India can generate an additional $20 trillion of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2022 if Indians become reasonably honest, for then the country's ranking in the human development index (HDI) could rise to 20th from 125th now, feels C K Prahalad, corporate strategy guru and professor at the University of Michigan, US.
Speaking at an interactive session on "India @ 75", organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Prahalad said, moral leadership was equally important for a country's development as economic wellbeing.
Rich nations like Germany, Italy and Soviet Union could not develop under immoral leadership.
Economic strength, technological vitality and moral leadership were vital to the country's development.
With all these, India can become the world’s largest pool of trained manpower, can have 30 of the world’s largest corporations and account for 10 per cent of world trade by 2022, he said.
Clarity of direction, with willingness to discover rather than imitate best practices, along with definite goals, would help make India a developed nation.
"We need a radical rethink of policies and practices, shared commitment to goals, creativity and innovation, focus on entrepreneurship for being a developed nation," he said.
A change in "mental model" was required too, along with data-driven and not dogma-driven debate, and focus on individual rights instead of group rights.
India had more ethnic and caste-based groups at present, than at the time of independence, because of certain privileges associated with them, he admitted.
However, this diversity was a strength, though conflicts the world over were on the basis of ethnicity, he said.
