Why India is not a superpower

[*Awan*]

'It hurts the pride of Indians to be reminded of the country's poverty. But the existence of poverty itself does not hurt their pride.' Photo: Reuters

Rich Indians have forgotten the country cannot meet the basic needs of poor people.

Rich Indians hallucinating about India becoming a superpower have had delivered a much-needed thump on the head courtesy of a study by the London School of Economics, which found that it's doubtful if the country can ever become a superpower.

The whole notion that India is an ''emerging superpower'' has always been ridiculous and whoever first mooted the idea - Bill Clinton or George Bush - during the excess of goodwill that invariably accompanies a state visit, should have been bundled off to a laboratory to have his brain dissected to locate the precise site of the raving lunacy.

Even more preposterous has been the uncritical alacrity with which rich Indians embraced the notion when all they have to do is drive a few kilometres outside the big cities to rural India for a flashback to the 18th century or, even closer to home, to a nearby slum to see disease, hunger and misery that beggars belief.

The LSE study by nine India experts concludes that, despite ''impressive'' achievements, India is unlikely to become a superpower for many reasons including "the increasing gap between the rich and the poor; the trivialisation of the media; the unsustainability, in an environmental sense, of present patterns of resource consumption; the instability and policy incoherence caused by multi-party coalition governments''.

The study adds: "India still faces major developmental challenges. The still-entrenched divisions of caste structure are being compounded by the emergence of new inequalities of wealth stemming from India's economic success.''

These inequalities take your breath away. While the rich consume luxury goods and the middle class buys fancy cars and gadgets and holidays in Bangkok, they blind themselves to the reality for 700 million or so immiserated Indians. In their vainglorious dinner-table talk about ''superpower'' status, they forget that a country that cannot meet a poor person's most basic needs - enough food, clean drinking water, and electricity - has no business aspiring to superpower status.

One has always heard that Indians have traditionally lacked a certain respect for the facts but this wilful disregard of reality is disturbing. Affluent Indians have bought the superpower fantasy not just because of a contempt for the facts, but from pride and vanity and a tendency to get all puffed up the moment the country manages any achievement.

So an obscure international award for some Indian film, a bronze medal in a sport that no one watches, an Indian company's takeover of a foreign company, or an Indian kid topping a maths exam in the US, are all trumpeted as evidence that India has conquered the world.

This is the reality: about 400 million Indians have no electricity; India has more mobile phones than toilets; millions of children are not in school; most cities have no sewage treatment systems; no major city has a continuous water supply; disease is rampant; infrastructure is pitiful; and a UNICEF report released this month says there is acute malnutrition and hunger among the urban poor, with 54 per cent more infants dying from among the urban poor than from the urban non-poor. Another UNICEF report found that 93 million Indians live in urban slums, on pavements and construction sites.

Yet should anyone plead that the poor have been left behind they will be subject to heated criticism. It hurts the pride of Indians to be reminded of the country's poverty. But the existence of poverty itself does not hurt their pride.

Economic growth rates of about 8-9 per cent over the past few years have been justifiably praiseworthy. But the benefits of this growth have been confined to the middle class and the rich.

The poor still do not have homes, basic sanitation, decent schools or nutritious food. As a young girl in American author Katherine Boo's much-acclaimed new book Behind the Beautiful Forevers, about life in a Mumbai slum, says: "We try so many things but the world doesn't move in our favour."

Middle-class Indians need to read Boo's book about life in a rat-infested hovel, near a sewage lake, with rampant dengue fever, malaria and tuberculosis, with scraps for meals, a single toilet for 100 families and then try claiming that India is becoming a superpower. There are many criteria for defining a superpower, but for India an extra one should be added. Let no one utter the world ''superpower'' till every Indian family has a toilet in their home.

India Is Not A Superpower

 

[karan21]

we r not a superpower and u guys keep praying to allah that we shall never be and keep reminding us of the poverty. ur doing a great job as an opposition. i thank u for it.

 

[IndoUS]

Its good to have such good neighbors, they remind us of our shortcomings, which in return help us overcome them.

 

[aman1981]

'It hurts the pride of Indians to be reminded of the country's poverty. But the existence of poverty itself does not hurt their pride.' Photo: Reuters

Rich Indians have forgotten the country cannot meet the basic needs of poor people.

Rich Indians hallucinating about India becoming a superpower have had delivered a much-needed thump on the head courtesy of a study by the London School of Economics, which found that it's doubtful if the country can ever become a superpower.

The whole notion that India is an ''emerging superpower'' has always been ridiculous and whoever first mooted the idea - Bill Clinton or George Bush - during the excess of goodwill that invariably accompanies a state visit, should have been bundled off to a laboratory to have his brain dissected to locate the precise site of the raving lunacy.

Even more preposterous has been the uncritical alacrity with which rich Indians embraced the notion when all they have to do is drive a few kilometres outside the big cities to rural India for a flashback to the 18th century or, even closer to home, to a nearby slum to see disease, hunger and misery that beggars belief.

The LSE study by nine India experts concludes that, despite ''impressive'' achievements, India is unlikely to become a superpower for many reasons including "the increasing gap between the rich and the poor; the trivialisation of the media; the unsustainability, in an environmental sense, of present patterns of resource consumption; the instability and policy incoherence caused by multi-party coalition governments''.

The study adds: "India still faces major developmental challenges. The still-entrenched divisions of caste structure are being compounded by the emergence of new inequalities of wealth stemming from India's economic success.''

These inequalities take your breath away. While the rich consume luxury goods and the middle class buys fancy cars and gadgets and holidays in Bangkok, they blind themselves to the reality for 700 million or so immiserated Indians. In their vainglorious dinner-table talk about ''superpower'' status, they forget that a country that cannot meet a poor person's most basic needs - enough food, clean drinking water, and electricity - has no business aspiring to superpower status.

One has always heard that Indians have traditionally lacked a certain respect for the facts but this wilful disregard of reality is disturbing. Affluent Indians have bought the superpower fantasy not just because of a contempt for the facts, but from pride and vanity and a tendency to get all puffed up the moment the country manages any achievement.

So an obscure international award for some Indian film, a bronze medal in a sport that no one watches, an Indian company's takeover of a foreign company, or an Indian kid topping a maths exam in the US, are all trumpeted as evidence that India has conquered the world.

This is the reality: about 400 million Indians have no electricity; India has more mobile phones than toilets; millions of children are not in school; most cities have no sewage treatment systems; no major city has a continuous water supply; disease is rampant; infrastructure is pitiful; and a UNICEF report released this month says there is acute malnutrition and hunger among the urban poor, with 54 per cent more infants dying from among the urban poor than from the urban non-poor. Another UNICEF report found that 93 million Indians live in urban slums, on pavements and construction sites.

Yet should anyone plead that the poor have been left behind they will be subject to heated criticism. It hurts the pride of Indians to be reminded of the country's poverty. But the existence of poverty itself does not hurt their pride.

Economic growth rates of about 8-9 per cent over the past few years have been justifiably praiseworthy. But the benefits of this growth have been confined to the middle class and the rich.

The poor still do not have homes, basic sanitation, decent schools or nutritious food. As a young girl in American author Katherine Boo's much-acclaimed new book Behind the Beautiful Forevers, about life in a Mumbai slum, says: "We try so many things but the world doesn't move in our favour."

Middle-class Indians need to read Boo's book about life in a rat-infested hovel, near a sewage lake, with rampant dengue fever, malaria and tuberculosis, with scraps for meals, a single toilet for 100 families and then try claiming that India is becoming a superpower. There are many criteria for defining a superpower, but for India an extra one should be added. Let no one utter the world ''superpower'' till every Indian family has a toilet in their home.

India Is Not A Superpower

We are neither a Super power nor a Failed state.

But we are moving in the right direction and rapidly too..

 

[Killswitch]

India doesnt need to be a superpower.

Destroying poverty, providing basic infrastructure, protecting the environment, and defending the nation against Communists and Islamo fascists is enough.

 

[rama]

why this topic should be discussed on PDF???

 

[janon]

As I've often said, it is not Indians who keep saying India is a superpower. Pakistanis seem to just want to keep saying it nevertheless. The reason is that India does have a chance of becoming a great power in future, whereas some other countries are taking rapid strides in the opposite direction. (I wouldn't use the term superpower for any country unless it becomes something that the US is today.)

I'm used to pakistanis writing blogs and colums keeping on parroting this line that India is not a superpower, but I'm pleasantly surprised to see australians beginning to do that too. Shows that we are moving in the right direction, even bigger parties have begun to feel insecure WRT India, that they have to jump onto that particular bandwagon. We are beginning to become an object of envy for bigger players than just our neighbour. Those who were ignoring us have started laughing at us. We all know the saying, "First they ignore you..."

Good going, India - keep it up, and soon we will leave all of them behind in terms of economic, military and moral importance - it is only inevitable.

 

[Infinity]

We never claim that we are super powers or in race of being a super power...................

 

[LetsGetRowdy]

So an obscure international award for some Indian film, a bronze medal in a sport that no one watches, an Indian company's takeover of a foreign company, or an Indian kid topping a maths exam in the US, are all trumpeted as evidence that India has conquered the world.[/B]

an indian with his bronze medal - conquering the 2008 olympics and also the world.


what a joke! how can india be a superpower when even her smaller neighbor pakistan have more global influence? again, i've said this before, india is super poor/hungry/illiterate/malnourished/uneducated/etc, not superpower.

 

[rama]

what a joke! how can india be a superpower when even her smaller neighbor pakistan have more global influence? again, i've said this before, india is super poor/hungry/illiterate/malnourished/uneducated/etc, not superpower.

Garbage in..Garbage out...thats how ur little mind works!!

 

[Infinity]

an indian with his bronze medal - conquering the 2008 olympics and also the world.


what a joke! how can india be a superpower when even her smaller neighbor pakistan have more global influence? again, i've said this before, india is super poor/hungry/illiterate/malnourished/uneducated/etc, not superpower.

We never Claim that we have more global influence than Pakistan........Ya we are Super Poor.............more poor in India than entire Africa..................etc................But we growing and moving in right direction.............When you enemy envies you............you are in right direction..........

 

[janon]

what a joke! how can india be a superpower when even her smaller neighbor pakistan have more global influence? again, i've said this before, india is super poor/hungry/illiterate/malnourished/uneducated/etc, not superpower.

Umm...that's not the kind of "influence" we are looking for.

 

[Henry]

Boo's much-acclaimed new book Behind the Beautiful Forevers, about life in a Mumbai slum, says: "We try so many things but the world doesn't move in our favour."

Middle-class Indians need to read Boo's book about life in a rat-infested hovel, near a sewage lake, with rampant dengue fever, malaria and tuberculosis, with scraps for meals, a single toilet for 100 families and then try claiming that India is becoming a superpower.

Want to know the Truth Pakistani?

Why these Slum B*stards never leave that Rat Infested Hole near a Sewage Lake with Malaria and Dengue?

Hafiz Mohammed is a taxi driver. He comes home dog-tired at 1am, but wakes up just four hours later because of the commotion outside his 10-by-10 feet shanty at Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC). These days he is getting even less sleep because when it rains, his tin roof leaks.

But life is about to take a fairytale turn for Mohammed. Soon he will have a 1BHK flat in Bhandup and send his son to an English medium school. That is because he is within touching distance of Rs1 crore. It will not be a jackpot win. It is money a builder will eventually pay Mohammed and each of scores of hutment owners to obtain their land for development.

“He has offered us Rs90 lakh each. But we are waiting for the sum to reach a crore,” Mohammed says smugly.

Mohammed’s slum is in Tata Colony, near the BKC police station. Eighteen months ago, the builder offered Rs45 lakh per hutment, of which there were 486. More than half the hutment owners accepted the amount and moved out. But to persuade the ones who did not, the builder kept increasing the amount till it touched Rs80 lakh. Still, 60 hutment owners remained, for whom he has jacked up the sum by Rs10 lakh. Going by the trend, Rs1 crore might be some months away.

A Immigrant staying Illegally on some Enroached Land is getting 1 Crore + 1 BHK Flat outside Mumbai in Bhiwandi + Free Education for his Children for What?

A F*king 10 * 10 Feet Shanty with a Leaking Roof.

Go to buy 1 Crore = $200,000.

How many Pakistanis can afford this Slum?

Let me Recall an Incident:

When Slumdog Film was Recalled, A White Woman from Canada brought her Rich Arrogant Daughter on a Slum Tour Specially to Show her How Poverty exists in the World.

When she asked the Guide about how they live, That Guy said every Shanty is costing $200,000. Her A*s got Teared apart and She said She herself cannot Afford that Slum and Left Embarrased.

 

[blood]

has this topic not been discussed a million times , why open another thread for it .

 

[Shardul.....the lion]

Not again.............................