Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: The next big step is to improve the human capital or Human Development Index, to educate and skill its vast youth so that they can contribute towards national development.
Every nation faces a challenge to ensure its people have the skills for the future, from creativity to tech knowhow. The challenge for India is a formidable one – given the sheer size of the population. If these people can find jobs, India could see a huge ‘demographic dividend’ – speedy economic growth from millions of new workers entering the labour force.
There is danger too; if these people can’t find jobs, millions of potential workers could instead become disaffected, fuelling social instability. Strong military: India has to build a strong military to secure its borders so that developmental work may continue unhindered. Therefore, it needs to upscale its defence R&D and should design and build critical defence equipment to be self-reliant and protect its national security. We should also collaborate with friendly countries like the US, Israel, France, and Russia for joint development and production of defence equipment and platforms.
The development of Brahmos missiles with Russia is an excellent example of that. Another connected issue is securing maritime sea lanes and trade routes. For this, India has to build a blue water navy to project its power, at least in the Indian Ocean region, if not beyond.
Future development Critical minerals and semiconductors: For future development and industrial growth, certain critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and rare earths are necessary, which are used in batteries and electronics. India should keep its focus on extracting/processing critical minerals and also developing capacities in various critical technologies that are necessary in future industries and development, such as electric vehicles, electronic chips, semiconductors, mobiles, and high-tech gadgets.
For India to enter the next orbit of growth, reforms in three areas are essential and requires Government’s immediate attention. They are land reforms, labour reforms and agriculture sector reforms
Soft power: India should also expand its soft power, spread its culture, way of thought and living, films, yoga, sports, business model, and digital transformation with the help of the Indian diaspora. It is common knowledge that most of the high-tech companies globally like Microsoft, Google, Twitter, and Facebook are run and managed by Indian talent, which is a huge power. We need to capitalise on and harness that power. Our ancient wisdom and culture, non-violence, peace, and our icons like Buddha, Ashoka, and Gandhi are huge draws globally.
Next-gen reforms: For India to enter the next orbit of growth, reforms in three areas are essential and requires Government’s immediate attention. They are land reforms, labour reforms and agriculture sector reforms, which are quite sensitive and raise strong emotions in masses. In the last few years or so the Government tried to reform all these sectors, but only had partial success. On the labour front, the Government has consolidated 29 existing labour laws into three Acts On the land laws front, the Government tried to reform and making land acquisition simpler and compensation fair. However there was huge resistance across parties and, therefore, those reforms are stalled.
Farm sector reforms The next is agriculture sector reforms: The Government had brought in three laws in June 2020 during Covid period. However, such strong were farmers’ protest that the Government had to withdraw the same in 2022. What progress could be made in future in these areas will determine to a large extent that when we reach a fully developed status.
Taking state governments on board: India is a federal country and many areas are under exclusive domain of states, while a few are in the Concurrent List. For legislative changes in these subjects, concurrence of states is necessary. Also many developmental activities, though Centre-sponsored, are to be implemented by the states. So states have to be taken on board. Since different political parties, with differing ideologies rule different states, taking everyone along becomes a Herculean task. Unless both Centre and states work in tandem, developmental projects cannot be completed at required pace. So some kind of consensus among political parties is necessary on major reforms and developmental direction.
Fraught with challenges The above ideas can act as a catalyst to ensure runaway success for India, aligning the nation with some of the most powerful forces shaping the global economy from tech to sustainability. The road is fraught with challenges such as not yet fully developed infrastructure in many rural areas, low per capita incomes to social cohesion, and energy transition. But through continued investment and focus on these areas, India could make itself one of the world’s great economic powerhouses, while offering the global community a model of how to achieve inclusive, sustainable prosperity. India will not emerge as a superpower unless it is smart enough to manage the process of getting from here to there.
These processes will have a direct bearing on how the country is organised, how it thinks, and how it behaves by the time it attains superpower status. The seeds are being planted right now. It will not be easy. There will be many political, economic, bureaucratic, and p s y c h o l o g i c a l challenges and vested interests to overcome. Indeed, China didn’t have an easy time either!