But India can't be considered Third World any longer. It boasts some of the world's richest entrepreneurs and a world-class infrastructure (at least in its capital city.) It recently held another successful democratic election (is this a quality of life indicator?). But it isn't the United States, either - malnutrition rates rival those of sub-Saharan Africa, and its AIDS infection rate is on the rise. So it falls into an in-between category. Government services are good and improving. The country is becoming a hub of research and development. On the other hand, people are dying of common illnesses like diarrhea.
People looking at these facts, at the new house of billionaire Mukesh Ambani (who just constructed the world's largest private home - for himself) and the Slumdog Millionaire-type ghettoes just miles away, can't bring together the two absolutes. Ambani's excess has to be
seen to be believed (at night, his glass skyscraper glows, it towers over the surrounding buildings) but the same is true of the poverty of the slums (where multi-generation families live in a space smaller than my college dorm room.) They say India is a country of "contradictions."
But is it? Perhaps this is what it means to be "second world." Perhaps a better world for "developing" should be "striving" - not just on a national but on an individual level. The Indian
entrepreneurial spirit that Aravind Adiga lampooned is the personal manifestation of a national phenomenon. India is a developing country, it's just that the development isn't smooth or predictable.
If we were to try to get specific (and people try, all the time):
A First World country is one where...
-the national government can guarantee citizens' general safety (except this is true of no government on Earth) -the literacy rate is above 90% (although where does that put Costa
Rica, or the Indian state of Kerala?)
-the gap between the rich and the poor is relatively narrow (in the US, this gap had begun to widen again after years of narrowing)
-the HDI figures are high (except that these indicators have been critiqued many times)
So let's try it from the other side. What is NOT a First World country?
A Third World country is one where...
-violence happens in the streets (this rules out much of the urban United States, where guns are more prevalent than almost anywhere else on Earth)
-people die of common illnesses like diarrhea (although uninsured people dying of curable and protracted diseases is ok?)
-supra-national groups (Hamas, Taliban, gangs) administer justice rather than the central government, sometimes even setting up shadow governments
-there are no stable employment prospects for youth (India has oustripped the US on this front already, I think)
-the central government can't provide civic services or infrastructure -children are malnourished (but obesity is ok?)
Of all of these, I think the only argument that really holds any weight at all is the one about civic services and infrastructure. In most parts of the United States, a homeless person can duck into a public bathroom. In India, thousands if not millions of people do their daily toilet in full public view. In India, roads are still unreliable, although the US has one of the world's best road systems. (Although, if we're thinking outside of the box, one wonders if miles and miles of paved highway are "sustainable") In most of India, drinking water is contaminated and unsafe.
Incidentally, my point with the above list isn't to prove that the United States is a third world country. I'm showing that these definitions are porous, and that sometimes they might obscure rather than clarify. Being "second world" means existing on the borders of these definitions, perhaps even one day slipping through. But that process of "slipping through" - development, in India's case - is a contradictory one. I do think that India is on the verge of revolution. For years people whispered that India was vastly unequal, that some people were reaping the benefits of globalization while others were suffering. This is still true, but you can no longer argue that all Indians won't be a part of the new India. The nation has already recognized rural India's purchasing power - and there are more economic opportunities than ever before.
The "second world" is a limbo - in fact, I suspect that that's where most of the world's nations actually exist.
Really, in a post cold-war world, these terms are outdated. First World referred to the US, Western powers and their allies, Second World referred to the Soviet Bloc and its allies, and Third World referred to all the poor little developing nations that were being played as pawns by the US and USSR. The term "third world" kind of stuck around after the fall of the Soviet Union as an economic category but, eh, seems rather anachronistic now.
ReplyDeleteDo you hear "First World" still used? Because I generally don't.
(Fascinating post, btw. As always.)
Hey, I hear First and Third World all the time. They're certainly not politically correct, especially among the more intellectual set, but they're definitely used more often than "developing" and "developed." So before I wrote this I looked up the Wikipedia entry on these terms and saw what you mentioned and wondered if I should even bring it up. But the thing is: I don't think most people are even aware of that history of these phrases. They've taken on a new meaning entirely.
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