Humps on the highway to wealth Ravi Velloor A South Asian official at a multilateral institution in New Delhi once complained to me of how his secretary turned up late for work, lamenting he could not sleep the previous night. The way his secretary saw it, the authorities had shut off power in his area to ensure that the air-conditioners that cooled bedrooms in the upper-class colonies had enough supply. "It never once occurred to him to say that 'Look, why can't you provide enough power as long as I'm prepared to pay for it?'," he says. The secretary's reaction is typical of many in this nation who have been conditioned to look for scapegoats by successive governments that have failed them. India's economy may be on a roll and the nation may be moving to the centre of world politics. But you cannot help but wonder if that is because of a series of happy accidents, rather than a planned thrust by its leadership. A quarter-century ago, the country opened the car market to fulfil middle-class aspirations. Yet there was no attempt to build roads to carry the anticipated traffic or to create enough public transportation networks to provide an alternative means of travel. Today, Delhi's metro rail is taking scape as an infrastructure showpiece. But it is 20 years late. The roads are choked. Traffic is often at a standstill. Meanwhile, the Suzuki joint venture that rolled out the "people's car" in 1983 this week marked the production of its 5 millionth car. Neither did India make attempts to ensure enough cheap fuel to supply its economy and the vehicles it was putting on the road. Dr RK Pachauri, head of The Energy Research Institute in New Delhi, says he has been crying himself hoarse for nearly two decades that India needs to tie up its oil security. Yet, it is only in the last two years that New Delhi has woken up to the seriousness of the situation. India's Oil Ministry is now scouting the world to tie up whatever sources of oil and gas supply it can find, often paying exorbitant rates. Often, when they arrive for negotiations, they find Chinese officials exiting with satisfied looks on their faces. Over in Trivandrum, capital of south-western Kerala state, the economy depends on remittances from thousands of overseas workers. Expansion at its international airport, a key gateway for its people in the Gulf states and South-east Asia, has been held up for 10 years. Reason: The state has not been able to acquire 2 per cent of an acre of land that is critical to complete the extended runway. Contrast that with China. Indian companies such as Orind Refractories which once entered the country because of raw material availability are now staying on because of the quality of its infrastructure. "When I first flew to Xiamen, the runway was little more than a road and the terminal was a dirty shack. Two years later, they had 25 aerobridge bays. That is how fast the Chinese move," says a pilot friend who formerly flew with SilkAir . Some analysts blame the Indian sluggishness on the attitudes of its elite. India's ruling classes, they say, simply do not have the same, pride and determination to reach for greatness that China's elite displays in its dealings with the world. For instance, days before the visits of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to New Delhi this month, the opposition Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) derided Dr Manmohan Singh as the "weakest Prime Minister ever". There was little concern for the damage it was inflicting on the image of a government head who was preparing for critical negotiations with the leadership of the two nations. Weeks before, the BJP had refused to back the introduction of the value-added tax (VAT) on April 1. VAT was a critical tax reform that it had itself attempted to implement before it lost power in New Delhi a year ago. If the politics at home tends to be narrow and shortsighted, so too are some of the actions on a broader stage of its politicians. One such instance is former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's 2003 visit to Beijing. Some say he conceded too much ground on Tibet and other issues while appearing to get little in return that was concrete, such as a clear recognition of Sikkim as an Indian state. Government spin doctors nevertheless portrayed the trip as an immense success. A senior figure in the Indian establishment mused on that and other summit meetings involving other leaders as he prepared for Premier Wen's visit last month. "All too often, you see this Hindu dualism of impermanence and rebirth influencing even critical negotiations -- a sense that ultimately, nothing matters," he says. "It breeds a certain fatalism and an unwillingness to accept reality, even as we tend to frame everything in the picture of perfection." My former classmate Brahma Chellaney, now a respected strategic affairs analyst, contrasts the Indian and Chinese approaches even more pithily. The Chinese want to be held in awe whereas Indians will do anything to be loved. Still, India is now in a rare confluence. It has a President and Prime Minister who are both technocrats: one a rocket scientist whose current big interest is providing urban amenities in rural areas, the other a noted economist. Both men are forward-thinkers, sharp intellects married to a vision for India. Unlike in the West, which believes that people get the government they deserve, India has always gone by the dictum: As the king, so the people. Between President APJ Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Indians may finally have the high-minded leadership they could seek to emulate in so many ways.