SOPA Images/Ganesh Chandra / SOPA Images/Sip
Andres Oppenheimer
Sat, April 8, 2023 at 7:44 AM MDT·4 min read
NEW DELHI, India — I don’t know whether India is going to replace China as the world’s new economic engine, but a week-long vacation here, many years since my last visit, left me surprised at this country’s rapid progress.
While there are some troublesome political signs, there is much less visible poverty on the streets than I saw the last time I visited in 2007.
The New Delhi airport, which I remembered as old and chaotic, has been rebuilt into a fairly modern and orderly airline hub.
The nearly 10-mile trip from the airport to the capital, which used to be a crumbling road where traffic was slowed by wandering cows, tricycles and bicycles, has become a much faster ride. The road is now lined with new hotels and corporate buildings.
New Delhi today looks much like Mexico City: a huge, bustling city of wide and relatively clean avenues, with magnificent monuments and public buildings. I saw more poverty in Varanasi and Agra, the other two cities I visited this time, but it was a far stretch from what I remembered.
According to World Bank projections released recently, India’s economy will expand by 6.3% this year, and by 6.4% in 2024, one of the highest growth rates in the world. By comparison, estimates by the International Monetary Fund show China’s economy is expected to grow by 5% this year and 4.5 percent in 2024.
More important in the long run, on April 14, is poised to overtake China as the world’s most populous country. According to U.N. projections, on that day India’s population will reach 1,425,777,850 people.
But friends with whom I met in India told me that the most significant number in terms of India’s importance in the world is that some 200 million Indians have joined the middle class in recent years. That is turning this country into a major business partner — and opportunity — for U.S. and Latin American businesses.
“It’s not so much the population growth, but the market growth that will count,” R. Viswanathan told me. He’s a former head of India’s foreign ministry’s Latin America department. “India’s trade with Latin America today is about $44 billion a year, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it more than doubles to $100 billion over the next five years,” he said.
Cars, motorcycles and pharmaceutical products are among the main Indian exports to Latin America, according to Viswanathan. Latin America exports mostly oil, gold and minerals to India.
In addition to its rapid growth, many Indians boast that their expats and their descendants have some of the world’s most important jobs these days.
Among them is U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris (whose mother was born in India); Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley (her parents were Indian immigrants); U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak (his grandparents emigrated from India to Africa); and Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, both born in India.
However, I also saw an alarming personality cult following the country’s popular prime minister Narendra Modi, who has been in power since 2014 and is likely to be re-elected next year.
I saw huge signs with Modi’s picture almost on every other block along New Delhi’s main avenues, as well as in buses and public buildings. His image is virtually the only one you see on street signs.
While Modi gets high marks for helping modernize India’s economy, he is increasingly intimidating independent media and has used a loyal judiciary to ban opposition leaders.
Late last month, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, Modi’s main political rival, was ousted from Parliament after being sentenced by a court to two years in prison for criminal defamation. His offense was jokingly asking in a 2019 campaign speech, “Why do all thieves have Modi as their surname?.”
Modi’s growing abuse of power is dangerous, becaue, among other things, unlike in China, India’s recent progress has been partly due to its democratic stability.
If Modi becomes a full-blown elected autocrat, India’s economic growth may be thwarted by favoritism, corruption and skepticism about its future. But if he somehow manages to control his authoritarian instincts, India is likely to become the world’s new economic success story.
Blog: www.andresoppenheimer.com
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