Role of India’s 1.25 billion in a global democratic
renaissance
When Angus Maddison set to work on economic history of the world for two millennia, he had to overcome a troubling legacy of colonial regimes which had looted the wealth of many nations.
While the economic historians may nitpick on details of computations, the picture he presented in a graphic histogram was stunning. At the turn of the Common Era, that is 1 CE, US economy was a mere line, while China and India accounted for over 80 percent of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Accounting for blurs caused by foreign exchange rates, the method used to compute the relative shares of nations in world GDP is a method called ‘Purchasing Power Parity’. The method adjusts for price changes across national economies by estimating real living costs in various nations. Using this method, World Bank has announced that the ranking of nations based on their share of world GDP using PPP puts India ahead of Japan and moves it to the third position after USA and China.
That India occupies the third position at 6.4% of world GDP as of 2011 (while USA and China account for 17.1% and 14.9%), is a turning point in the geo-economic picture of the globe. The achievement is remarkable for a nation which has reached this stage as a democracy after gaining independence only on 1947. Years of onslaughts during the mediaeval periods by the expansion of Islam and colonial exploitation since 1700s left India in a level of impoverishment which attracted the attention of historians like Will Durant of USA who wrote in 1930 on The Case of India and seeking independence from British colonial rule.
India has been struggling sinc 1947 to overcome the ravages of the colonial exploitation by leveraging on the assets created such as the Indian Railway system and a bureaucracy which provided a semblance of progress implementing socio-economic projects to increase the purchasing power of the population which now stands at 1.27 billion, next only to China with a population of 1.35 billion.
As USA and Europe wrestle with financial crises, such a large nation like India cannot be ignored. It is imperative that India is made a partner in the processes of dialogue in forums such as G-8 to promote equity in world trade and cooperation in development efforts. USA can certainly leverage India’s acceptance in the comity of nations which can be called an Indian Ocean Community which can prove to be a larger economic power than the European Community which came into being in the wake of the dismantling of the iron curtain.
There are 59 nations along the Indian Ocean Rim from Madagascar in the west to Tasmania in the east reaching upto the Pacific Oean. Most of these nations were in trade and cultural contacts for millennia. One French Epigraphist, George Coedes wrote a book which was titled Hinduised states of South East Asia, which underscored the cultural impact of Hinduism and Buddhism on nations which linked the Orient with USA through the Straits of Malacca.
Initiatives of cooperation among these nations have resulted in identifying projects of global significance: Trans-Asian Railways, and Trans-Asian Highways linking Asia with Europe. The projects have the potential economic multiplier effect of empowering over 2 billion people and involving the participation of all major economic powers in implementing the projects speedily. Himalayan glaciers are the world’s largest water reservoirs yielding five of the world’s longest river systems: Yangtse, Huanghe, Mekong, Irawadi, Salveen, Brahmaputra. Sustainable development of these glacier-based river systems can help ensure equitable distribution of water to over 2 billion people. India has an ambitious plan to create a National Water Grid (NWG) to reach water to every one of her 6.2 lakh villages with the potential of creating 450 million new land owners if additional arable land with assured irrigation created by the NWG is distributed to 9 crore landless families at the rate of one acre per family. This also has the potential to double India’s agricultural production in 5 years which can augment world supplies of foodgrains, thus mitigating world hunger if just mechanisms for world trade can be operationalised.
The challenge is immense and calls for political strategies to further promote and sustain economic unions like the European Community and Indian Ocean Community as partners with United States of America. USA should take a lead role in this promotion and participate in creating a just and equitable world order which existed in 1 CE (pace the histogram of Angus Maddison).
S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
