I read that the Karnataka government has banned iron ore exports from these ports - and there was a long list. I have been travelling up and down these parts by road, too, for many years, and it is true that all the ports here seem to be engaged in nothing but the export of iron ore. This is true of Mangalore, Karwar and even the ports of Goa.

Exporting red mud. Importing nothing.

This is the Kamal D Nutt theory of international trade.

I wonder what would happen to great ancient port cities like Hamburg if the Kamal D Nutt theory was applied. Singapore and Hong Kong are port cities - and both are brand new. We have a long way to go in India, but the first step must be to think things straight.

And that is the thought uppermost in my mind this morning as I reflect on the realities of today, which I saw clearly in Hassan - a city with immense potential reduced to a hell-hole by bad ideas - and on the glorious Konkan coast, now exporting red mud. And my thought for the day is this: We must think of the very long term. There is much to do if we want to build a great country out of this rubble. And it will take a long, long time. But the first step must be taken in the field of ideas. Bad ideas like socialism and Gandhianism must be jettisoned. Sound ideas of cities, markets and civilization must replace them.

Lord Keynes famously said, "In the long run we are all dead." I frankly believe I have never ever heard anything more stupid. Even ordinary people without much education think of the future of their children and grandchildren. Serious businessmen, of course, know well the meaning of "long term." And great men like Adam Smith and Ludwig von Mises will never die, for their legacy lives on. Keynes never thought of these things. His attitude to life was that of a loot-and-scoot politician.

Here in Goa, I no longer contemplate a busy street. Here, there is peace and serenity, and a small garden. This garden is now 6 years old. When we started off there was nothing. It takes time to grow a garden. It will take lots of time to re-build India.

There is a story told of a 90-year old retired Prussian general who called in his chief gardener and instructed the man to plant an avenue of oak from one side of his huge estate to the other. The gardener told the general that the oak takes 20 years to mature and the master was already 90 years old. To which the general replied: "So there is no time to waste."