Nano car. Mega problems?

Even as Ratan Tata was getting down from his Nano for the first time before the eyes of the media, we could hear shouts of dissent and despair. The modern-day Indian Cassandras predicted doomsday for the average Indian. “Ban the Nano”, was their clamour. Clogged roads, traffic snarls, high pollution levels... list was long, believable, and intimidating to the half-asleep, coffee-in-the-hand-morning-paper-reading average Indian. Malthusian mindsets? One is left to wonder.

The argument put forward is pretty simple. "The price (of the Nano) would make ‘a lot’ of people buy the car and so would lead to congestion in our roads". Sounds…believable, ay? Try this then. "Providing universal education is dangerous since we'll have to contend with too many eligible kids fighting for a job". How about this? “Making too many people earn money would mean that we have ‘a lot’ of people empowered to buy things and will lead to supply shortages”. Same line of thought, ain't it? Accordingly then, we must remain an uneducated, poor nation, for any change from equilibrium is chaotic.

I think we still have remnants of the licence raj within us. We shun change. We shun free markets. We shun innovation. Well. Why is it that these naysayers do not think that there is a functioning government (though many think that it is an oxymoron) in India which ideally should rise up to providing the ecosystem for the industry to prosper? If that means constructing more roads for the people to get from point A to B faster, easier, safer, so be it. You can tax the car and fund the projects. That way each man contributes. The more the merrier. Why is it that people refuse to be taught from history – that necessity is the mother of all innovations? Tata found a necessity (demand) and created the Nano. If this creates the demand for more infrastructure, the government will have to yield to it. The point is not whether the government will react, but when.

Simple lessons. Complex mindsets?