India’s recent landing on the moon at a fraction of what it costs the US, or the Russians, was yet another milestone in a journey that began more than 50 years ago. Over that period India has been run by different governments, and they all have remained true to the space research vision.
Such long-term focus is a good example of how public policies should be pursued. Unlike SA, where the one party that has been in power since the advent of democracy in 1994 has not only changed development policies frequently but failed to implement them. The country is paying a high price for it.
Economics literature shows that economic development, which is not a linear process, takes time. This therefore requires a capable, credible and committed government, which in turn calls for strong political leadership, a long planning horizon and unrelenting focus on the goals of economic growth and development.
“Policymakers have to choose a growth strategy, communicate their goals to the public, and convince people that the future rewards are worth the effort, thrift and economic upheaval,” the Commission on Growth & Development said in its 2008 report. “They will succeed only if their promises are credible and inclusive, reassuring people that they or their children will enjoy their full share of the fruits of growth.”
The commission found that the countries that had sustained economic growth of more than 7% a year over more than 25 years included those that had been run by a single party for long periods as well as multiparty democracies. It added that rival political parties could, for example, agree on a bipartisan growth strategy, which they would each follow during their term of office.
From independence in 1947 India was run by successive Indian National Congress governments for a very long time. It has been run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party since 2014. But the changes in government did not deflect India from its space focus. For more than 50 years the country put its best technical and engineering brains to work on space research.
Corrugated metal
“Experience suggests that strong, technocratic teams, focused on long-term growth, can also provide some institutional memory and continuity of policy,” the Commission on Growth & Development noted. “This stability and experience can be particularly valuable during political upheavals, because new systems of collective decision-making can take a long while to bed down and function efficiently.”
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal explained how India achieved its space goals. It quoted an engineer who worked at the space agency for four decades recalling that in the early days India had a handful of freshly graduated engineers who worked out of sheds with corrugated metal roofs on the outskirts of Bengaluru, the largest city in the southern state of Karnataka.
India launched its first satellite with Russian help in 1975, when it was among the world’s poorest nations with per capita income of $120. Now, India, the world’s fifth-largest economy, has become a major space power at a fraction of the spend of the US and Russia, the first-generation explorers of space.
The journal pegged India’s space research budget at $1.5bn, a fraction of Nasa’s $25bn and China’s estimated $10bn budget.
India’s space research ambition started in 1962 and became clearer in 1969 when the Indian Space Research Organisation was formed. The agency was staffed by appropriately qualified employees who were provided with what they needed to do their jobs.
India’s space achievement doesn’t mean the country’s development has not been held back by domestic political squabbling and meddling. The country has had plenty of these. Indian economist Kaushik Basu warned a few years ago of a growing tendency in India to treat all debates as political.
“First you decide which side a person is on and then whether the argument is right or wrong. This will mire us in intellectual mediocrity and thwart progress. Technical and scholarly matters — be it demonetisation, a rocket launch or documenting the past — should have little to do with ideology. In deciding on them, we must put politics aside and use the best scientific evidence and analysis,” cautioned Basu, a former chief economist of the World Bank.
India’s space achievement shows that the country has in some instances avoided Basu’s traps. There’s a lesson in that for SA. Development takes time, and policies must be implemented relentlessly and sustainably over a long period while avoiding ideological traps.
• Sikhakhane, a former spokesperson for the finance minister, National Treasury and SA Reserve Bank, is editor of The Conversation Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.
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