On April 14, at a campaign manifesto launch in New Delhi, Modi drew the biggest pie of the year for Indian voters: to join the ranks of developed countries by 2047, on the 100th anniversary of India's independence.
Well, no matter how big this cowhide is blown, we have to admit that during the Modi administration, India's economy did go up like chicken blood.
From 2014 to 2022, India's GDP growth rate has reached a steady 5.6%;
In 2022, India directly surpassed its former suzerainty to become the world's fifth-largest economy in recent times alongside the United States, China, Japan, and Germany.
In 2023, India's population surpassed that of China for the first time, becoming the world's most populous country, with a year-on-year GDP growth rate of 8.4%, making it one of the world's fastest-growing major economies.
Now India is still in a period of rapid economic development, especially under the current international situation and India's demographic dividend, it is not a big problem to maintain a high economic growth rate in the next period of time, which is why Modi dares to brag such a big cowhide in public.
Indians are very happy with Modi's achievements, but this does not mean that India will become a developed country in 23 years.
Generally speaking, to become a developed country, you need to meet at least the following conditions:
1. The per capita GDP should exceed 20,000 US dollars;
2. It is necessary to have a solid educational, medical and social security system;
3. The industrial system should be sufficiently developed, and there should be world-class scientific research and innovation capabilities.
To put it simply, it is all-round development, and no one should be missing.
And by 2047, India may not be able to meet any of the above three basic conditions.
First of all, judging from the GDP ranking in 2023, China, which ranks second, is 17.7 trillion US dollars, but it should be noted that the gap between China, which ranks second, and Germany, which ranks third, is huge, almost 4 times the gap, while India, which ranks fifth, has an economic total of only 3.73 trillion US dollars and a per capita GDP of 2,612 US dollars. Is it possible that the per capita GDP of developed countries is $20,000, and considering that India's population has been growing steadily, this means that if India wants to become a developed country in 23 years, its economy will have to almost multiply tenfold?
In today's world, it is no longer an era when cheap labor alone can attract a large amount of foreign investment, and if India wants to achieve substantial economic growth, it must complete the transformation of the level of productivity from low to high, so the quality of workers is a very critical threshold. However, given the current situation in India, even the level of education has not been thoroughly popularized, and even "books with the same text and cars with the same track" have not been realized.
And I always have the feeling that in the next few years, India's economic development is likely to be in trouble, because the populism pursued by the Modi government is too big.
While populism can guarantee the Modi government's high approval rating in India and strengthen Indians' national self-confidence, history has shown that countries that are dependent on populism cannot go far. Because populism needs the soil of poverty and very low levels of education, which will greatly limit India's realization of the dream of being a developed country. In addition, populism has done a lot of damage to India's foreign policy, so we see that India's relations with neighboring countries are getting worse and worse, and the instability of the external environment will directly affect the country's economic development.
Therefore, Modi this time he blew up the cowhide, and he was not afraid of flashing to his old waist.
But then again, Modi was born in 1950, and by 2047, he will be almost 100 years old.