India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to be celebrated as a man who truly put his country first. Picture: Adnan Abidi/Reuters
By Zakhele Madela
INDIA is rewriting the economic history books in front of the watching world in real time. Many former colonies and nations of Western Europe need to take lessons from the success of India’s historical trajectory that presents a story of resilience and ambition that is reshaping the global economic order.
S&P Global Ratings recently projected that India was on track to become the world’s third-largest economy after the United States and Republic of China before 2030. India’s meteoric rise marks a historic achievement for a nation that was once subjugated and impoverished under British colonial rule.
It was in the late 90s that India’s remarkable journey to join the league of the world’s dominant economic nations began, however, it has been over the last 10 years since 2014 that India’s rapid economic ascent is now as visible as the global powers, the US and China.
India’s economy is growing at a pace that leaves many nations gasping in disbelief, wondering how all this happened right under their noses. It is said that India’s economic growth is currently accelerating at nearly twice as fast as China’s and at three times the rate of the US. Thus, solidifying its position as a pivotal player on the global stage.
Many developing economies and underdeveloped economies observers are calling for their nations that were also once colonised by the European countries, just like India, to emulate India to rise out of economic abyss.
India is seemingly not naïve to think that all this phenomenal and meteoric rise of its economic development will not be challenged by the world’s economic superpowers. India has hatched its bets very well, in that in its journey to rise out of the colonial economy of Western Europe, it has maintained very good relations with the Russian Federation and the BRICS bloc of countries that it is part of.
In the early 2010s, India also undertook a major nuclear power plant programme with Russia’s Rosatom under the main pillar of “Make in India”. This nuclear programme has resulted in India setting the biggest nuclear supplier park in the world. Not only that, but the nuclear programme between India and Russia is set to propel India to join the five main nuclear vendor countries: the US, France, Korea, China, and Russia.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to be celebrated as a man who truly put his country first. Hence, the observation that the superpowers such as the US and other leading countries, including Japan, do not often stoke economic wars with India like they always do with the former colonies of the Western Europe countries.
India’s message and statement of intent is public knowledge and very clear: Set clear policy goals with measurable deliverables and get the world’s economies to come invest in India!
Ten Years Ago (2014): The Indian government, under Modi, embarked on a clear and well-thought-out strategy that was meticulously executed with a clear purpose to propel India to new heights. The strategy is based on four pillars of growth strategy:
1) Public Investment in Physical, Social, and Digital Infrastructure: Increase in Public Investment from US$36 billion (2014) to US$127bn (2024).
2) Inclusive Growth: Immense improvement for ease of banking, social development, and healthcare programmes. All these policy interventions put together have resulted in more than 250 million people being taken out of poverty.
3) Manufacturing and Innovation: Initiatives such as “Make in India” and “Start Up in India” have resulted in a vibrant manufacturing and innovation ecosystem that has propelled India into a global manufacturing hub just after China.
4) Simplification of Laws: Mainly based on the “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance” principle and “Freedom from the Colonial Mindset”, which helped India remove more than 1 500 archaic laws from the colonial statute books, thus resulting in over 40 000 unnecessary compliances and old laws being replaced with new laws that make it easy to do business in India.
As many former colonies of the Western Europe nations are marching towards their year 2024 visions, it goes without saying that they must take a leaf and learn good lessons from India’s ascent as the third-largest economy that is unfolding in front of the watching world.
Many nations joining the BRICS bloc of nations will need to take excellent lessons from India’s four pillars of economic growth.
* Madela is a scientist and an energy and business industry analyst with 26 years of experience. He holds a BSC degree in engineering. He is a chairman of the Economic Intervention Forum of South Africa (EIFSA). The views expressed here are his own.
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