Whether India will be super power or not is not a new question. It has been in public mindset since Mr. Nehru gave tryst with dynasty speech on Independence Day. But it is hard to define the word superpower. Do we mean that we want to militarily strong like USA? Or do we mean, given ‘peaceful’ nature of Indians, that roti, kapada aur makaan as the ultimate goal of our nation. And what is the probability of achieving this goal considering current situation of Indian state and its political class?
In any case, I sincerely believe that we need at least another 100 years to achieve these goals. It is just impossible to see India as a superpower nation by 2050, forget about 2020. It is a very slow process and we have to connect lot of dots to form exact picture of developed and strong India. The process is definitely underway but there are few issues we have deal with before proclaiming that India is on its way to ‘superpowerdom’. In this column I am trying to pin point three points which is making the task of making India a superpower almost impossible at this moment.
The most important thing needed for any nation to advance on development chart is best human resource. And at the same time it is necessary to manage that human capital. USA become superpower and continues to hold that position only because they attract best talent from every possible corner of the world and then manage them to perfection. India is blessed with one of the top most human capital in the world but unfortunately it is squandering this wealth by pure mismanagement. The success of Non Resident Indians in US and in other countries prove this point and shows us that if we could garner our home grown brain for development of India then the result would be stupendous. But our uneducated, short sighted and extremely corrupt political class on both national and state government level thinks other way.
I am not concerned about lack Research and Development in India. We do not have huge reservoir of money for continuous R&D as in US. But mismanagement here means, not giving talented people a fair chance. The extremely aggressive reservation policies are not only making our top notch brain fly from India but it is actually hampering development of Indian society in education sector. A society can make progress only on merit basis. Nepotism and favoritism are curses to the development. But vote bank policies are making the task of giving fair treatment to suitable people impossible.
The other important thing that is necessary for any country to become superpower is that its political class should be aware of potential energy of a country and deep in conscious the political and administrative class should think that India can be superpower. And then they should be able to install this faith and confidence in their country in general populace. Basically, citizens and ruling class both should have attitude that they have ability to become great and their superpower status will benefit world. British people used to think that they are actually “helping” Indian people rather than ruling them and same is with US citizen in case of Iraq. But the political class is so busy in playing dirty politics to keep themselves in power they do not have time to think about future of India. The burgeoning corruption in all possible spheres of administration is making the task of overall development like infrastructure of country impossible.
India is a lot different than any of the western country. We have very long history and highly developed culture. The way Indians work and think is different than western countries. So, developmental plans should be tailored according to the necessities and conditions of this country. Blindly aping the economic policies of western countries will not be good in long run. Sadly, that is what we are doing at this moment. Right from the film making (barring few efforts!) to the economic policies all we do is to copy what US does. Sure, capitalism is a better way of development but capitalism by US way is sure shot way of suicide. With deteriorating public health and complete crash of family structure, even US policy makers are grappling to find out way to deal with these problems in their current capitalistic model. Do we need to go through all this before we realize that, it is not what we wanted? Worsening public health post 1990 economic boom gives us glimpse of what is stored ahead if we continue to go down the US capitalistic way.
Though becoming superpower is a highly desirable growth, actually achieving it is a very hard task. I do not mean to sound pessimistic here. The achievements of India in last 50 years or so are worth applause. The literacy drive had stupendous success. Within fifty years we produced one of the top class universities of the world. The success of students passing from this university speaks volumes of its education institutional success. But we are talking about being a superpower here. It will give us power to impose our will on other nation and our decision will have decisive effects in world politics. Again, it is extremely ardent task. And I believe we need 100 years to overcome all the problems.
3 comments:
Chinmay,
Your article is very relevant and practical.I have same point of view about India being a super power as yours.But I have some different reasons to believe that notion.We the 'peaceful' Indians are not capitalist by nature.First of all we donot consider human as resource.That's why our productivity /efficiency is not comparable to America.
Being a superpower in my opinion is to make other countries dependent on your decisions.America has that stature as it can announce soem country as terrorist,it can provide aid to a certain country,it can act as refree in solving disputes among countries.Hence in my opinion being a super power means acquiring wealth and infleuncing policies of rest of the world by it.It requires aggressive mentality. We can possible acquire that wealth but can we impose our views on other countries?Can we go to war simply because other weak countries have different point of views than ours(as the Americans did in vietnam)?And if we go to such war will our people support us?The point of my argument is we don't have the mentality to become super power,if we want to be at the position where America is at present.to achieve that position we not only have to groom our politicians to become capitalistic to realize the importance of human resource but we also have to groom Indian people and coming Indian generations to follow the same path.Caste Rerevation policies and vote bank mentality can be changed only if Government and people think in the same direction,which is very difficult to achieve as India has the most diverse population on earth.
We can possibly pursue our talent to remain in India,which we are thinking very seriously now a days.But it is very hard to invest same amount of resources in R& D as America can, because American dollars enjoy very high value as compared to Indian Rupees.
The obstacle faced by America in investing R&D or human resource is easier than India as its population is aware of miracles of hi-fi inventions, whereas Indian popoulation which is struggling to make both ends meet at the end of the day cannot support such vast budget on R&D.Second obstacle for India is unawareness and illiteracy.
Unless India work on these areas,it is impossible for India to become a SuperPower.The task is in front of India is vast and it definately needs time.Hence in my opinion India is not going to be a Super Power within a few decades.
A good post.
Ashish
Thanks Ashish and anonymous for reading my blogs and commenting on it.
To Anonymous,
Thanks a lot for such a valuable post. I completely agree with you on most of the points. India definitly have diverse population but if we take larger view then we can certainly see that all over Indian, INDIANS work the same way so if we somehow exploit this common background then we can achieve what we desire.
Thanks again for comment.
To Ashish,
I visited your blog and it is interesting. I will visit your blog regularly.
best,
Chinmay Rahalkar
Post a Comment