Liberalisation changed our relationship with everything, most of all money. We take a look at how. . .
If age is the criterion of adulthood, India's liberalised economy is now on the brink of coming of age. Almost 18 years after our economy first opened up, there is no denying that it has effected a sweeping transformation of our entire nation. In its impact, it lines up right after Independence. Nothing else has changed our lives so dramatically.
Remember the '80s? We bought second hand Ambassador cars. Some of us had telephones, those heavy black instruments with a round dial and a line that crackled with static. We shopped at modest kirana stores and bought modest provisions to fuel our modest lifestyles. If we had any money left over, we saved it through fixed deposits and post-office accounts. Those with a taste for equities were branded gamblers, no better than those who spent fetid Sundays betting on horses.
And think of us now. Our roads are crammed with cars of all sizes and colours, even school children wield gleaming mobile phones, we shop at mutli-level air conditioned malls and buy organic parsley and buckwheat pasta. And there is no combination of debt and equity that we cannot admirably invest in to create wealth for ourselves.
While the real effects of liberalisation are visual and tangible, there has also been a quieter revolution, that of our psyches. We are defined by when we were born. And, in India, today, that definition is in relation to liberalisation.
As part of Outlook Money's 10th anniversary year, we traced the effects of liberalisation through the stories of the liberalised. We spliced the demographic according to their age and station in life in 1990. We were startled at the profundity of the changes, at how much we take for granted and the disregarded losses that hide behind the glitzy gains.
If age is the criterion of adulthood, India's liberalised economy is now on the brink of coming of age. Almost 18 years after our economy first opened up, there is no denying that it has effected a sweeping transformation of our entire nation. In its impact, it lines up right after Independence. Nothing else has changed our lives so dramatically.
Remember the '80s? We bought second hand Ambassador cars. Some of us had telephones, those heavy black instruments with a round dial and a line that crackled with static. We shopped at modest kirana stores and bought modest provisions to fuel our modest lifestyles. If we had any money left over, we saved it through fixed deposits and post-office accounts. Those with a taste for equities were branded gamblers, no better than those who spent fetid Sundays betting on horses.
And think of us now. Our roads are crammed with cars of all sizes and colours, even school children wield gleaming mobile phones, we shop at mutli-level air conditioned malls and buy organic parsley and buckwheat pasta. And there is no combination of debt and equity that we cannot admirably invest in to create wealth for ourselves.
While the real effects of liberalisation are visual and tangible, there has also been a quieter revolution, that of our psyches. We are defined by when we were born. And, in India, today, that definition is in relation to liberalisation.
As part of Outlook Money's 10th anniversary year, we traced the effects of liberalisation through the stories of the liberalised. We spliced the demographic according to their age and station in life in 1990. We were startled at the profundity of the changes, at how much we take for granted and the disregarded losses that hide behind the glitzy gains.
Generation Confidence
Raised in an environment of plenty, the young of India are confident, aggressive go-getters. This reflects in what they aspire for professionally, how they spend, how they save and how they think
Ruchika Mathur 18, was born into a country that had just been past its darkest economic hour. As a consequence, she thinks and acts differently from those older to her--she sees no need for safety nets, she has no time for self-doubts. Hers is a generation that celebrates today, one that goads you to live it up, shop it up, party it up.
In the last 18 years, India hasn't seen any serious shortages, there haven't been any debilitating wars, nor have there been any serious economic crises. Raised in this milieu is a generation that unabashedly wants it all and is not afraid to ask for it. If refused, they just go ahead and get it done themselves.
A student of political science in Delhi's Lady Shri Ram College, Mathur's present is a typical teenage muddle, but she is amazingly lucid about her future. She asks for several changes in the interview schedule, she wants to make sure she is completely free and focused for it. Then, when the phone rings at the decided hour, she does not answer. She calls back to say her "head was being done in" by the hostel warden for owning a hair dryer. Why is she graduating in political science? Because, being a politician is the only way to solve the larger problems of the country on a large scale. Between the here and now of a confiscated hair dryer and the future dream of a better country lies the child of liberalisation.
"I think about the problems in ensuring things like education for all and realise that only by being in a position where I can make and implement policy decisions will I be able to make the changes that I feel India needs," she says. "If you see one beggar, perhaps you can give him a job somewhere. If you start an NGO, maybe you can help 100 beggars in one place, but if you want to help 5 million beggars of India, you can only do it by getting into politics and effecting changes from that level." And no, she is not worried about dirt and muck in politics because "there are bad people everywhere".
Generation confidence is also one that is largely independent of geography. Pre-liberalisation meant a big difference between city kids and those raised in smaller towns. Our exposures were limited to the geographic boundaries within which we lived. Today, with satellite TV and the Internet, geography is irrelevant. "I spent all my life in Jaipur, and came to Delhi only this year. But my friends here are no different from my friends in Jaipur, we talk about the same things, dress up the same way, listen to the same music."
Mathur is also representative of young Indians who have grown up with and taken for granted things like mobile phones. Their world was not revolutionised by technology, they were born into a technological world. They are also not afraid of spending their money. And despite the constant accusation of consumerism against them, Mathur exemplifies that they do know their limits. "I love shoes and shop a lot. The other day, I saw a pair of designer shoes for Rs 17,000 that I really liked. But I finally decided not to ask my parents for that. I still like the shoes, but I realise that I don't have to have everything I like," she says.
Mathur is not being presumptuous when she says that hers is the generation that will fix India; in her view, that is natural. "My parents' generation was trapped in the post-Independence period. We don't have the nationalistic confusions that they had. We are not bogged down by traditions and superstitions. We have the talent and the skill to help India realise her potential," she says.
Nor are they obsessed with the glamour of the West. "You can only be happy where your roots are," says Mathur. "I want to be happy, if I am also rich, I wouldn't mind that, but it's not a priority." Mathur's only worry is that when she is really old, "like 60", she should not have any regrets.
Indeed, generation confidence could well be the elixir that will keep 60-year-old India young, nimble, alive and active.
Raised in an environment of plenty, the young of India are confident, aggressive go-getters. This reflects in what they aspire for professionally, how they spend, how they save and how they think
Ruchika Mathur 18, was born into a country that had just been past its darkest economic hour. As a consequence, she thinks and acts differently from those older to her--she sees no need for safety nets, she has no time for self-doubts. Hers is a generation that celebrates today, one that goads you to live it up, shop it up, party it up.
In the last 18 years, India hasn't seen any serious shortages, there haven't been any debilitating wars, nor have there been any serious economic crises. Raised in this milieu is a generation that unabashedly wants it all and is not afraid to ask for it. If refused, they just go ahead and get it done themselves.
A student of political science in Delhi's Lady Shri Ram College, Mathur's present is a typical teenage muddle, but she is amazingly lucid about her future. She asks for several changes in the interview schedule, she wants to make sure she is completely free and focused for it. Then, when the phone rings at the decided hour, she does not answer. She calls back to say her "head was being done in" by the hostel warden for owning a hair dryer. Why is she graduating in political science? Because, being a politician is the only way to solve the larger problems of the country on a large scale. Between the here and now of a confiscated hair dryer and the future dream of a better country lies the child of liberalisation.
"I think about the problems in ensuring things like education for all and realise that only by being in a position where I can make and implement policy decisions will I be able to make the changes that I feel India needs," she says. "If you see one beggar, perhaps you can give him a job somewhere. If you start an NGO, maybe you can help 100 beggars in one place, but if you want to help 5 million beggars of India, you can only do it by getting into politics and effecting changes from that level." And no, she is not worried about dirt and muck in politics because "there are bad people everywhere".
Generation confidence is also one that is largely independent of geography. Pre-liberalisation meant a big difference between city kids and those raised in smaller towns. Our exposures were limited to the geographic boundaries within which we lived. Today, with satellite TV and the Internet, geography is irrelevant. "I spent all my life in Jaipur, and came to Delhi only this year. But my friends here are no different from my friends in Jaipur, we talk about the same things, dress up the same way, listen to the same music."
Mathur is also representative of young Indians who have grown up with and taken for granted things like mobile phones. Their world was not revolutionised by technology, they were born into a technological world. They are also not afraid of spending their money. And despite the constant accusation of consumerism against them, Mathur exemplifies that they do know their limits. "I love shoes and shop a lot. The other day, I saw a pair of designer shoes for Rs 17,000 that I really liked. But I finally decided not to ask my parents for that. I still like the shoes, but I realise that I don't have to have everything I like," she says.
Mathur is not being presumptuous when she says that hers is the generation that will fix India; in her view, that is natural. "My parents' generation was trapped in the post-Independence period. We don't have the nationalistic confusions that they had. We are not bogged down by traditions and superstitions. We have the talent and the skill to help India realise her potential," she says.
Nor are they obsessed with the glamour of the West. "You can only be happy where your roots are," says Mathur. "I want to be happy, if I am also rich, I wouldn't mind that, but it's not a priority." Mathur's only worry is that when she is really old, "like 60", she should not have any regrets.
Indeed, generation confidence could well be the elixir that will keep 60-year-old India young, nimble, alive and active.
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