Presently the whole attention of of most thinking people of India is on the in- coming elections in five states, including all important Uttar Pradesh. Elections have become synonymous of democracy in India.
The day to day functioning of states and central governments, ruled by any party however, is becoming increasingly autocratic by intimidation of criminal proceedings and detention. In electoral war only lip service is given to economic issues, and even the economic issues are confined to inflation and unemployment.
No party talks about how to increase the wealth of India and minimise the ever increasing inequality in Indian society. The result is that politics has obliterated the long-term economic goals.
The current GDP of India is $3.1 trillion. The present GDP of China is estimated to be $18 trillion with the rise of 8.1% in 2021. In other words Just in four-five years size of Chinese economy has become India’s six times from five times.
The increase in Chinese GDP in a few years is equal to Indian GDP. It is to the credit of India that in spite of such a poor base, India has withstood with equal might against China on Himalayan borders.
China has already emerged as a real world power. India for its survival is rightly leaning to US by becoming part of Quad. But China is set to surpass US GDP by 2030.
China can even surpass US in some defence technologies and become a bigger threat not only to India but to the world.
China, US and India will matter the most in future but with India as a distant poor third due to its small minded politicians.
With its present military strength China has started treating US as its equal as is evident by its moves in South China Sea.
I will remind the virtual face-to-face meeting of US President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping held on 15th November last year.
In the summit Joe Biden tried to raise human rights issues in China. Xi, anticipating this, told in his opening remarks “ We should each run our domestic affairs well and at the same time shoulder our share of international responsibilities – -“. This was a direct snub to US and in effect was a signal to US to mind its own affairs.
It is too much to expect from our politicians, calculating caste and religion and throwing freebies all the time, to have any meaningful long-term vision for making India a prosperous and strong country and with a capacity to implement the vision into action. Tragedy is that if at all any dynamic leader tries this in future, he should be sure that he would be pulled down by all other politicians combined together.
