India's incredible year

After the success of G20 and the moon mission, the country needs a few vital course corrections to pave the way to an advanced nation by 2047

When we look back on 2023, it may well mark the year that India arrived on the global stage. It became the world’s most populous country and the world’s fifth-largest economy, surpassing its former colonial power, Great Britain. The successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the south pole of the moon brought it into a select list of three space powers, the USA, the former Soviet Union (Russia failed this time), and China. And the fact that India, a nuclear power, will soon become the world’s third-largest economy, should guarantee it a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

As we applaud the wonderful team that got us to the moon, we must also recognise that credit must go to past governments, starting with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who kept our space programme a priority. Credit must also go to scientists like Homi Bhabha, Vikram Sarabhai, and APJ Abdul Kalam, who built its foundations, despite failures and the many naysayers in India and abroad, who felt a space programme was a luxury for a poor country. Our successful moon shot has shown that if we put our mind to it, as Narendra Modi said, “for India the sky is no longer the limit”. We must also remember that we are the only country on Mother Earth with an entire Ocean named after it — there is much to explore in its depths as well.

With the symbolic Lord Shiva’s cosmic dance (Nataraja) to greet delegates, India also pulled off a successful G20 presidency in 2023, despite huge geo-political fissures and Xi Jinping’s petulant absence. The expansion of the G20 to include the African Union, reforms of multilateral banks, crypto regulation, and the push for digital public infrastructure to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) are notable outcomes of India’s vigorous presidency as champion of the Global South. The announcement of an India-Middle East-EU infrastructure corridor with US support to provide an alternative to China’s debt-ridden Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was also significant. More should have been done on comprehensive and faster debt restructuring — but China with its huge BRI debt, is not fully on board.

As India hands the now “G21” gavel to Brazil, it is well-positioned going forward — considering where it started. In 1947, when it gained independence from 200 years of British colonial rule, its 340 million citizens had a life expectancy of a mere 32 years, the literacy rate was 12 per cent, and almost 90 per cent of the people were poor (see table). In comparison, the French left Vietnam with a life expectancy of 50 years, well ahead of that in India, albeit with a literacy rate at 10 per cent. China, despite being ravaged by war, had better statistics on life expectancy and literacy than India did under “peaceful” British rule. And in the Philippines, an American colony, life expectancy in 1948 was 45 years, with literacy at 60 per cent, way ahead of India’s metrics, as was the case in Malaya.

Even South Africa under apartheid did more to educate the Black and Indian population than did the British. Korea and Taiwan under Japanese rule also did much better than India on both health and education. Thailand, never colonised, and Brazil, after having shaken off Portuguese rule in the 19th century, also were better off than India. Even Indians who went to places like Fiji and Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) as indentured labour did much better. In Fiji, life expectancy was 50 years in 1946 and literacy was 64 per cent.  In T&T, they did even better as life expectancy in 1946 was around 53 years and the literacy rate was 74 per cent.

India has indeed come a long way, and as it completes a successful year and pushes to become an advanced country by 2047, let me emphasise four course corrections we need to make.

First, India’s illiteracy at 25 per cent today remains much too high and must be addressed. Most other countries in our comparator table have almost wiped-out illiteracy. The most impressive progress was made by Vietnam, which conducted mass literacy campaigns to educate its population after the French had left most of its population illiterate. 

Second, if we can succeed in sending a rocket to the moon, we must also ask why we are unable to make greater progress in industry where we have fallen behind many competitors. India is now trying to reverse this “pre-mature deindustrialisation” through the production-linked incentive scheme, import tariffs, and bans. Smart industrial policy to make India more competitive is needed but shutting ourselves off from the world is hardly the way forward to success.

Third, the welcome sight of so many women scientists in our space programme again stands in sharp contrast to our incredibly low and, until recently, declining female labour force participation rates. It shows that if the discrimination against women is removed and more women enter the paid workforce, India will be a winner.

Finally, despite considerable liberalisation since 1991, the heavy hand of the bureaucracy, and conflicting rules and regulations leading to corruption still stifle growth, investment and innovation. These issues must be addressed, along with much greater devolution of government functions to the local level to deliver better basic services, like primary education, basic health care, and municipal services.

If we keep our focus and not get bogged down in divisive politics, ethnic and religious bloodshed, as we have seen in Manipur and other places, and instead focus on course correcting our policies and addressing weaknesses, we will surely become an advanced country — a Viksit Bharat — by 2047, 100 years after the British left a partitioned India in a miserable state.  

The writer is distinguished visiting scholar, George Washington University and his co-authored book Unshackling India (Harper Collins 2021) was declared the Best New Book in Economics 2022 by The Financial Times