WE HAVE TO MOVE ON

 

WE HAVE TO MOVE ON

In India, everyday grind is harsh. Indians have normalised all civic failures because they have no choice.

Indians emigrate because they seek safe roads, high civic responsibility and the basic assurance that a walk on the footpath won't end in a bodybag.

No wonder, the brightest and the best are drawn to low taxes, world class infrastructure and high quality of life. They know very well that life is a game of calculated risks and measurable rewards.

If India wants to build for the future, it must start in the present, at the bottom.  It needs to eliminate abject administrative failures and reinstate accountability. It has to spend the tax money on fixing the air Indians breathe and the water they drink. You don't reach anywhere by counting start up millionaires or measuring the size of the economy.

While we benchmark against the world on innumerable parameters, and consider we are exceptional and are on the top,  we have to accept that we are tolerating conditions in India that we would never accept abroad or even inside our own gated domains.

Perhaps the most important gap India must bridge is not between itself  and developed nations, but between aspiration and everyday behaviour.

Until that gap closes, benchmarking will remain on slides, but deeply disappointing on our streets.

Harsh Goenka and Anjana Menon in Times of India of 12 February 2026