Punjab's Progress At An All Time Low

[Mehtab Singh]

[dalsingh101]

Need to diversify from agriculture - get into the 21st century.

[singh135]

The Indian Governments strategy over the past 20yrs on flushing alcohol into punjab, diverting river water, attacking economy resulting in farmer suicides, diverting youth with drug influx into punjab, increasing Hindu poulation making Sikhs minority, beurocratic corrution, scrupulous police and pubkab politicians, etc, etc, etc are all paying dividends for them.

They have succeeding in taking the basket of India post green revolution and destroying it...

[dalsingh101]

Blaming it all on the government is lame and totally disempowers us from making change for the better.

Panjabis themselves have as much a hand in this situation as anyone else. Apnay drink like fish outside of Panjab, so blaming the government for this habit is a cop out. Apnay aren't showing ANY creativity in terms of diversifying the economy of the state and don't even seem to know how to use fertilizer and pesticides properly - over using them. The state education system is a joke and besides many apnay seem to have an apathy to higher/further education in any case.

As for drugs, let be honest, a lot of that comes from over the border. The smack anyway. Plus if there were ever a people ready and willing to get intoxicated, you'd find them amongst ours.

The Panjab government is dominated by Sikhs, so if it is corrupt etc. our own people are a big part of the cause.

Like our lot don't blow big money on needless ostentation, like weddings.

It is sad that a state with some of the hardest working people IN THE WORLD NO LESS!, and advantage in terms of foreign money that gets pumped into it from diaspora Panjabis as well as the absolute fortune accumulated in Gurdwara donations - simply can't get its act together.

This weak culture of blaming all of our woes on outsiders - a constant victim mentality that too many Sikhs exhibit sucks! The potential is more than there, what is needed is creativity.

[S1ngh]

Farmers who jumped into green revolution resulted in today's depleted ground water tables. Once well known in education now the literacy rate is hovering at the record low bottom. Central government is at fault but larger fault is in our own people. Quality of education is extremely low that majority of engineering school quota stays vacant every year because punjabi students couldn't do good in entrance exams.

Our people vote for a person who gives them free electricity but does not worry about loans that punjab is taking from outsiders.

Our people both in punjab and NRI are thinking that having lavish tight space malls or having junk fast food outlets makes punjab prosper? Not really. That may look like good from outside but inside it is all junk and rusted.

The only industry that i see is export material from Ludhiana but i don't see how that helps punjabis except in state revenue in taxes. Most of the worker force is from Bihar and their day pay rate is less than a one time meal. It may help country's GDP but i don't think state makes anything except the tax revenue which is probably given to central government for the interests on loans they took in 80's or 90's. However these such industries are fully to blame to dump toxic wastes in punjab river/streams and will cause health epidemic later on.

EDUCATION is the only KEY ! Nobody can stop anyone in Punjab to get a proper education. Take an example of south India who does not worry about how good they look from outside. They extremely put very high value on education; a lot more than North indians. This is probably why we see south indians claiming the majority share of silicon valley work force.

[Borat]

I agree with a lot of what people are saying here. Even a little with DalSingh100 who I generally disagree with.

Farming in the old days used to provide wealth but these days, farmers are the ones getting exploited.

If Punjabis don't want to end up like Sub-Saharan Africans, cursed by the natural wealth around them, then they need to move into service based industries.

[S1ngh]

^^ Agreed that Punjab economy should focus more toward service based industries but that will only be possible if both central and state government take steps to attract such companies. Decades ago United states used to prosper in both manufactoring and service based industry however they are making more money as now US got 79% service based business running the economy.

Regardless which way they want to go, education is the only way to climb the progress ladder.

[singh135]

there is still a corrupt education system. Some people need to bribe to get into Uni. Major engineering Indian Uni's discriminate against graduates from Punjab colleges for some reason

[dalsingh101]

Personally I think the major change that is needed is 'cultural'. By this I mean existing attitudes towards education must change, currently apnay only value education as some sort of vehicle for potential economic uplift. This has to change and education must be seen and encouraged as a means for a personal development and growth as much as financial progress. I've seen very discouraging attitudes towards towards education from apnay, especially pendus. It is telling that frequently relatively wealthy pendu families often have sons who are completely indifferent to education, and then they manage to come to the west they can only work as semi-skilled labourers - if they are lucky. What is unusual about this is that in most societies the attitude towards and achievements in education are usually higher amongst the more affluent than the poor as a rule. Note the difference in working class and middle class attitudes and achievements of the British in this respect. In our society however, we don't seem to have this and I have often met sons of relatively wealthy farming families working on building sites as labourers or driving trucks and other totally unskilled work like that. When you talk to them, they are all indifferent to education. That indifference to education needs to change, especially from those who could afford to actually pay for their children's education. Instead these people spend fortunes on getting their children to the west through dubious means, often taking out big loans - only for their children to do the types of jobs unparh people would do. Instead they should spend their money and time on encouraging and investing in their children's education - in private institutes if need be, seeing as the state facilities are rubbish. That way these people can get out aboard and do more than menial work.

Attitudes towards reading and writing by the bulk of Sikhs must drastically change also. Here in the west reading for pleasure is a norm for a large proportion of people (baring chav types). You see this when you are out and about, people are reading papers, books in parks, trains, buses etc. Generally, levels of literacy are high. It is rare to come across someone who is completely illiterate, even if we do have lower levels of literacy in certain lower socio-economic groups - in the Panjab however you can meet hordes of people who can't read and have no interest in the contents of books. The worse thing is when you get ignoramuses misquoting Baba Nanak in a way to suggest that books are useless........

Apnay don't seem to recognise the general value of creativity in all spheres of life, be this industry or arts - very little thinking outside the box takes place unless they are thinking up scams. This seriously effects the economy. Consider how someone who can creatively write in English can theoretically pen a best seller, and earn a fortune, whilst a theoretically brilliant, creative Panjabi writer has no or little chance to do achieve something similar in Panjabi. We should consider using our creativity to produce things that we can sell to the world - not just to ourselves.

The current agricultural economy is a potential road to ruin given the abuse of pesticides/fertilizer by farmers, water allocation and especially natural climate change. If the weather significantly changes and there is less water in future due to climate change (not an unlikely scenario), farming Panjabis may be suddenly plunged into serious dire straights as the land becomes an arid desert. Then our state's economy will totally collapse and we may even reach famine proportions, with images of hordes of half naked, emaciated apnay being beamed all over the media.

As for increasing service based industries, I don't think our people are particularly suited to this as they often don't how how to act and present themselves. I would say they would be better off with manufacture and crafts.

I said it before, I believe the potential for Panjab is massive but it is locked away by small mindedness. Petty jealousy of other's success, and subterfuge creates an environment that is not conducive to development. We need to follow the 'American dream' model where opportunities are open to all and success is encouraged and applauded and not scuppered or looked upon resentfully.

The truth is that we are usually our own enemies when it comes to progress. The deeply ingrained, underlying cultural/psychological factors that make this true are what needs to be overcome to unlock our full potential.

[VanHelsingh]

The current culture and ethos of Panjab, in terms of every facet of life and not the kind of things Panjabi songs popularise, is so completely messed up from top to bottom. The mindset of Panjabis is the biggest obstacle to any change that could occur. Analysis and identification of the problems would require a thread in itself, but suffice to say the emergence of a particular trait amongst our people - ruthlessness - is very worrying. You could argue it has originated from desperation for varying reasons, but inherently good people do not do the kind of things that are occuring back home. But anyway I do wonder how change can occur. I have a strong feeling Sikhi must play a role, but not in the gung-ho manner some desire. First an individual must master their own mind and have a firm grip on their own life in order to affect change. However, self-reflection is an alien concept for them.