Already the fifth richest country in the world, it will soon overtake China as the most populous, next year it will chair the G20 and its prime minister can afford to tell Putin that “it is not time for war”. This is the tree of contrasts in India
At the ground level, it’s hard to believe that India could ever be a superpower capable of conquering Japan or China by name. In the grubby streets, flanked by demolished buildings in one of the towns, no one is surprised to see some cows sucking on posters pasted on a lamppost amid a circulatory chaos that defies all reason. And not far away there is always a cripple begging, or a group of half-naked children splashing in foul-smelling water.
After all, it is the East Asian country with the highest percentage of the population earning less than $3.2 per day. And in rural areas it is even worse: farmers commit suicide because what they earn is not enough to feed their families, the population lives on average 4.7 years less than in the cities -a gap that is increasing -, 36% of the women suffer sexist violence and girls are married off by their parents despite the fact that the law forbids this.
However, from a bird’s eye view of the geopolitical chessboard, India is gaining in importance: this month it overtook the UK to become the fifth largest economy in the world, it will soon overtake China as the most populous country with a significantly lower average age, and next year he will chair the select group of the G20. It is also a nuclear power that even has a space program and that leads the development of ‘software’.
As if that weren’t enough, the Indian giant is forecasting 7.4% growth this year, though fears have taken over the global economy. It seems an accessible target when you consider that while the world flirted with a recession, it ended the second quarter with a growth of 13.5%. If the International Monetary Fund’s forecasts come true, 2022 will end with a GDP of $3.54 billion, compared to $3.38 billion for the old metropolis. This will be the culmination of a decade in which he has climbed six places in the world rankings, and it could be that in just five years he will surpass Germany to achieve Olympic diploma in his ambition to get on the podium.
“We have left those who ruled us for 250 years to climb into the global economy. Therein lies our joy, more than going from sixth to fifth place. We leave behind millennia of enslavement to take advantage of the opportunity that is now presented to us. We are not going to stop,” announced Narendra Modi proudly, the prime minister who can afford to say to Vladimir Putin that “it is not time for war.” It has therefore multiplied its imports of Russian fuels by four and by eight that of its fertilizers since the former KGB agent launched his “special military operation” in Ukraine. And pay in rubles, as Putin wants.
India is learning its tricks as a member of BRICS – the heterogeneous group of the most powerful developing countries, which it shares with Brazil, China, South Africa and Russia itself – and as a non-aligned country, making it friends in both Washington and Russia. Moscow. Not in vain, it is estimated that India has saved around 4,370 million euros with the purchases of Russian oil at bargain prices. “It’s the best deal the country can make,” Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar justified without anyone accusing him of financing Ukraine’s invasion in this way, as is done with China.
In 1961, the GDP of India and China was almost identical. And until the 1990s, Indians earned on average more than Chinese. However, after the reforms that ended Maoism in 1979, China began its meteoric rise that fascinated the world. Last year, China announced the end of extreme poverty and now its per capita income is five times that of India. All social indicators are also much more favorable for the communist country: from the six years that the inhabitants are still alive to the near-total literacy of the population – compared to 25% of the illiterate in India – running through all health indicators.
But India has one major asset in its favour: the age distribution of its 1.38 billion people remains pyramidal, while China’s shape increasingly resembles that of developed countries. The one-child policy that has been in effect for more than three decades has contributed to the development of prosperity, has led to a rapid aging of Chinese society and a reduction in the workforce.
In India, although the birth rate is also declining, the base of the youngest remains wider, giving it, at least for a while, a demographic advantage that cannot always be diminished by productivity gains or the adoption of technology. that it can reduce the current differences. Moreover, China’s increasing aging population adds weight to the already high burden on young people due to the country’s extreme competitiveness.
India has always been the great contender for superpower, but many doubt it will succeed in realizing that ambition. After all, the fact that a country of 1,300 million inhabitants surpasses another country of 67 million inhabitants does not seem like an epic achievement.
And various events have shown that not all that glitters is gold. For example, the strength of his army is overwhelming compared to that of his nemesis Pakistan; but it pales in comparison to China’s, as demonstrated in the war they faced in 1962 and confirmed two years ago, when Chinese soldiers literally killed several dozen Indian soldiers in the final skirmish on the Himalayan border.
In a recent report, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs unceremoniously questions how sustainable India’s growth is: “It looks like a tree built on loam,” he stresses. Of course, the institution believes that India can play a key role in geopolitical governance and that its interests “merge with those of Europe, especially in China’s vision of security in the Indo-Pacific and in strengthening multilateral institutions”. However, the Institute points out that India’s pursuit of self-sufficiency will worsen the environment for European companies based there and that the divergence in Modi’s interpretation of democracy could create tensions.
The current prime minister, a Hindu ultra-nationalist who has come to power since taking office in 2014, is key to understanding a boom that began with economic liberalization in 1991 and hit the accelerator with Modi at the wheel. He is the architect of two major projects approved to make a leap forward in both urban and rural areas. For the first, following in the footsteps of China, he designed “Make in India”, a series of subsidies and incentives to attract some of the industry that had settled in the neighboring giant and is trying to diversify to increase its exposure to reduce the changing designs of the Communist Party of China while reducing labor costs. One of the great successes has been the creation of multinationals such as Apple, which already produce some of their products in India.
“The program works very well to attract investment, develop technology and also promote local brands like ours,” said Intex mobile phone company president Keshav Bansal. “The challenge now is to retain the talent that is being created that often seeks better opportunities in countries like the United States, where multinationals are nurtured by many managers of Indian descent,” he adds.
These goals, which Gandhi’s land might share with those of any developed country, contrast with those of the Clean India Mission, which Modi designed with a much more mundane goal: to make sure every family has a latrine and all that. eradicate the feces. air, something some 600 million people practiced in 2014. Five years later, after building 100 million toilets, India claimed it had eradicated this scourge, which not only poses a health risk but also puts women in a vulnerable situation. However, a report from WHO and UNICEF found that last year 15% of the population still practices it, especially in rural areas.
“The problem is not just building the infrastructure. Also in ending deep-rooted habits. Because we Indians resist change. It is happening to the caste system, which was abolished decades ago but which still exists and is an obstacle to development: the untouchables remain so, especially in rural areas,” said Karanam, one of the leaders of the Pendlimanu people, in Andhra Pradesh. , who made the news for being one of the first to build latrines for all its inhabitants.
Source: La Verdad
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