The world needs new superheroes. With the new century’s centre of gravity shifting east, many believe that we need something a western-friendly wonder boy in the east. It’s not surprising, then, that India, is being eyed up as the next musclebound power stud.
From a safe distance, it seems India has the beginnings of everything that could make it a star: a growing middle class, a diverse economy, natural resources, progressive western education, reliable armed forces, widespread proficiency in the English language, and, above all, democracy. The left love India and its people because they are the downtrodden made good; the right adore the Indian people because they have cheap labour, civil rights and a loose political ideology which leaves them always up for a deal.
It may seem that India has it all, but on the ground, the truth is different. India is as close to collapse as it is to success. It has yet to realise that a powerful economy is only one component of a successful nation. And further, it is a dependent component; India will falter unless its deep social flaws are faced—and addressed.
India’s social division is worse than any other country in the world. It does not have a simple class system that permits eventual social mobility; it has caste. Society is structurally divided, and there seems little popular will to break it. The government’s attempts to create social fluidity are having little impact, and face massive opposition from religious groups and high caste lobbyists. As a result, vast chunks of Indian society will be without the education, experience or aspiration expected of a first world citizen.
The robustness and endurance of a nation is only assured if there is an underlying benevolence between each citizen, and a general belief in and commitment to the reduction of poverty. This is not the case in India. Poverty is considered a non-issue by the average Indian. Little sympathy is shown for a street beggar or orphaned child, as it is considered that their station in life and birthright is a result of acts committed in previous incarnations, and thus a needed step toward ultimate dharma. India has an ever-increasing underclass, but is unmoved by it and without motivation to solve it. It holds in its hands a poverty time bomb, yet with no sense of hurry to defuse it.
India is also facing a gender imbalance of staggering proportions. The gender balance in some states at 300 females per 1000 males—down from a national figure of 972 per 1000 in 1901. And despite the best efforts of the government, which has subsidised female education and established quotas, the statistics worsen every year. It is a simple biological truth, and not gender politics, that a nation cannot function properly without women.
Many of India’s social catastrophes are rooted in religion. Caste is a religious construct, as is gender preference; it is scripted, considered to be commanded by a force mightier than man, hence there is little debate or questioning, and little prospect of change.
But it is religious complexity, as much as the religions themselves, which creates weakness for India. A report to Congress in May 2010 labelled the Indian government response to religious violence as “inadequate” as it “failed to take effective measures to ensure the rights of religious minorities.” There were a reported 698 communal terror attacks in 2008—enough for India to be considered by the US Commission International Religious Freedom as being on par with Somalia, Afghanistan and Belarus in failing to protect minorities.
Civil war threatens in states such as Assam, Maharashtra, Kashmir, Manipur and Punjab with violent incidents and terror attacks a virtually daily occurrence. A Maoist insurgency now roars across India. Rooted in the eastern state of Assam, home to 36 of India’s 159 recognized terrorist groups, it claimed 998 lives in 2009. The much publicized ‘five-star’ bombings in Mumbai demonstrate that even the better protected major cities are not immune from the violence that can result from social discord, and even without bombings and bullets, most cities have a tinder box atmosphere.
Much of India’s claim for ‘emerging superpower’ status is pinned on its economy. Yet this economy faces significant structural weaknesses: its manufacturers face unrelenting pressure from China, its services are proving to be transient and its agricultural sector is so badly managed that it fluctuates violently between sustainability and Malthusian disaster within a season. It is blighted further by a subsidy culture and endemic corruption that infects every level of India’s bureaucracy, from postman to president.
The astonishing growth rate has little effect on the average Indian—GDP per capita has increased only incrementally to $3015 leaving it at 127th in the world rankings. The balance of payments deficit has widened to $119 billion in 2009, and debt to GDP ratio hit an eye-watering 75 per cent in 2010. European nations are currently declaring bankruptcy on comparative numbers. These are not the statistics of an emerging giant; and instead betray the worrying truth beneath some thick coats of gloss.
India’s key indicators, both social and economic, suggest it is failing more often than it succeeds, and though the country is desperately trying to ape the most glamorous western models, it remains closer than we (and many Indians) think to an archetypal banana republic, barely in control of basic functions.
India may have the swagger of a superhero; but the reality is that India’s people, for all their individual strengths and capabilities, are without common purpose, common identity or a binding sense of common humanity. If they wish to have powerful economy, there needs to be first a universal commitment toward building a sustainable, plausible and unified society.
Is faith in India misplaced?
May 06, 2011
