Talking of India as becoming a superpower is a dream of a handful of intellectuals. Statistically speaking India is moving towards becoming a superpower but so is China. On paper, any foolish dream can come true but reality is horrible. Ask an average Indian citizen on the road he will hardly understand what you are talking about. Superpower is somewhat like a spider-man; always ready to solve a problem, helping a man in need, awash with superpowers, and so on.
Wikipedia defines superpower as follows
"A superpower is a state with a leading position in the international system and the ability to influence events and its own interests and project power on a worldwide scale to protect those interests; it is traditionally considered to be one step higher than a great power" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sup...
You can judge India on the parameters of the above definition and feel hopeless, so there is no need to do that. India needs a lot of time to recover from the loss it has withstood in the hands of the historical king, their offspring and then in the hands of the foreign rulers. 2030 cannot be the due date at present. India has to do a lot. As a whole, India does not present a picture of a gestalt to the world.
The following reasons can be taken into consideration
India may have attained freedom from the clutches of the foreign rule, it still suffers from internal war among the religions, cultures, communities and last but not least, the political parties. The clashes among these components are obvious to the whole world and they do not present a ‘unity in diversity’ sort of picture. What about the terrorists and the Kashmir problem? In school books and newspapers, this slogan may seem worth it but you are aware of its truth. Forget about the religions, cultures, and communities, they are born on the principle of diversity, think of the political parties, which have originated for ‘the goodwill’ of their motherland but where they lead to? Only ideas are not enough to make a superpower.
Do we have leaders who can really lead us to the process of becoming a superpower, who can give us even a feeling of a developed nation?
More than an average population of India is unemployed. We feel proud to be a land of agriculture, but are we really happy? Monsoon fails the hopes of the farmers and changing governments are worried about their own piggy banks. Secondly, the farmers are unemployed for a period of 6-8months a year which reduces their earning potential. Earlier there were soodkhors (moneylenders) now are the banks with credit cards holding the farmers under their luring spell of lending lump sum loans charging loads of interests.
More than 40% of the population consists of young generation holding degrees of higher education but there are no vacancies for them. Why? India has not grown up in the zone of industrialization as it should have done; the mutual conflicts of the political parties are coming in the way. Corruption has grown and honesty has declined, leaving the young generation to suffer the consequences. Corruption has been there in the society always but there were only a few people to be affected now is the case of the whole nation. Bureaucracy has ruined the tempo of the industrial development. The country is breathing corruption, which cannot be culminated at any rate, unless and until another Gandhi is born.
On paper, the GDP can be shown as increasing but is it really improving the living standard of the poor man? How will India confront the problem of poverty in the other countries when it has to struggle against it in its own land? Things are not that pretty good in reality as they appear to be on paper.
Do we really think we are getting literate just by writing our name and spelling certain words? Literacy stands for the complete change of mental set, thinking in the right direction along with the knowledge of reading and writing. It is still a long way for India to go to make its people literate. People have not yet learned to be clean and keep their surroundings clean. Anybody can see the sputter of pan on the walls of public places, offices, hospitals, etc. we are having a large force of engineers in all fields but how many are ready to work in their own land? And those who show the guts come under the spell of corruption of if they are honest they do not survive.
The government has spread schools throughout the country but are they really educating? No nation can stand firmly in the race of superpowers if its people do not have the caliber to take decisions and fight against injustice.
we can always boost about our culture and society, good for India but an insight is needed here. There are countless evils prevailing here. Indian women have been struggling continuously to emancipate her from the shackles of the so-called ‘pride’ of the family of both, the biological family and the in-law’s family. Though India is considered as motherland but the life of a girl child is a curse. She is not at all safe. The difference between genders is a hurdle to the development of the society.
India holds its stand on the international issues. It has an authority. It can put forward its opinion. This shows that India is growing but it still needs to go far in the matter of international affairs.
We are still surviving under the shadow of inferiority in the matter of the world standards of living. We have a culture but how many of us are really proud to eat using our hand in five star hotels without showing the hesitation in doing so? And we are proud of our culture. There are many such instances we can come across in our live where we feel inferior to the white skin. Is it not true?
Actually we are not mentally prepared to become even one of the great nations. We talk of health and hygiene, but do we stop other from spitting pan on the walls, or throwing waste by the roadside? How many of us fall in line/queue when there is a rush? How many of us stop for helping on the accident site?
There are many more aspects that stand in the way of becoming a superpower. Ideas are good but they need to become a reality then only India can emerge as a great nation and run in the race of becoming a superpower. Only Indian citizens, individually and in group, can make this dream come true.
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