Some may disagree but India has failed to cash in on its spirited struggle for freedom from the over-a-100-year-old British Raj to convert the country into an abode of peace and prosperity for its citizens in the last 75 years. Official claims apart, India continues to be a poor country with almost 280 million people, or 20 percent of its population living in poverty. The country’s demographic failure far overtakes its economic success in select areas. The total population of India was only about 340 million at the time of its independence. In March 2022, the population figure reached 1417 million. Next year, it is expected to surpass China’s. The massive population growth negated almost all its accomplishments. Every year, more mouths are needed to be fed and more hands are required to be provided with jobs. On a per capita basis, every achievement looked small and inadequate. The country’s two biggest accomplishments over the last seven decades have been its commitment to democracy despite many frictions and its self-sufficiency in food grains production.
In most of the other areas, the country’s achievements, in the global context are either neutral or even negative though India did reasonably well in pushing up electricity generation and distribution, urbanisation, housing and rural development. According to the Union Power Ministry, only 3,061 villages had access to electricity in 1950. In 2018, the Government announced that 5,97,464 villages had been electrified. Since India and modern China were liberated around the same time, the comparison of the two country’s economic progress is natural. India is the second most populated country after China with a sixth of the world’s population. The UN has projected China’s population in 2022 at 1,426 million, showing a zero percent increase from the 2021 level, whereas India’s population would grow by 0.68 percent this year over the 2021 figure. The population growth, rising unemployment, increasing imports and trade deficits, slow growth of manufacturing, domestic inflation, high rates of indirect taxation, and the Indian Rupee’s dwindling exchange rate value are among the most challenging areas of the country’s development.
It is important to note that in 1947, USD was equal to only INR 3.30. Till 1980, one USD was equal to INR 7.86. In August 2021, USD 1 was equal to INR 74. Earlier this month, INR’s exchange value fell to INR 80 for one USD. India’s economy went through a very tough time in the early 1990s. Interest payments accounted for almost 40 percent of the National Government’s revenue. The fiscal deficit was 7.8 percent of GDP. And India was on the verge of being declared an international market defaulter. The crisis led to an IMF-World Bank prescribed economic reform and an official devaluation of the Indian currency. Since the middle of last year, INR got hammered by the systematic withdrawal of foreign portfolio investors from the market, rising oil prices and inflation. Factors such as these with several others may cause further depreciation of INR in the future. The Government has failed to manage the economy well, especially since the 1980s. Honestly, there is little to cheer about ‘Amrit Mahotsav’, a nationwide initiative by the Government to commemorate India’s 75th year of Independence. The world’s most populous country must try to do some soul searching to find out where it had gone wrong to meet the expectations of its people and try to rectify them fast.
