There is no better path to success than treating your rivals as inspiration and our next-door neighbour tipping Britain, its former coloniser, to become the world’s fifth-largest economy is a great success story. A country that had started off with just INR 2.7 lakh crore in the pocket seventy-five years ago now has its eyes set on the $5 trillion club and while the turning of tables has a lot to do with the shortcomings of the Britons, a collective pat on having achieved the unthinkable is well-deserved.
New Delhi is pretty confident in climbing two more notches on the ladder by the end of this decade and its hawks must be crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s to their latest propaganda trumpeting their superiority to every nation in the world. Felicitations aside, analysts have already started waving the caution flag, drawing attention to the country’s sizeable population concerns. Since India has a population 20 times larger than that of the UK, it would be forced to “stretch the GDP over many more people,” sighed popular leader Shashi Tharoor.
This frisson of excitement over finally one-upping the masters, showing the salt’s worth to those who had predicted a looming descent into chaos might produce some exciting headlines, but the writing on the wall remains unchanged. The sweeteners of a beyond-expectations economic growth are yet to reach the bottom wrung.
A commendable journey from being in the fragile five just eight years ago should not have only concentrated on the top one per cent. Even today, the gains are only shared by a narrow section of the people as divisions become more pronounced, thanks to its populist leadership. What India has managed to secure on the economic front becomes a bag of missed opportunities on the social front.
Busy exploiting differences in caste, region and community just to tighten their own grip on the crown, the ruling BJP is shamelessly adding to the inequality woes.
Before getting carried away by the celebrations, New Delhi, or, at least, some of its saner minds, would do well to remember that a GDP should belong to each and every Indian living in the tri-coloured flag. May it be a Muslim butcher in Uttar Pradesh or a member of the lowest Dalit caste in Gujarat, they are all to share the bounty *