essay on india becoming superpower

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Essay on “India Becoming a Superpower” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

India Becoming a Superpower

A potential superpower is a state or a political and economic entity that is speculated to be , or to be in the process of becoming, a superpower at some point in the 21 st century. Presently, it is widely considered that only the United States currently fulfills the criteria to be considered a superpower. States most commonly mentioned as being potential superpowers are Brazil, China, the European Union (a supranational entity), India and Russia, based on a variety of factors.

Several media publications and academics have discussed the Republic of becoming a superpower. Is India really shining? Is it really on the path of becoming a superpower? Optimistic Indians would assert an affirmation but it is time one had a reality check India is surely marching ahead, but are all the Indians marching ahead or is it just a small fraction of the population doing so? India can surely boast of a growth rate of around 8-9 per cent, but one needs to ask if this growth is trickling down to the lower strata of the populace.

Sixty three years ago in 1947 when India got independence , the question then asked was ‘ will India survive’? today, India’s economic profile has changed. At over a trillion dollars, it is a force to reckon with not just in Asia but in the entire world. With its new currency symbol to be internationalized soon, India now flexes its financial muscle.

Soon after independence our nation was in turmoil. Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, tragic partition rendering millions of people homeless tribal invasion in J&K coupled with problem of consolidation of five hundred princely states, to build a new nation was a mammoth task. After going through different phases of lows and highs, the doubtful query ‘will India survive’ has been replaced by more hopeful query, will India become a superpower?

Today India is recognized as an emerging powerhouse by the world community. Form a nation known to the world as a county of snake charmers to a front line developing nation , image of our country has undergone a dramatic change. The pace leading to full transformation may be slow but consistency will lead to the desired goal. The key to the extraordinary resilience lies in India’s stable and successful democratic institution. India, a home of several religions and several hundred spoken languages is a garland of multitude of diverse communities woven together in a common thread of democracy. Unlike other European nations whose unity is based on a common languages and largely a common faith. India presents a picture of unity in diversity. With multiple of democracy in India was always in doubt. Despite abstruse dislike and mistrust between the two major communities of the nation, India has emerged as multicultural democracy.

Withhold economic reforms India’s GDP is on a sustained growth path. India has become third largest economy in Asia to keep its high rate of growth. Despite the growth story, India has yet to cross over many plateaus before it becomes a superpower in league with big nations. I shall discuss here some of the core issues that if not attended to with strong political will and time bound action may rock the boat of country’s economic rejuvenation.

Escalating Population

India is second most populous country in the world, with over 1,210,193,422 people more than a sixth of world’s population. Already containing 17.31 per cent of the world population, India is projected to be populous country by 2025 surpassing China. India occupies 2.4 per cent of the world’s land and supports 17.5 per cent of world’s population. It seems the Govt has stopped all efforts to control the population explosion. Fearing public unrest and possible loss of vote bank after Sanjay Gandhi the successive Governments abandoned family planning programmes if at all some programme is being executed it is only as tokenism without political will.

Increasing Unemployment

India is facing massive problem of unemployment. The incidence of unemployment is much higher in urban areas than in rural areas. The incidence of unemployment amongst the educated is higher than the overall unemployment amongst the educated is higher than the overall unemployment. Economic reforms may have given a boost to industrial productivity, but the boom has not crated enough jobs. India’s performance on this front has fallen short of target in the past. India’s labour force is growing at a rate of 2.5 per cent, but employment is growing only at 2.3 per cent. The country is faced with the challenge of not only absorbing new entrants in the job market (estimated at seven million people every year), but also clearing the backlog. Unemployed youth is likely to translate his frustration into criminal and illegal activates.

Poverty Concerns

Poverty as measured by the new international Multi- dimensional poverty Index(MPI), about 645 million people or 55 per cent of our country’s population is poor as measured by composite indicator made up of ten markers of education, health and standard living achievement levels. MPI attempts to capture more than just income poverty at household level.

It is comprised of ten indicators: years of schooling and child education; child mortality and nutrition(health); and electricity, flooring, drinking water, sanitation, cooking fuel and other assets. This may be a gimmick of the Western Countries to project themselves as superior to other developing countries but certainly the indicator denote quality of life of the citizen of a nation. India needs faster pace of growth to achieve these standards for its teaming millions who are yet untouched by the Country’s economic renaissance. India’s number of millionaires grew by 51 per cent to 126700 in 2009 according to Merill Lynch and consultants, boosted by buoyant economy which grew 8.6 per cent in the last fiscal quarter. But increasing wealth has not trickled down to the common man. Newly built multi storied buildings symbol India’s growing economic power stand in contrast close to the slums presenting a pathetic picture of inequality. Poverty eradication still seems far away.

Literacy Issue

Literacy in India grew to 74.04 per cent in 2011 from 12 per cent at end of British Rule in 1947. Although it is more than five fold improvement, the level is well below the world average literacy rate of 84 per cent. India currently has the largest illiterate population of any nation on earth. India’s literacy rate is increasing only sluggishly. Besides low literacy rate there is a wide gender disparity in the literacy rate.

Health Concerns

Great improvement has taken place in public health since independence, but the general health picture remains far from satisfactory. The government is paying increasing attention to integrated health, maternity and child care in rural areas, but the efforts on health front needs to be intensified with spread of health awareness through education through education and mass movement.

Extensive corruption

The license raj in India from 1950s to 1980 sowed the seeds of corruption in the socio- economic structure of our country. Nexus between politician and business community and criminals is known to all. In recent times criminalization of Indian politics has assumed alarming proportions. Some parliamentarians face criminal charges, including human trafficking, embezzlement, rape and even murder. Candidates with criminal records win election on the strength of their ‘Bahubali’ status. Paying to get a job done is a common phenomenon experienced by majority of our countrymen. In recent time food adulteration has stolen limelight in the news Channels, even fruits and vegetables are not left to grow normally, toxic injections are administered for their quick growth.

Tons the tons of synthetic milk and milk products are confiscated every other day by the HEALTH Department officials but the perpetrators of these crimes who play with the health of unsuspecting masses are set free without any exemplary punishment. There is a parallel flourishing market of spurious in the country. Spurious medicines, beverages , cosmetics, good items all are sold without fear as greasing palm to get away is very easy. Scarcity may be the mother of corruption in general , but what do you say about politicians who have been found sleeping with currency notes under the mattresses and those who wear currency notes garlands made up of taxpayers’ money and those who accept bribe for raising questions in the parliament and those who openly accept bribe in the name of party Fund. ‘yatha Raja, tatha Praja’

Terrorism and Insurgency

India is faced with terrorism and insurgency both form across the border and from within. Partition of India and Pakistan was a parting gift from the British Empire before leaving the country forever. First it was large scale invasion by the ‘Kabailis’ in J&K, then widespread armed insurgency in Kashmir after disputed state election in 1987. Terrorism and insurgency has left more than 53000 people dead till July 2009. Several militant groups backed by ISI of Pakistan are operating in Kashmir. Many a times the militants have targeted people in other cities and towns of the country in suicide attacks. Mumbai attack was an example of their immaculate planning and preparedness to terrorize the entire nation.

There has been proliferation of militant groups in recent times, with as many as 33 identified in J&K . currently the country is facing most significant challenge form Islamist fundamentalist groups. If India is facing terrorist attacks form the militants trained from across the border, threat from across the border, threat from the Naxalite groups within the country is no less. Maoists are killing people in several districts of the country.

Half hearted approach to tackle their insurgency and lack of political consensus on this issue has encouraged them to attack paramilitary forces and common people at will. Unfortunately these Naxalite groups have tacit support of some politicians. With more and more successful attacks, the Maoists’ menace has already grown big.

Competitor China

China which is India’s competitor in becoming superpower is empowering its youth by opening up high number of universities, imparting education and teaching English. India, on the other hand, is still fighting implementation of quotas for students and faculty. Meanwhile, students with potential have to resort to continuing education in private universities which often fail to meet the required standards.

Gender Bias

Gender inequalities, female feticide and the treatment meted out to Women in rural areas, child marriages, continuing practice of dowry and sati take away the leftover sheen from the Shining India. The major divide between the rich and the poor, lack of proper rural infrastructure even basic amenities like potable water, toilets, two meals a day, suggest that India has a long route to tread in becoming a superpower.

Upsurge of Regionalism

A strong wave of regionalism is threatening the social fabric Nav Nirman Sena (MNS),. A Maharashtra based political party is operating on the motto of ‘Bhumiputra’ (son of the soil). Division of state population on the basis of birth and language is most unfortunate trend fraught with danger of disintegration and civil strife. If virus of this trend is transmitted to other states it will cause irreparable damage to ‘unity in diversity’

Social Security

According to a recent survey around 400 million persons in India are in the working age group, less than 7 per cent are in the organized sector and 93 per cent of the worker s are unorganized. While organized sector workers have sufficient and reliable access to social security in the form of protection under the law against loss/ stoppage of income on account of illness, disability, old age, death, maternity, the unorganized sector which has been contributing more in GDP in the last five decades is deprived of sufficient and reliable access to promotional and protective social security. As the average number of the senior citizens increases the concerns about social security will become more pronounced.

Monsoon and Agriculture

Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry and village industry account 16 per cent of GDP and despite a steady decline of its share in GDP, is still the largest economic sector which plays a significant role in the overall socio-economic development of the country. Slow agriculture growth is a major area of concern is tow- third of country’s population depends on rural employment for living. Monsoon plays a crucial role in agriculture production. Due to lack of adequate irrigation system, increased dependence on monsoon has tremendous impact on Indian agriculture; failure of monsoon, as we have seen in the past, has the capacity to destabilize the entire economy of the country.

Any country on a growth trajectory has to face several hurdles created by external and internal factors during transition period. It largely depends on the collective will power of the citizens who face these changing’s and overcome all obstacles that may come in the way of their country becoming a superpower. However, going by the slogan, ‘ man mai hai vishawas pura hai vishwas hum hongay kamyab aik din’ , we shall overcome someday.

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commentscomments

mmm India is not going to be able to get rid of those problems……good essay

Also need to declare cultural socialised pattern with overall movement to 3-tier system for security and selfreliancy

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What Kind of a Superpower Is India Becoming?

The 2024 Indian general election is already underway, and the popular and controversial Narendra Modi looks to be the favorite. How is India changing under Modi?

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India Prime Minister Narendra Modi Campaign Event

Today’s episode is all about India. You don’t have to believe that demography is pure destiny to appreciate the fact that the future of India is the future of the world. In 2024, today, India is the largest country by population on the planet, having surpassed China two years ago. In 2050, India is still projected to be the largest country in the world. In 2100, when I am 114 years old and this podcast is hosted by my cryo-frozen vat brain, India’s projected to be larger than the next two biggest countries combined: China and Nigeria.

This spring, nearly one billion Indians are eligible to vote in India’s election, and the big winner is almost certain—the highly popular and highly controversial Prime Minister Narendra Modi. What kind of a country is India becoming under Modi? Ravi Agrawal, the editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine, joins us to discuss.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected] .

In the following excerpt, Derek and Ravi Agrawal explore how India has defined what it wants to be and the main differences between Jawaharlal Nehru and Narendra Modi.

Derek Thompson: The latest issue of foreign policy is devoted to the rise of India. At the biggest-picture level, what is it that you think Westerners, and maybe Americans in particular, don’t understand about India?

Ravi Agrawal: Well, I think one of the things in general is that in the West, we tend to think that every other country in the world wants to be more like us: more Western, more democratic, necessarily, more free. And that didn’t work out with China, and I don’t think it’s true of India either. I think India has its own sense of what it wants to be in the future. When it thinks about models of what it wants to be, there’s an element of envy in the way it looks at America and also Britain, but also China and also Singapore and also its own history. So it’s very complicated. Indians are going to chart their own path for what they want their country to be. It is democratic in that sense, and it’s what the people want.

Thompson: Your new essay on India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which anchors the new India issue of Foreign Policy magazine, is called “The New Idea of India.” And as long as we’re discussing the new idea of India, maybe we should start here. What is the old idea of modern India according to you?

Agrawal: So, as with any country, all countries have foundational myths. All countries have ways in which they have debated and contested ideas about who they really are, who they really want to be, what their vision is. And India is no different in that sense. It has always had a vibrant debate and discussion about what it really is. And in the 20th century, the early 1900s, when India was beginning to put forward a freedom-fighting movement to overthrow British colonial rule, there were many different ideas for what India could be. The idea that ended up winning out was an idea of a progressive, liberal, secular country. And the country’s founding fathers who put together this idea of what India could be, they had a profound understanding that India was a very divided country. India today, as well, is a collection of states where people speak different languages. There are different cultures and micro-histories, certainly different cuisines. You travel 100 miles, and there’s an entirely different dialect that people might be speaking.

And in many senses, in 1947, the year India became independent, the idea of uniting all of these groups together was an unlikely idea. And so what India’s founding fathers tried to do is that they united the country through an idea that, for this to work, it has to be secular; it has to be liberal; it has to be a vision that is evolving and inclusive and, in many senses, different from, say, Pakistan, which was founded as a homeland for Muslims. So in that Pakistan was exclusionary, India would be inclusionary. And that was the vision and the idea of India that prevailed for several decades of version 1.0 of India’s existence. I picked the phrase “idea of India,” by the way, from a book that was a very famous book that came out in 1997, the 50th year of India’s anniversary. And it was written by the historian Sunil Khilnani. And his point was exactly this, that India was an unlikely democracy. What knitted it together was secularism and democracy, basically.

Thompson: So India’s progressive, liberal, secular identity was embodied in many ways in its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. He was anglicized, you write. He was Cambridge educated. He went by Joe in his 20s. And that stands in sharp contrast to the current prime minister, Narendra Modi. Before we talk about Modi’s policies, let’s maybe spend a little bit of time on his biography. How do Modi’s upbringing and his early history compare or stand in contrast with Nehru’s?

Agrawal: Oh, they were so different, and without ascribing any value judgments, good or bad, to any of this, as you point out, Nehru was very anglicized, came from a rich family, upper middle class at the very least. Before Cambridge, he went to Harrow. So he was as anglicized as it gets. And in many ways, in the first few decades of India’s existence as a country, people like Nehru were seen as the ideal of what Indians could be: fluent English speakers, insider outsiders, but also speakers of an Indian language, deeply knowledgeable about the country with a vision for what the country could be. Modi is different primarily in that he doesn’t come from Nehru’s world; he doesn’t come from an elite background. His family was lower caste, lower middle class. His father was a tea seller. Modi was not a fluent English speaker, still isn’t really. He speaks English. But really what he is known for when it comes to his oration, which he’s very good at, is Hindi.

He’s a fantastic Hindi speaker. But when you look at Modi’s formative education, yes, he spent some time at a university, not a very well-known one. He joined the RSS, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which is best described as a Hindu social movement, also a paramilitary group, that has about 5 million members. And Modi essentially traveled around the country as a Hindu community organizer. He’d sleep in ordinary people’s homes, really got a sense of what the anxieties of the average Indian middle-class family were like, of what their hopes and dreams and aspirations were like. In many senses, if you speak to biographers of Modi, that was the thing he often grew on as the source of his thinking, as his formative education, as it were. So he could not be more different from Nehru. He comes from a totally different world.

This excerpt was edited for clarity. Listen to the rest of the episode here and follow the Plain English feed on Spotify.

Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Ravi Agrawal Producer: Devon Baroldi

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Can India Become the Next Global Superpower?

The country has become the world’s most populous, but there are doubts about whether that title heralds a growth in wealth and influence..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

Hey, everybody. It’s Sabrina. Before we get started today, I just wanted to let you know that our colleagues over at The Run-Up have started releasing their second season. The show is hosted by Astead Herndon. And every week, it dives deeply into questions about American politics.

Like this week’s show, it’s a two-parter featuring back-to-back interviews, first with MyPillow CEO and election denier Mike Lindell, and then with RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. Those conversations give us a look inside the two opposing wings of the Republican Party as they jostle for control going into next year’s elections. So that’s The Run-Up.

They do a great job. They make a great show. Find them wherever you listen to us and subscribe. OK, here’s today’s show.

From The New York Times, I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is The Daily.

The title of world’s most populous country is expected to change later this month.

For the first time in at least three centuries, China is no longer the world’s most populous country.

India is, in fact, on the brink of hitting a breathtaking milestone.

This month, India overtook it.

Alongside its population of 1.4 billion, India’s geopolitical and economic footprint is also growing.

Today, Alex Travelli, the Times’s South Asia business correspondent, explains what that new status means for India’s future and whether India will be able to use it as China once did to become an economic superpower.

So what does this mean when it comes to the influence of India on the global economic / I mean, could it surpass China?

It’s Thursday, April 27.

So Alex, you’ve been covering the economy in India for many years now. And I really wanted to talk to you because something kind of remarkable has happened, which is that India has overtaken China as the world’s most populous country. According to the UN, there are upwards of 1.4 billion people in each country with India now a ahead. And so all of this kind of begs the question, will India be the next China?

That is really the question, Sabrina, that is being asked by so many people. I think more outside of India and China than inside of them, but we’re feeling the pressure here too. Will India beat China? Well, they have this incredible thing in common in terms of their population. They’re next door neighbors.

They both have ancient histories. And a lot of these broad strokes, they are much more alike than any other country in the world is like either. But as anyone who’s visited these places know, they’re utterly different. They’re almost literally worlds apart.

But there’s a kind of motivation here to seeing India become China or become like China in some ways. And that’s because of the meaning that China has taken on for the rest of the world since 1990. Since 1990, China has turned its enormous population, the sort of scale that represents as a country, as a national economy, to its advantage in a way that was pretty much unimaginable before.

They turned to all of these people into low-cost labor to transform China into becoming the factory of the world. And in so doing, there’s been, by almost any measure, the greatest production of mass wealth over these past 30, 40 years from the Chinese economy that has ever been measured anywhere in the history of the world. The number of people who were deeply impoverished in the China of 1990, people who are now enjoying middle-income lives measured by a global standard, we’re talking about hundreds of millions of people.

And that’s not only a terrific reduction in poverty such as India should hope to achieve for itself, India still being barely a lower middle-income country, this is also what made China an indispensable part of the world economy. And there are various factors around the world right now that have a lot of countries and companies rooting for India to displace China as a location for production, as a new consumer class, as a new geopolitical force between the Ukraine war, between COVID responses, between tensions ramping up over the tech industry in Taiwan. There is a lot of hope in some quarters certainly that India might become the next China and all of these big world-shaking ways.

OK, so what’s the answer? Will India become the next China? Like will they be able to leverage their huge population in the way that China did?

OK, I don’t have a crystal ball, but there are big, big differences between India and China. And some of these differences, three of them I’m thinking of in particular, make us question whether India could ever become something like China, whether there is any other China but China. And for a start, India’s economy is just not shaped at all the way that China’s is, that China’s was in 1990. In fact, it’s not even shaped the way that industrializing economies that we’ve seen in the past before China’s astonishing success were structured.

So tell me more about that.

Well, at the simplest level, there are not enough good jobs in India. That’s not to say Indians are sitting around without jobs or unemployed in great numbers, but they don’t have the kind of jobs that you’d need to catch up with China, to catch up with the kind of growth rates that India wants. Now, you’ve got an unusually — most people would say unhealthily large reliance on the services part of the economy. Then you have this traditionally very large part of the economy devoted to agriculture.

And then you’ve got the industrial or manufacturing sector, but that is relatively small. And it’s not been growing. It’s been stuck around 14 percent, 15 percent of the economy for a long time. China’s, by contrast, is almost twice as high, and it creates a very, very different sort of economic dynamic.

So this relatively small proportion of manufacturing is a problem for India. And the reason is that manufacturing makes jobs, the kind of jobs that bring broader, base of income earning which means better consumer spending down the line. It also tends to mean exports, which is great for the currency and India’s trade balances.

There are very few countries in the world that have managed to swing quickly from being poor agrarian societies to being middle-income industrial powers even high income. And they pretty much all went this route with export-driven manufacturing taking the lead. Now, India frustratingly has kept that at the low constant rate, despite a lot of efforts from a lot of different governments to hike up the mix of manufacturing. And it’s especially frustrating for India at this moment, I would offer, because we are talking about the vast number of young people entering the workforce.

Well it’s nominally bigger than China in terms of population. But actually, the graph, the sort of curve of the population by age makes India look even more attractive because it has a huge number of people in their 20s and in their 30s, somewhat fewer in their 40s. And there are a lot of young people who are about to enter the workforce too.

China, by contrast, mainly because of that one-child policy has just gone into population decline. And its population is going to be getting older. India has workers, neither does it have too many children nor does it have too many retirees. You’ve really got a population profile that’s perfectly aged to enter a bunch of great jobs, and you don’t have enough available.

OK, so the problem is not enough jobs, and in particular, not enough manufacturing jobs even though they have plenty of people to fill those kind of jobs. That’s the problem right now in India. So why then is it that India doesn’t have a big manufacturing sector if they have the workers to fill it?

The biggest reason that India is not going to become China in terms of manufacturing right now is that China is China. It’s a very difficult competitor for India. There’s virtually no way to crack that market the way that there was when China walked in and took the crown. That’s really got to be biggest problem.

But then there are other problems. You look and see as labor in China has become more expensive as the country has got richer, and as manufacturers, especially of lower value goods have looked elsewhere, they tend to find what they’re looking for more easily in smaller countries in Vietnam and Bangladesh.

And why is that? Why are they more attractive than India?

Well it’s a million-dollar question. There are probably a few answers. One is India is so big that it has a lot of competing interests. It hasn’t been able to just concentrate on, like Bangladesh has, garment assembly. In Bangladesh, business and government everyone is lockstep in we’re going to be a world-beating garments manufacturer.

India has a lot of different competing interests. So for example, when foreign companies come in like Amazon or Walmart, often they’re faced off in their own fierce competitions with other big local companies. And then the local partners will go to town seeking advantage with the government. And the foreign company tends to find itself at a disadvantage.

Got it. In other words, when a big foreign company wants to come in, local Indian companies can kind of gang up against it like that?

Yeah, they can use their pull. Some companies with some connections definitely have advantages. And this is true of whole industries also. But I want to say there are all sorts of signs that things are changing and rapidly. In a country this size, there are so many things changing rapidly all the time. It’s hard to know which will stick. But Apple made news just recently, opening its first retail outlets in India. Never mind the retail outlets, though, they are actually interesting and show signs of promise. But what’s really amazing is just how quickly Apple has moved some fraction of its production outside of China.

Just three years ago, I think it was, that 98 percent of all iPhones in the world were being made in China. India was making 1 percent, putting together the actual phone. They very, very quickly turned that up. And last I looked this year, analysts think that India is producing 7 percent -

Of the world’s phone supply.

Yeah, and another 1 percent for Brazil, and all the rest still in China. But it leads some people to say that India might have a quarter of that global market by the end of this decade. There are, at the same time, shoe manufacturers that are bypassing Vietnam as they move from China to India around Chennai. That’s happening just now.

And the rapid progress, the rapid way in which the world’s equation with China is changing makes it very hard to write off the possibility that India will gobble up a large chunk of that pie. What we can’t tell yet right now is whether those are symbolic steps towards progress or if it’s a wave coming.

OK, so you said there were three big differences that matter between India and China. What’s the next big difference?

OK, the next one is very striking although it’s a little bit hard to distinguish from the problem with jobs. This is the fact that in India, far too few women are in the workforce. Now, if you look at China, you’ve got more than 60 percent of all women of working age are in the formal workforce.

That’s slightly more than in America. And both of these countries are significantly above the world average. One of the most daunting things about India’s situation in the world at this time is that its rate is one of the very lowest in the world. It’s barely 20 percent of all working age women who are working.

20 percent is so low, right?

It’s so low that there are only a few countries fewer than a dozen that have lower rates starting with Yemen, Libya, and a few countries around the Gulf. There are no serious productive economies that have rates like that. And especially if we’re looking at the sort of scale effect that India’s possibly enormous workforce is going to give it in decades ahead, it simply can’t advance in accordance with its numbers if women are no part of the picture.

So why exactly does India have so few women in the workforce?

Well, that’s a very tricky question to answer and very important one to get right. The fact is there are not enough women in the workforce now because there are not enough jobs for them. Then the question is, why are there not enough jobs for women? It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg puzzle.

If there are simply not enough jobs in the workplace and at every level of society starting with the family, women enjoy a lower status, then they’re going to be the part of society that’s last to enter the workforce. And they’re going to enter at the lowest value end of it. Women are working like mad in this country, but they’re working on farms. They’re working in homes. They’re working in piecework that doesn’t get picked up by the economic measures of formal employment.

So that means that India’s workforce, its total stock of jobs would need to increase many times before we started to really pick up that very, very low 27 percent rate of female participation in the workforce.

Right. So in other words, women are last in line for formal jobs?

That’s right. They’re last in line for formal jobs, and it looks like a very, very long line. But that’s not the only reason that we don’t have lots of women working in the formal economy. There’s this other amazing fact, and it’s kind of disheartening.

The richer India has gotten, the rate of women in the workforce has actually gone down, not up. You’d expect it to go up. It went up in these other countries we’re looking at.

So the rate of women working has gone down, not up, as India has gotten richer. Why is that?

Well, we don’t really know. There are competing explanations. Some of them take into account various cultural factors. One thing right off the bat is that for some families, it’s regarded as being prestigious to have a woman working at home or at least it’s the opposite of prestigious to have her out working in the market.

So once a family can afford to keep a woman at home, whether she’s a wife, mother, daughter, they might pressure her to instead do work at home and stay away from the grubby marketplace.

At the same time, it’s very clear that the role of women in society has been improving in many ways in India. It’s gotten better in that women are filling up colleges and universities earning degrees at almost the same rate that men are in many important parts of the education ecosystem. But that’s not really the part that’s going to make up the bulk of the workforce.

Got it. What’s the third and last difference between India and China here?

Well, that would be the political transformation underway in India.

This is a big one, and it’s kind of a wild card.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We’ll be right back.

OK, so politics. So India is, of course, a hugely different place than China politically. It’s the biggest democracy in the world. China is not. Talk to me about that difference and why that difference matters when it comes to their economies.

OK, well, let’s talk about India and China as two independent sovereign nations. As it happens, they both started life at about the same time 1947, 1949, let’s say as the People’s Republic of China. And they’ve been totally different ever since. India is the world’s biggest democracy.

China, apart from not being a democracy, is this consolidated communist authoritarian state. So it’s just a very different process. It has a different process for making decisions, gathering information, executing decisions. And that matters because when making big painful decisions and imposing them on the country, a government like China has a much easier time and acts with much greater speed.

So for instance, what we used to call land reform was a very important part of China’s economic development a generation or two ago. That meant going to the landlords with big estates, breaking up their properties, and handing them off to peasants. That required a government acting with decisiveness and brutality that’s very hard to muster in a democracy.

Today, the spirit is much less one of land reform than of commissioning highways, dams, infrastructure projects, or just setting aside land for a factory. In China, the People’s Republic is theoretically the owner of all land in the country. It can just decide what to do, and it gets done.

In India, politicians are falling down all over the place trying to wheedle bits of land that will be useful for whatever kind of development priority. And it takes them forever to do so.

Cannot steamroll the same way.

Yeah, not at all the same way. I mean, look, in 1979, China more or less invented Shenzhen, which was then a dismal little village next to Hong Kong. Now, it’s a city of, I think, 17 million. It’s one of the most expensive and prosperous in the whole country.

India also has what are called special economic zones, but they’re the size of villages. They’re in the middle of nowhere. You can hardly name the biggest one. There’s no Shenzhen being invented by the government snapping its fingers.

And labor laws, for instance, are equally malleable in the hands of Chinese leadership. 996, that is for blue collar and white collar workers alike, working from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM six days a week is a norm in the most bustling parts of China. You won’t find that anywhere in India, except where all kinds of laws are being broken. And those are not pretty places.

OK, so India’s political reality for decades and really since its modern founding in an economic context is just much harder than China’s.

Yeah, but we now have an Indian government under Prime Minister Modi that is more ambitious than any that’s come before it at least for generations. And what it’s trying to do is really remake India in a whole lot of ways. What they never quite say, but what a lot of people suspect, is that India’s leadership has been very impressed with what China has done over the past 30 years. And that Mr. Modi is very envious of what Xi Jinping is able to do.

And he is, at any rate, whatever the inspiration, consolidating power like no Indian leader has at least since the 1970s. For instance, state governments in India are very powerful. Mr. Modi has made it a priority for his party to win as many state governments as possible. When they can’t win them, they often buy the opposition politicians, so they change party. And his party ends up controlling those state governments anyway.

And there are other sneakier things that are nonetheless at this point quite obvious. A lot of the courts make judgments that are very favorable to Mr. Modi’s government. A lot of newspapers are owned by businessmen with whom he’s friends. A lot of institutions that sit outside of those spaces find themselves subject to special police raids to having foreign funding cut off to being shut down.

The traditional checks on executive power in India are falling away. It certainly, despite its continuing elections, got a lot of the hallmarks of a country that’s becoming less democratic, less indecisive in the way that democracies are.

So Prime Minister Modi is essentially trying to reshape Indian politics to give more power to the central government, to give more power to himself and his party, which would look more and more like China, right? But is reshaping the Indian government to look more like China’s going to work, I mean at least in terms of its ability to control the economy?

Well, there’s one more factor that we have to add, one more part of the new India. As envisioned by Mr Modi that we have to take into account and that makes India very different than China. The program, the ideological program that Mr. Modi and his colleagues come to power with sees the Hindu population of India, its 87 percent majority, as being the primary India. And in particular, the Muslim population, which is the largest minority, about 14 percent of the country, is being shown its way to second class status.

Now, that presents all kinds of problems. India is a much more diverse country than China at that ethnic level. So re-envisioning India as an ethnonation, that is a very hard thing to imagine. It opens the door to an unknown, which we don’t have in the Chinese case.

So you’re saying that part of Modi’s ideology is, of course, the centralisation of power, but also advancing a Hindu nationalist vision for India, despite what that might mean for the economy.

Yes, I think despite what that might mean for the economy, although Prime Minister Modi and his Champions might say that there’s no reason to think that it’s going to pose any problem to the economy. After all, the state which he governed before he came to govern all of India had tons of problems between the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority. And yet its economy has boomed throughout with really admirable GDP growth.

And now, liberals have decried the rise of Hindu primacy and the degradation of some minorities as they see it, but it’s not yet clear that that’s an economic hurdle as such. There’s a comparison you might draw to the position of the Uyghurs and Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities in China’s Xinjiang region who have been quite horribly and obviously persecuted in a number of ways, but that represents a tiny fraction of 1 percent China’s population. In the Indian case, we’re talking about an aggrieved minority, which adds up to something more like one in six, one in seven of all Indians.

Oh, so much, much bigger.

It’s a much bigger minority. And the number of aggrieved citizens that you’re making as you embark on this project is just much greater. It’s a different kettle of fish entirely.

OK, so it’s possible Modi’s commitment to a Hindu ethnostate and making Muslims second class could represent a kind of unknown vulnerability. But it’s also possible that it wouldn’t have a negative impact on the economy, right? Like yes, bad for democracy. No, not necessarily bad for the economy.

That I think is certainly the case. It is the case, in other words, that we don’t know what effect that’ll have on the economy. And I think, frankly, that when America, its State Department, its business interests look at India hopefully as a possible partial replacement for China, they don’t want to think about these questions to do with the state of India’s democracy or India’s minorities.

They’re content to concentrate on economic progress, the rebuilding of the infrastructure, a lot of old hurdles being overcome, and set aside the questions about political liberties and the nature of the democracy. We don’t really know how those are going to affect the economy. I just want to flag that it’s a great big unknown.

India is changing in this way. It’s changing from its script of the past 75 years. And that opens the door to all kinds of uncertainties.

Right. So that’s why you said earlier that India’s politics really is a wild card.

Yeah, exactly.

So Alex, all of these factors that you’ve outlined kind of make me think that we already know the answer to the question we posed at the top, which was will India be the next China? And the answer — it feels like to me is no, right?

Well, yeah, I think that’s true. There’s a lot of reason to think that India will not be the next China. In fact, when you look at either of these countries or both of these countries in much detail, the question seems almost absurd. But I want to say for all these two countries have in common and for all they don’t have in common, the world is no longer 1990.

So nobody is going to do what China did starting in 1990. India is not going to do that in 2023, nor would it want to. The world is a fundamentally different place now than it was those 33 years and in a lot of ways, for better and for worse from India’s point of view. Now, for one thing, becoming the world’s factory is no longer quite the brass ring that it was back then. Manufacturing is a less important part of the world than it was in 1990.

The shape of the world is different. In fact, services which we sometimes look down on because many of them are low down the food chain, used to be the case you couldn’t export any of them, they’re a very different part of the world economy than they used to be. The prospect of Indians doing tons of work for the rest of the world, both from India and abroad, sending home remittances is much more plausible now than it would have been a generation ago.

The internet has made that possible, and the shrinking workforces and the developed economies, to use just a couple of examples. And it’s got this extremely what they call an aspirational class of young people who want to go abroad, who want to do these service type jobs. And you’ve got a lot of entrepreneurs also who are very good at chiseling out niches around the world’s economies.

So I think it’s fair to say India is not going to follow the tracks laid by China. And I think that is seeming clearer to me every year. But that’s not to say that it will not experience tremendous growth. In fact, it may very well experience tremendous growth. We’ve got to hope so.

Those hundreds of millions who have yet to leave some level of poverty, those many, many millions of young people who need better employment, they all need India to grow quickly. There’s not a lot of time to waste. But whatever form of growth India takes, it will be its own thing.

Like China, India will be big, important. When India shakes a leg, the world will feel it. Of that, I’m convinced. We just don’t know what shape the country will be like, but we can say with some confidence, it won’t be just China all over again.

Alex, thank you.

Thanks, Sabrina. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Here’s what else you should know today. On Wednesday, the House narrowly passed a Republican bill to raise the debt ceiling and cut government spending in an effort to force President Biden to negotiate over slashing the budget or risking a debt default. The legislation would raise the debt ceiling into next year in exchange for a nearly 14 percent cut in Biden’s landmark spending programs.

The action was largely symbolic. The bill will not pass the Democratic-led Senate, but it was seen as an effort by Republicans to strengthen their negotiating position over the debt limit. Without action by Congress to raise the limit, the US government faces a default as early as this summer.

And Disney sued Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, claiming he had used his power to punish the company after it had opposed legislation in Florida that banned classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity. The lawsuit filed in federal court made a First Amendment claim, accusing DeSantis of a, quote, “relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint.”

Today’s episode was produced by Asthaa Chaturvedi, Alex Stern, Stella Tan, and Rob Szypko. It was edited by Paige Cowett. Contains original music by Marion Lozano and Elisheba Ittoop YouTube, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for The Daily. I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.

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April 26, 2024 • 21:50 Harvey Weinstein Conviction Thrown Out
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April 22, 2024 • 24:30 The Evolving Danger of the New Bird Flu
April 19, 2024 • 30:42 The Supreme Court Takes Up Homelessness
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April 17, 2024 • 24:52 Are ‘Forever Chemicals’ a Forever Problem?

Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Produced by Asthaa Chaturvedi , Alex Stern , Stella Tan and Rob Szypko

Edited by Paige Cowett

Original music by Marion Lozano and Elisheba Ittoop

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon Music

This month, India reached a notable milestone. The country’s population surpassed that of China, which had held the No. 1 position for at least three centuries.

Alex Travelli, who covers South Asia and business for The Times, examines whether India can use its immense size to become an economic superpower.

On today’s episode

Alex Travelli , a South Asia business correspondent for The New York Times.

A factory floor seen from above. The workers are wearing protective clothing and hair coverings.

Background reading

Turning India’s vast young work force into an engine for economic advancement will pose enormous challenges .

Will this be the “Indian century”? Here are four key questions .

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Alex Travelli contributed reporting.

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Sofia Milan, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong and Devon Taylor

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Wendy Dorr, Julia Simon, Isabella Anderson, Desiree Ibekwe, Renan Borelli, Mahima Chablani, Nell Gallogly, Jeffrey Miranda, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer and Maddy Masiello.

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India: From snake charmers to global superpower

India is an increasingly important player on the world stage. But domestically it's facing socioeconomic divisions driven by caste and religion — even 75 years after its independence, writes Isha Bhatia Sanan.

Some time ago, an elderly German asked me a question that has stayed with me ever since. The gentleman, in his 70s, said, "I remember when I was in school, we were told that India was a third world country — a poor country that needed our help. So, we collected money and sent it there as aid."

With a curious look on his face he continued, "today I read in newspapers that India is an IT hub, a startup capital of the world. Did you Indians use up all our aid money to buy computers?"

The question — though naive in nature — was an indicator for me of how India's image has changed over the past seven decades.

It wasn't long ago that India was depicted in the West with pictures of snake charmers, cows walking on the streets and people riding on the backs of elephants. However, over the last 75 years India has made a mark in the fields of space technology, telecommunication, agriculture, energy production and biotechnology, to name a few. India has more than 750 million internet users, which also shows how quickly the country is progressing in the digital age.

India's growing influence

Gone are the days when poverty and despair were romanticized in popular culture. Today, India is working on becoming the world's biggest producer of renewable energy. In its aim to become a global superpower, India is growing trade ties with both the East and the West.

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott recently wrote, "India has emerged as a democratic superpower, more than capable of providing the leadership that the world often needs. [..] If a free world has to have a leader after 50 years, it is likely to be India."

There is no denying that the international community is looking toward India more expectantly today than it ever has. Russia's war in Ukraine is a key driver of those growing expectations . India is emerging as an increasingly important player on the world stage. Currently it is the world's fifth-largest economy by GDP, and the third largest by purchasing power parity.

Lacking on the domestic front

With its non-aligned approach, India's foreign policies are yielding results in its favor. But India still has a formidable amount of work to do on the domestic front.

The Indian government claims it can become a $5 trillion-strong (€4.8 trillion) economy by 2025. But without substantial economic reforms this might remain a distant dream for the world's largest democracy.

Inflation; unemployment; factionalized elites; socioeconomic divisions in the name of caste, and language and religion issues are serious challenges that the country is facing even 75 years after its independence

Tensions between Hindus and Muslims have only worsened over the last eight years. Somehow it seems as if the British divide and rule policy has made a comeback. The recent Islamophobic remarks by a ruling BJP party official show how hate speech is on the rise in the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always shunned away from condemning or even remarking on communal tensions in the country.

It is a matter of concern that India ranked 150th out of 180 countries on the 2022 Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. This is India's lowest rank ever. India also has a low score in the global Academic Freedom Index with an AFI of 0.352, which puts it in the company of countries like Saudi Arabia and Libya.

Moreover, India ranked 101st out of 116 countries in the 2021 Global Hunger Index. Around 25% of children in India suffer from malnutrition, and over 190 million go to bed each night without a meal.

Making the right choice

It's no surprise, therefore, that in the Global Happiness Index, India's rank has fallen to 140, lower than Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. Unhappiness and discontent are spreading throughout the country.

In the last seven decades India has spent a lot of energy and resources on addressing security concerns with neighboring countries — Pakistan on the one side and China on the other. There is no doubt that these concerns cannot and should not be ignored. Nevertheless, it is of utmost importance for India to channel its energies in solving its domestic issues.

More than half of India's population is below the age of 25. The country will have to ensure education, employment and happiness for its youth. Without this paradigm shift, it could take another 75 years before India achieves its aim of becoming a global superpower .

Press freedom in India in serious decline

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As a rising global power, what is India’s vision for the world?

Children with the colours of the Indian national flag painted on their faces wait to perform during the Republic Day parade in Ahmedabad, India January 26, 2017. REUTERS/Amit Dave - RC1E4AC0A280

India has the opportunity to put in place a new framework for its own security and growth, and that of developing countries around the world. Image: REUTERS

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Seventy-one years ago – on 15 August 1947 – India gained independence. Over the subsequent decades, the country has managed its evolution in an international system largely created and guided by the United States and its partners. While it was not easy for India to pursue independent domestic and foreign policies within this system, the American-led order was preferable to the British Empire from which New Delhi had liberated itself.

Today, this global system is under serious threat. Washington, along with capital cities across the European Union, finds itself caught in a polarizing debate on the social contracts of its society – questions of domestic inequality and identity have left the US and its allies incapable of effectively championing the values of the international order. Simultaneously, the balance of global economic power has once again tipped in favour of Asia.

Within this shifting global landscape, India has the opportunity to put in place a new framework for its own security, growth and development, and that of developing countries around the world. As a rising global power, this must be India’s principle endeavor in the coming decades.

The changing international order

The extraordinary rise of countries in Asia has spawned at least two new dynamics. First, political boundaries – many of them colonial legacies – are steadily becoming more porous through economic cooperation. Markets are converging across the Eurasian landmass as well as facilitating the geo-economic “union” of the Indian and Pacific oceans. This has resulted in new integrative dynamics; as cultures, markets and communities aspire for development and new opportunities. Second, even though territorial considerations acknowledge economic linkages, political differences are still being reasserted – not just to contest the consensus of the past, but to shape a new order altogether.

Asia is coming together economically but is also threatening to grow apart politically; market-driven growth in the region sits uneasily with a diverse array of political systems.

China is, in large part, responsible for both. While offering a political vision that stands in sharp contrast to the “liberal international order”, China has been equally assertive about advancing free trade, raising new development finance, and offering a new model for development and global governance. The prospect of China using its economic clout to advance its own norms is worrying for India.

A consensus to shape a new order

Given the velocity of change underway, the challenge for India on its Independence Day is to shape an inclusive and equitable international order by the centenary of its independence. To achieve this, India must prepare to act according to its capabilities: by mid-century it must build the necessary state capacity, industrial and economic heft and strategic culture that would befit its status as a leading power. The country could present this as a model for much of the developing world to emulate, and anchor faith in the liberalism and internationalism of the world order.

India, then, requires a “consensus” – a new proposition that will not only guide its own trajectory for the better part of the 21st century, but one that appeals to communities around the world.

What then are the tenets of a “New Delhi Consensus”?

First, India must sustain and strengthen its own trajectory of rapid economic growth, and show to the world that it is capable of realizing its development goals within the rubric of liberal democracy. No argument for the New Delhi Consensus can be more powerful and alluring than the economic success of India. By IMF estimates, India already accounts for 15% of global growth. Even though nearly 40% of its population live in various shades of poverty and barely a third are connected to the internet, India is still able to proportionately shoulder the world’s economic burden. Imagine the possibilities for global growth if India can meet, and even exceed, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

States in the developing world yearn for replicable templates of growth, yet they find themselves with a binary choice between Western democracy, which is ill suited for deeply plural and socially stratified societies, and autocratic systems that have little room for individual freedom.

India, on the other hand has “emerged as a bridge between the many extremes of the world”, as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once remarked . India’s plural and composite culture, he said, was “living proof of the possibility of a confluence of civilizations”. The global 2030 development agenda, for the most part, may as well be a story of India’s domestic economic transformation and of its defence of diversity and democracy.

Second and flowing from the above, Delhi must claim leadership over the global development agenda. It is worth pointing out that India sits at the intersection of the world’s two most dynamics regions, Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific. The largest bulk of development finance will emerge from, and be invested in, these regions. It is incumbent on India to ensure that this is not a new means to maximize political interference, but a moment to offer unfettered opportunities.

In his recent address to the Ugandan Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi affirmed that “India’s development partnership will be guided by [African] priorities” – a position that contrasts sharply with the West’s evangelical focus on governance reforms and China’s economic policies in the region. India’s recipient-led partnership framework will allow states to secure development pathways that are economically sustainable and politically acceptable. India now needs to articulate its intentions and the principles that will shape international development cooperation in the days ahead.

Third, Delhi must create and protect the space for equitable and inclusive global governance. For too long, leadership in the international system was considered a free pass to monopolize the global commons. India has always bucked this trend, emerging as a leading power that has never tempered its idealism of “having an interest in peace, and a tradition of friendliness to all”, as one official put it. Whether it is on free trade, climate change or international security, India’s non-interventionist and multilateral approach is well suited to support and sustain global governance in a multipolar world: the new reality of this century.

Finally, India must incubate a new social contract between its own state, industry and civil society. At the turn of the century, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee lamented that India’s democratic growth was held back by three failures: of the government to heed industry voices, of industry to appreciate the objectives of government, and of both in their commitment to the common individual.

Nearly two decades later, the imperative for India to correct these failures is even greater. The spread of information communication technologies and global supply chains implies that businesses and civil society must be made equal stakeholders if India is to develop its own unique consensus. Not only will this add greater legitimacy to India’s proposition, it will also create natural and grassroots champions for the country around the world.

For the first time since the end of the Second World War, a nation state that is wary of hegemonic tendencies and identifies itself with the equitable governance of the global commons is in a position to shape the international order. India is home to one-sixth of the global population and has sustained a unique democratic ethos and a foreign policy that is defined not only by national interest but also by solidarity with the developing world.

As a leading power, India must look beyond raw indexes of economic, political and military might, and craft a consensus that is consistent with its ancient and historic view of the world.

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Is India the World’s Next Great Economic Power?

Bhaskar Chakravorti
Gaurav Dalmia

Historically, the country’s expected rise has remained elusive. Here’s a look at what’s different now.

Is India’s economic rise inevitable? There’s good reason to think that this latest round of Indo-optimism might be different than previous iterations, but the country still has major challenges to address to make good on this promise. In terms of drivers, demand — in the form of a consumer boom, context appropriate innovation, and a green transition — and supply — in the form of a demographic dividend, access to finance, and major infrastructure upgrades — are helping to push the country forward. This is facilitated by policy reforms, geopolitical positioning, and a diaspora dividend. Even so, the country faces barriers to success, including unbalanced growth, unrealized demographic potential, and unrealized ease-of-business and innovation potential.

In 2002, India’s government launched a ubiquitous international tourism campaign known as “Incredible India.” Were it to launch a similar campaign today, it might as well be called “Inevitable India.” Not just enthusiasts within the country, but a chorus of global analysts, have declared India as the next great economic power: Goldman Sachs has predicted it will become the world’s second-largest economy by 2075, and the FT’s Martin Wolf suggests that by 2050, its purchasing power will be 30% larger than that of the U.S.

Bhaskar Chakravorti is the Dean of Global Business at The Fletcher School at Tufts University and founding Executive Director of Fletcher’s Institute for Business in the Global Context . He is the author of The Slow Pace of Fast Change .
Gaurav Dalmia is the Chairman of Dalmia Group Holdings, an Indian holding company for business and financial assets.

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G20 : Economic Cooperation ahead

India’s global superpower ambition and an opportunity to lead the world.

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Mains level: India's G20 presidency, opportunities and challenges

In September 2014, in his first meeting with President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about making the US a principal partner in the realization of India’s rise as a responsible, influential world power. This was in a way the first time that any Indian prime minister had talked about the country’s ambition to grow into a responsible, influential world power.

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India in World politics

India is not new to playing a proactive role in world politics: Right from Independence, India’s leadership had actively pursued an agenda that favoured the interests of developing or less developed countries.
India took a form stand against the domination of developed countries: Whether it was the GATT negotiations or the Non-Proliferation Treaty, India took a principled stand and stood up to the policy domination of the developed world.
India as a protector of developing world: India’s role as the protector of the interests of the developing world during WTO negotiations has been significant.
For instance: Murasoli Maran, as the Minister of Commerce in the Vajpayee government, played a very critical role in preventing developed countries from pushing through their trade and commercial agendas. The UPA government continued that approach, inviting opprobrium and occasional isolation from the interested players. However, that didn’t deter India from opposing agendas that were seen as against the interests of not only its people but also the larger developing world.
India added moral dimension to the developing world but seen as obstructionist: India’s significant contribution in all these fora was that it added a moral dimension to the developed world’s monetary vision. However, India, in the process, acquired the image of being a nay-sayer and obstructionist.

India’s smart shift in its approach

Stated playing proactive role: While standing up for the developing world and zealously upholding its strategic autonomy, India started playing a proactive role in finding solutions.
Paris climate summit provided a major opportunity: The Paris Climate Summit in 2015 provided the first major opportunity for India to highlight its new priorities. It played a pivotal role in clinching the climate deal while ensuring that the interests of the developing world are not compromised.
India’s stand in the words of PM Modi: PM PM Modi cogently articulated this stand on the eve of the Summit: “Justice demands that, with what little carbon we can safely burn, developing countries are allowed to grow. The lifestyles of a few must not crowd out opportunities for the many still on the first steps of the development ladder.” India’s efforts resulted in developed countries agreeing to the principle of “common and differentiated responsibility”.
India successfully convinced developed countries for INDCs : India also convinced developed countries to agree to the formulation of not externally imposed targets but “intended nationally determined contributions” or INDCs.
India emerged as a powerful player during Covid pandemic response through “Vaccine Maitri” : India’s arrival on the global stage as an important player was further augmented by its constructive response during the Covid pandemic. Besides undertaking the massive exercise of vaccinating its billion-plus citizens, India came to the rescue of more than 90 countries by ensuring a timely supply of vaccines through its “Vaccine Maitri” programme.
Commendable economic recovery in post-Covid world: India’s growing importance is conspicuous in many areas. Its post-Covid economic recovery has been commendable, with the World Bank even revising its projections for 2022 GDP growth from 6.5 per cent to 6.9 per cent. The IMF estimated it to be at 6.8 per cent while the rest of the world was projected to grow at 4.9 per cent.

India in a new year

Stronger ties with African nations: The India Africa Forum Summit (IAFS), started in 2008 as a triennial event by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, met for the third time in 2015 in Delhi. PM Modi took a special interest in cultivating stronger ties with African nations which led to the highest-ever participation in the Summit. It is important to revive the process.
India’s crucial role in Russia-Ukraine war: At the Bali G20 Summit, India played a crucial role in ensuring that both Russia and its critics like the US had their say on the Russia-Ukraine war in a dignified way without being interrupted. On its part, India conveyed to the Russian leadership that it was not a time for war. The new year will bring an opportunity before India to play a role in ending the war.
Opportunity to set new agenda for global public good: As G20 chair, India has the opportunity to set a new agenda before the world’s most powerful block of nations. In the past, it always worked for the judicious sharing of global public goods. It is time now to undertake similar efforts for global digital and genetic goods.
India must continue to act as voice of global south: While striving to achieve its ambition, India must not lose sight of the principles that it always championed. It must continue to act as the voice of the Global South.
Focus on neighbourhood must increase: India’s diplomatic, strategic and political investments in its neighbourhood and Asia, Africa and Latin America must increase.
Attention in ASEAN IOR must grow: With SAARC failing and BIMSTEC remaining a non-starter, India’s attention to the ASEAN and Indian Ocean neighbourhood must grow. India’s Act East policy needs more teeth.
India must bring moralist dimensions in new tech developments : India always upheld moralism in global politics. In climate talks, too, the Indian side is resorting to traditional wisdom to achieve global good. India must bring that moralist dimension to new technological developments.
India must lead to regulate technologies for humanity’s future: The advent of artificial intelligence and genetic manipulation technologies is going to throw the world into turmoil. If not regulated globally on time, these technologies are going to play havoc with humanity’s future.
The country is entering the new year on a buoyant note. The leadership of important multilateral bodies including the G20 and SCO has come into its hands. The new year is thus going to provide India with the opportunity to fulfil its world power ambition. However, opportunities come with challenges. China may try to curtail India’s ambitions by keeping the border tense. India needs to maintain harmonious balance.

Mains question

Q. From wars to the economy to climate, India has become integral to the contemporary global discourse. What will India need to do to fulfil its global superpower ambitions in the new year?

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India aiming to be 'superpower', we are 'begging' to avoid bankruptcy: Pakistani leader

In a blistering attack on the government and the military establishment, jui-f chief fazlur rehman said "unseen forces" are orchestrating key decisions. he also extended his support to erstwhile rival pti's right to protest against the "rigged" elections..

In a strong attack during his inaugural address at the National Assembly, the JUI-F chief attributed the nation's predicament to unseen forces orchestrating decisions from behind the scenes, reducing elected officials to mere puppets. "There are powers behind the walls controlling us, and they make decisions while we are just puppets," he claimed. He also accused the parliament of forsaking principles and "selling democracy".

"It is the right of the PTI to hold a rally. We also objected to the 2018 election and we object to this (February 8 polls) one too. If the 2018 poll was rigged, why is the current one not rigged?" said Rehman, urging to coalition of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to allow PTI to form the government as it won a majority in the general elections.

'Pakistan is begging to avoid bankruptcy'

The cleric then expressed his dismay over the role of the establishment and bureaucracy in the election and running the country, saying that the elections held on February 8 were flawed. He also lamented the failure to implement recommendations from the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), emphasising the importance of upholding Islamic principles.

"We got the country in the name of Islam, but today we have become a secular state. Since 1973, not a single recommendation of the CII has been implemented. How can we be an Islamic country?" he said. Rehman also said that Pakistan was begging the International Monetary Fund to avoid bankruptcy.

Drawing a sharp contrast with India, the JUI-F said, "Just compare India and ourselves... both countries got independence on the same day. But today they (India) are dreaming of becoming a superpower and we are begging to avoid bankruptcy. Who is responsible for this?"

Highlighting the burden of national debt on every Pakistani, Rehman decried the stagnation plaguing the nation, asserting that such circumstances hinder progress. "We have made our country a victim of stagnation, such nations cannot progress," he added, while also questioning whether the newly-elected parliament represents the will of the people.

The JUI-F was the arch-rival of PTI and had spearheaded the move for the ouster of Imran Khan. After his downfall, JUI-F became part of the coalition government. However, he parted ways with the PML-N and PPP after the elections as he alleged that the polls were rigged to keep his party out of power. It has been speculated that Rehman is putting pressure on the Army and the coalition government to cut a deal that will get him a bigger share in the political arena of Pakistan.

Pakistan-India relations

Recent reports have indicated that Pakistan is looking at the resumption of trade ties with India after a prolonged period of hostile relations. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that India had "never closed doors to talking to Pakistan" but the issue of cross-border terrorism should be "fair, square at the centre of the conversation". When he was asked if there could be a conversation with the Pakistani military, Jaishankar brushed it off and said “it doesn’t work like that”.

Recently, Maryam Nawaz, the first woman Chief Minister in Pakistan's Punjab province, initiated a surprisingly warm outreach by the new government by arguing for enhanced relations with India, while addressing Indian Sikhs at the Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara. During her first official state-level celebrations at the corridor, Maryam echoed her father Nawaz Sharif's statement and said Pakistan should not fight with its neighbours.

Maryam met a group of Sikh pilgrims, mostly from India, as the holy Gurdwara welcomed some 2,400 Sikhs from all over the world visiting Pakistan to attend Baisakhi festivities. Addressing the gathering at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, she said, "We should not fight with our neighbours. We need to open our hearts for them".

(with inputs from agencies)

ALSO READ | Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who was called 'thief' during his US visit, appointed as Deputy PM

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Pakistan's leading right-wing islamic leader maulana fazlur slammed the powerful establishment for allegedly rigging the political system..

Maulana Fazlur Rehman was speaking in the National Assembly

Pakistan's leading right-wing Islamic leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Monday came out in support of his erstwhile rival Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, saying the opposition party has the right to hold rallies and even form a government.

Rehman, the chief of his faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F), made a blistering speech in the National Assembly, slamming the powerful establishment for allegedly rigging the political system.

"It is the right of the PTI to hold a rally," he said. "We also objected to the 2018 election and we object to this (February 8 polls) one too. If the 2018 poll was rigged, why is the current one not rigged?" he asked.

PTI leader Asad Qaiser had demanded the party's right to organise a rally. "The demand of Asad Qaiser is correct and it is the right of PTI to hold a rally," Rehman said in his speech.

Rehman urged the ruling coalition of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and the Pakistan Peoples Party to allow the PTI to form the government if it enjoyed a majority in the parliament.

"Leave this power. Come and sit here [on the opposition benches], and if the PTI is indeed the larger group, then give them the government," he said.

The cleric then expressed his dismay over the role of the establishment and bureaucracy in election and running the country.

"The establishment and bureaucracy had no role in achieving this country," he said.

He alleged that the elections held on Feb 8 were not fair but flawed.

"What kind of election is this where the losers are not satisfied and the winners are upset?" he said.

He drew parallels with neighbouring India. "Just compare India and ourselves... both countries got independence on the same day. But today they (India) are dreaming of becoming a superpower and we are begging to avoid bankruptcy," he said.

While India🇮🇳 is inching closer to become a Global Superpower, Pakistan🇵🇰 is begging before the world to save it from devastation. [Pakistan's Parliament] pic.twitter.com/i3ZNA3kQaN — kanishka Dadhich 🇮🇳 (@KanishkaDadhich) April 29, 2024

He said that decisions are made by somebody else but politicians are blamed for the problems.

Rehman also lamented the failure to implement recommendations from the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), emphasising the importance of upholding Islamic principles.

The CCI is a constitutional body set up to help Islamize the laws.

He also said that Pakistan was begging the International Monetary Fund to avoid bankruptcy.

pic.twitter.com/KGHZhhVB18 — Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman (@MoulanaOfficial) April 29, 2024

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It is believed by many that by supporting the PTI, the cleric is putting pressure on the establishment and the government to cut a deal to get a bigger share in the spoils of politics than his potential.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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India dreams of becoming a 'superpower', Pakistan begs to avoid 'bankruptcy': Pak opposition leader

In his address, the leader sharply criticised india's aspirations of becoming a superpower while pakistan grapples with financial challenges, questioning the responsible parties behind the nation's economic woes. this statement comes as the international monetary fund approved the second and last tranche of the $3 billion standby agreement..

Updated Apr 30, 2024, 4:44 PM IST

Maulana Fazlur Rehman is a key Opposition leader and religious figure in Pakistan. (Photo: Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman/X)

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the leader of the political party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) (JUI-F) and the Opposition in Pakistan, delivered a fiery speech during his inaugural address in the National Assembly following the 2024 elections, as reported by ARY News.

In his address, he sharply criticised India's aspirations of becoming a superpower while Pakistan grapples with financial challenges, questioning the responsible parties behind the nation's economic woes. He said, "India is dreaming of becoming a superpower, while we are begging to avoid bankruptcy. Who is responsible for this?"

Rehman raised doubts about the legitimacy of the current parliament, accusing its members of compromising principles and undermining democracy for personal gain.

Rehman questioned the authenticity of the parliament's alignment with the people's will by expressing concerns about the lack of true representation in Pakistan's government. He criticised the influence of bureaucrats and elites in determining the country's leadership, emphasising the need for genuine democratic processes free from external interference.

Rehman denounced the perceived selling off of the country's institutions, expressing disappointment over individuals in authority who he believes do not uphold Pakistan's foundational values. He criticised the stagnation hindering progress and development in the nation, emphasising the detrimental impact of national debt on every Pakistani.

His remark comes ahead of International Monetary Fund approval of the second and last tranche of $3 billion standby agreement, which amounted to $1.1 billion in funding for Pakistan on Monday.

The first part of the funding was secured by Islamabad last summer to help avert a sovereign default.

Islamabad is now seeking a new, larger long-term Extended Fund Facility (EFF) agreement with the fund after the current standby arrangement expires this month.