What the EU can learn from India

The EU is wrestling with seemingly insoluble human and financial crises. Pundits routinely draw unfavorable parallels to the US to illustrate needed changes. They say Europe needs a stronger central bank and greater political integration. Pointing to Puerto Rico’s $72 billion debt crisis, they note that financial markets have assumed that unlike Greece, this US Territory will make a soft landing.

This technocratic prescription, though valid, doesn’t address a key fact: Europe’s diverse population will impede the creation of the “US of Europe”. India, which has comparable diversity, can teach much. But will Europeans be willing to learn from an emerging economy where corruption is rife? They should. Indians have got a lot wrong, but they got this right.

Parallels

• The EU must unify very diverse peoples. In a few years starting in 1947, India integrated 600 independent and semi-independent kingdoms and the erstwhile British India, and consolidated them into language-based states. There are 29 today.