Of Kings and Presidents...

“India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters”, the very first line of the Indian pledge. Yes I am an Indian , by birth ,by origin but at heart i never was. Born in Kerala ,in the southern part of India , I was brought up in arguably one of the finest countries in the middle east ,Oman. For people who have not heard of Oman, it is a small and peaceful country in the Arabian gulf (its diminutively small when compared to India, in fact its smaller than Tamil Nadu),l geographically it shares borders with the UAE and is four hours away from Dubai by road. All said and done, it is one of the most beautiful places on planet earth. Twenty five years ago , Oman was only sand, it was a desert but now it has an infrastructure better than India. Most of you would argue saying that governing such a country would be like taking candy from a baby as compared to governing India. But does size really matter or is it just an excuse for not developing????Another question that would arise here would be “is monarchy better than democracy or vice versa”??The answers to the above two questions would help us to analyze one very important factor that governs a country’s progress – DEVELOPMENT.

DOES SIZE MATTER?? Well up to an extent it does. Governing India and governing Oman are two different propositions. India is larger both in size and populations. But consider this , Oman , twenty five years ago was barren desert .In a span of twenty five years , the changes Oman have undergone are tremendous. Again people may say things like “India has a space programme which has improved vastly over the last 10 years or so and that since Oman does not have one and , India is more developed “ and so on and so forth. But then is development only about the space research or development of infrastructure? According to me development is about upbringing the poor and creating a society where the there is an equal distribution of the economy. Once again here the populations of the two countries can be questioned , yes India has a far bigger population .But the fact is if our leaders had given a thought to developing India region by region , I guess India would be far more developed and there would have been fewer people beneath that dreaded poverty line today. Another factor that has hindered India’s path to development is the amount of Corruption that takes place here. It is a fact that Oman is lesser corrupted when compared to India. Hence according to me India- corruption would be a fantastic place to live in. But when will that be the case only time will tell.

Is Democracy better than Monarchy? Yes democracy gives you the freedom to do whatever you like. But at the end of the day I think things happen faster and quicker when it comes to a monarchy. Yes its the king who takes all the decisions ,in a way i guess its good. For example , take the case of Ampa Skywalk , it took them 4 years to complete that project and in those four years more than two new malls was up and running in Muscat .Same is the case with the flyover near the airport.

At the end of the day , I am an Indian by origin but I would any day prefer to live in my country of domicile for the past 18 years , the Sultanate Of Oman.