Speech
ADDRESS BY
HIS EXCELLENCY MAJOR GENERAL MICHAEL JEFFERY AC CVO MC
GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
ON THE OCCASION OF
LAUNCH THE BOOK OF COLLECTED ORATIONS, “THE FIRST TEN K R NARAYANAN ORATIONS: ESSAYS BY EMINENT PERSONS ON THE RAPIDLY TRANSFORMING INDIAN ECONOMY”
AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, CANBERRA
11 MAY 2007
• Professor Ian Chubb, Vice-Chancellor, Australian National University
• His Excellency Mr Prabhat Shukla High Commissioner for the Republic of India
• Distinguished guests
• Ladies and gentlemen
Thank you for your warm welcome this afternoon. It is not often one has the opportunity to launch a book best described as authoritative and scholarly. This is one of those occasions and I thank you, Vice-Chancellor for the privilege of inviting me to do so.
According to Mark Twain, "India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, grandmother of legend, and great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only."
Today, India is a country that is both demographically young as well as a leader in the knowledge and IT revolutions. As India’s External Affairs Minister noted to an audience of Indian diplomats six weeks ago, “these are the images that our envoys will meet abroad – no longer (is India) the tiger, the maharaja, the rope trick or begging bowl.”
During a radio interview in 1998, President Narayanan said that “India has been a cauldron of dreams, ideas and aspirations of the humankind and this is a distinctive character of India, and India in that sense represents the world in miniature. If a system can succeed in India, it will indicate the possibility of such success in the world as a whole.”
During my term as Governor of Western Australia I had the privilege of meeting President Narayanan – an outstanding, intelligent, considerate man and a consummate diplomat. He was born in ordinary circumstances in a thatched hut – a member of the Dalit caste, the so-called downtrodden, traditionally assigned the task of plucking coconuts – and rose to be the finest exemplar of ‘citizen president’.
Ladies and gentlemen. There is something of the ancient future in India. One commentator has observed that “the economic transformation being brought about in India today is comparable to the 1st century BC.”
In antiquity, India began its transformation from a simple agrarian settlement into one of the most complex and enlightened cultures. Rome was trading with southern India in the 1st century BC through to the early 2nd century AD. By the 5th century AD, India was a leader in philosophy, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, arts, and crafts. The resurgence of India in the 21st century is no less remarkable – an “ascending economic trajectory” is how the President of India (aeronautical scientist Doctor Abdul Kalam) describes it.
During his address to the nation for Indian Republic Day, 26 January 2007, the President spoke of “of continuously rising foreign exchange reserves, confidence in domestic investment, global successes of Indian managerial and entrepreneurial talents, global recognition of the nation’s technological competence, the connectivity amongst more than 25 million people of Indian origin in various parts of the world (more than 156,000 in Australia), the increasing investment in India by developed countries who recognise the excellence in Indian scientists and engineers.”
The great father of modern India, Mahatma Gandhi famously used the imagery of the humble spinning wheel as a metaphor for self-reliance and the ability to succeed. He wisely noted that "the wheel by itself is lifeless….I believe that the yarn we spin (together) is capable of mending the broken warp and wool of our life…..anything that millions can do together becomes charged with unique power." The spinning-wheel became a symbol of such power – the collective power of individual action in achieving the common goals of India.
The contemporary Indian ‘spinning wheel’ is as dazzling as it is productive. For example:
Gross Domestic Product stands at more than $883 billion, with a growth rate of 10 per cent per annum;
The Information and Communications Technology sector is exporting more than $29 billion annually;
The Indian Pharmaceutical industry is ranked 4th in the world, exporting nearly $5 billion annually; and
India’s automobile industry (of which few Australians would have knowledge) is today worth $53 billion and is growing at the rate of 17 per cent per annum.
India is a leading user of satellites to manage its natural resources, monitor natural disasters, provide tele-education and tele-medicine, and to transmit to and share information with the nation’s smallest, remote villages. As President Abdul Kalam notes, “in a world dominated by communication, extending the communication from the privileged to include connectivity to the unreached should be part of our technological upheaval.”
Other statistics are equally stunning in their implications. As Doctor Vijay Kelkar noted in the 2004 Narayanan oration, “100 million people have been brought out of poverty by the growth process of the last decade.” Remember it was only 40 years ago that India could not produce enough to feed its population.
India’s national literacy rate may soon reach 75 per cent whilst unemployment is around 9 per cent of the employable population of 400 million people. There are more than 250 universities, 1,500 research institutions and over 10,000 higher education centres qualifying 200,000 engineers and 300,000 non-engineering post graduates every year. In addition, some 5,000 PhDs are awarded annually. India’s potential as a dynamic, global competitor is self evident when we consider that 540 million of its youth are under the age of 25 – many of whom are, as the President says, “opting to create new enterprises instead of being employees.”
Economic growth is one thing – scoping it to advantage all citizens is the complex part. Presenting the second Narayanan Oration in 1995, Professor Rao spoke of the continuing need to displace pressing problems such as poverty and environmental degradation. He rightly noted that “accomplishment of these tasks needs the total involvement of highly skilled and fully committed scientists, massive education at the grass roots levels and widespread dissemination of scientific culture…..in other words, the ‘greening’ of the human mind.”
Professor Rao makes a valid point. And it seems to me that much can be done between Australia and India through scientific collaboration. Consider the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund which recently announced successful proposals to help pursue this goal. These funded projects include research in astrophysics, nanotechnology, cancer therapeutics and diagnostics, and agricultural projects such as the conservation of tillage in the State of Tamil Nadu.
I am sure more will be achieved. One only needs to look at the maturing relationship between Australia and India on many different levels – the exploitation of knowledge and growing awareness and appreciation of how best to do business with each other. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade notes that India has been Australia’s fastest growing major export market over the last five years. Two-way trade in goods and services now exceeds $12 billion, and India is now Australia’s 7th largest export destination, ranking roughly equal in goods and services to the UK.
But there are other, equally important linkages. At the people to people level, nearly 40,000 Indian students enrolled in Australian educational institutions in the past year, making Australia the number two study destination for Indian students after the US. Indian tourist arrivals to Australia grew by 23 per cent in 2006 to 83,700. Australian companies have already established operations in India, including in medical services, construction, infrastructure, mining services, telecommunications, banking and insurance.
Ladies and gentlemen. During her presentation to a conference in Perth several years ago on “Small and Mid-Great Powers in the Southern Hemisphere”, Doctor Rosita Dellios of Bond University, Queensland, made a very good point when she said: “Rather than committing cultural suicide in order to survive the demands of globalisation and middle class/middle power values, India, an ancient centre of civilisation, understands how to be great in the developed human sense. Its confidence should assist both its own people and the rest of the world to integrate the 21st century’s diverse globalisation.”
I would go further and claim that it is also India’s vast experience (through both the peaks and troughs) that underpins its capacity to achieve greatness.
I am sure you will agree with the saying that one appreciates effort, but admires results even more. Thus I applaud the work of ANU’s Australia South Asia Research Centre. You are succeeding in enriching our knowledge and understanding of India’s concerns and interests and have shown us how much more we can learn – about economic development and reform, agriculture, strategic thinking, technology, history, democracy and people. This collection of splendid orations by eminent citizens is testament to that fact.
Vice-Chancellor. I trust that this collection of informed and outstanding essays will attract the wide readership it deserves, and thus it is my great pleasure to declare “The First Ten K R Narayanan Orations” officially launched.