Irresistible Rise of India

India faces daily titanic challenges unimaginable in western longitudes. Especially when faced year after year with keeping a continent-country within democratic rules, a “luxury” that Deng Xiaoping could afford.

In 1951, when it came to the first election in independent India, the Times of London noted with barely concealed acrimony that it would be the first and last election. And yet the ones India has been holding in recent weeks are the eighteenth since that distant year… The Indian miracle is made up of an infinite number of sub-miracles: amid widespread spirituality, dozens of cults are practiced, of which the confrontation between Hindus and Muslims is only the main one; the ethnic, religious, and economic contrast between the North, born in Mughal times, and the South, from the Dravidians, continues to shape the country’s development; the limitless demographic density of some states, most notably Uttar Pradesh, with its more than 200 million inhabitants, as many or more than the combined number of Germany, France, and Italy; 40 cities with more than one million inhabitants; horrible social differences, when Adani – one of the many examples – makes in a day more than millions of his compatriots combined earn over their entire lives; extremely worn-out federal system that reduces the central government to the role of a distant star. And yet it holds…

A miracle, as has been said. Which many, too many people take for granted. Think what would happen if the concept of caste was replaced by the concept of class. Six letters instead of five, but a whole universe of differences: India would instantly implode, buried under its own contradictions. In a hybrid era, when geopolitics appears incapable of farsightedness and consequently wears myopic glasses, we often hear talk in specialist circles about the Chinese century or, more recently, the Indian century. It is more likely, however, that the century, of which a quarter has already passed, is the Century of Nothing that Charles Kuphan, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, wrote very giftedly about fifteen years ago (No One’s World).

But this is the wrong criterion to evaluate India: no matter how we define the times we live in, India has earned every right to be among the leading explorers. And not just in GDP, which, having overtaken Britain’s last year, ranks fifth among major economies with the prospect of fourth, Germany’s, and third, Japan’s, expecting to overtake them by the end of the decade. Ten years ago, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was elected, India was going to be one of the “top ten” global economies. Goldman Sachs predicts that India will be the world’s second largest economy by 2075, and the influential Martin Wolf of the Financial Times suggests that by 2050, its purchasing power will be 30 percent greater than that of the United States. After so many false starts, few believed that the Indian elephant had finally put on the sprinter’s jacket.

Why is it so difficult to measure India? Why doesn’t it allow itself to be encapsulated in sound bites from participants at the Davos and Cernobbio conferences? Because it is home to a universal sense of “oneness” that cannot be understood in terms of geopolitics or geo-economics alone; it is both too much and not enough on the classical scale of power. On the contrary, India needs to be photographed on film using short exposure, otherwise the frame will turn out blurry. The Economist magazine, headquartered in the control room of the former colonial power, takes the risk of summing up and declares that “the Indian moment” based on dynamism and nationalist pride has arrived. To this must be added a peculiarity, which the English have a poor command of, but which the Italians abound in, the “jugaad,” or the art of forging out and finding innovative solutions. After all, we are talking about a country where Gurchran Das wrote at the turn of the century that “India grows at night, when the government sleeps,” suggesting that his country was growing despite a weak and inefficient state. And this is another of the countless elements that distinguish India’s chaotic democracy from China’s rigid autocracy.

There is no doubt that India’s elephant is galloping forward: it is not only economic growth, which will exceed 7 percent this year, but also the growth of the middle class, accelerated urbanization, modernization of the military apparatus – the fourth largest global expenditure item, a privileged lane between Moscow and Washington, the only one capable of moving between East and West, North and South. The records are multiplying: the world’s number one exporter in the ICT sector (Bangalore’s tech hub is worth $100 billion and should reach 250 by the end of the decade); third place in pharmaceuticals; 25 CEOs of S&P 500 Index companies are of Indian origin, a sign of the exuberant vitality that abounds in the Central Bank’s brilliant Sikh governor, Ajay Banga; a demographic dividend – which will last for the next 50 years – fueled by 600 million young people under 25 (the average age is 28, compared to 38 in the USA, 39 in China, and 46 in Europe); widespread use of English as a veicular language; an independent legal system (rule of law); digital infrastructure in many areas more developed than in the USA; a shift from China to India by some large multinational companies, starting with Apple, which by 2030 will manufacture 50 percent of its iPhones in India; a third energy-consuming country, it is already fourth in the world in installed renewable energy capacity. Notably, many Indian banks are valued higher than their American counterparts: HDFC Bank has a market capitalization of $171 billion and is the fourth largest financial services company in the world. According to Morgan Stanley, India alone will account for 20 percent of global growth between now and the end of the decade. India, with 900 million internet subscribers, is the world’s second largest country in terms of users, just after China. Not to mention the space that New Delhi is reclaiming for itself in astropolitics – the space race – that would make proud Vikram Ambalaj, India’s von Braun, whose heirs landed a probe at the South Pole of our satellite, the world’s first, which is equivalent to 6 percent of the US space budget. Never forget the size: 5 billion movie tickets and 7 billion train tickets are sold every year, so no wonder the New York Times wrote that India is not only the largest democracy in the world, but also “the largest in everything…”

But even in the Indian miracle, traps are laid. Urban pollution is among the highest in the world, and Delhi today is arguably the capital city with the worst air on the planet. The restrictions imposed on joint ventures with local partners have discouraged quite a few large multinational companies from investing in India. Basic education is still inadequate (6.3 years), although 1.5 million engineers pursue higher education each year. Growing religious tensions are a multitude of land mines ready to explode. Not to mention that the Indian economy is still tied to the service sector rather than the manufacturing sector, which has actually ensured China’s fast race as the world’s factory: Prime Minister Modi’s “Make in India” (“from farm to factory”), which was supposed to increase the contribution of the industrial sector from 15 to 25 percent of GDP, has stalled at 20 percent. A competitive advantage in the ICT and AI sector can only create jobs for a few million people, which is not enough to prevent the demographic dividend from turning into a dangerous boomerang that leaves legions of workers in the informal economy, as this sector has a modest definition of illegal work. Four other disadvantages should also be considered: less than a third of women work; more than 100 million people will enter the labor market by 2030 (more than a million per month); the contribution of these 40 percent of the population engaged in agriculture produces only 15 percent of national GDP; and the north-south divide is widening: 5 southern states where Modi’s party, the BJP, is a minority: major multinational companies, the most high-profile startups, the campuses of major universities.

India is thus a photograph that can be understood depending on the filter used: in some ways it leans towards lighter colors, and in other ways it leans towards darker colors. However, one should not be fooled: in a world gripped by the polycrisis described by Adan Tooze, the desire for the future prevails in India; its soft power wins out and continues to fascinate. And Prime Minister Modi’s economic strategy – creating a large domestic market, investing in advanced technology and ICT, and digital prosperity – works and is in tune with the prevailing pride of a young nation that believes in its own miracle and destiny.

Speaking of the future: the TATA Group, which took over the bankrupt Air India in 2021, completed the largest order in history, buying or ordering 220 Boeings and 250 Airbuses, earning the eternal gratitude of Presidents Biden and Macron. By 2030, the Indian middle class will spend $140 billion per year on overseas travel with 50 million tourists, and in 2040 that number will rise to 80 million: values that will change the characteristics of the global tourism industry…