can you leave the water in the rivers?

The Booker prize-winning novelist Arundhati Roy (left) concludes her trenchant essay about the crisis in modern India by suggesting the first step towards re-imagining "a world gone terribly wrong" would be to stop the annihilation of those who imagine a life that's outside capitalism and communism. This kind of imagination has:

an altogether different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfillment. To gain this philosophical space, it is necessary to concede some physical space for the survival of those who may look like the keepers of our past, but who may really be the guides to our future. To do this, we have to ask our rulers: Can you leave the water in the rivers? The trees in the forest? Can you leave the bauxite in the mountain? If they say cannot, then perhaps they should stop preaching morality to the victims of their wars.

Meanwhile this week's Economist features India's surprising economic miracle.