Challanges to Progress

It seems when a country rises, it has to face many challenges. One of the challenges could be that other powers might like to slow down or even halt the progress of the rising nation. India could face situations where it will realise that poltical powers or even domestic vested interests are challenging its rise.

India’s rise has now begun to attract attention. It is now obvious that it is not only the investors and businessmen in Davos who are looking at India. It is also the people who do not find the progress of India palatable in the least. Case in point, the BBC documentary on Prime Minister Modi and the Hindenberg report on the Adani group.

The UK has harboured many criminals who fled there from India after committing financial and other crimes. The UK has not extradited them for decades, even after cases against them have been proven in British courts. This just shows that countries will do what they want as long it is convenient for them, and suits their purpose, and not because it is right. The case in point is that of Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi. There are many others who are given protection by the UK government. It also shows that the UK has scant respect for Indian laws and there was a hidden agenda to rake up human rights issues twenty years after the Indian courts had decided the matter.  A British MP, Bob Blackman has even condemned the BBC report as shoddy journalism.

This American company has announced they are short selling shares of Adani group. The report has put a damper on the Adani follow on issue currently on offer. The latest news is that the Adani issue is fully subscribed, however the company has decided to cancel the issue and return the investor money. Adani stocks have plummeted as result of which about $40 billions of investor wealth has been lost.

The report came out right after India declared itself as a voice of the Global South. It may be overreach if one says that there is a conspiracy against India. But the timing is opportune. Moreover, unconfirmed reports say that one of the employees of NDTV (bought by Adani) visited the New York offices of Hindenberg multiple times. So, there is ground for suspicion. It has been hinted by some in the UK that China funded the BBC report. This also sounds plausible at the outset. 

India’s rise may not be palatable to some nations, indivisuals and grpups around the world. They will never take a public position on this, but their actions will be an indicator of their real intent. Incidents like Shaheen Baug, the articles in New York Times and Washington Post regarding India's human rights and politics are all part of a narrative which is being propagated and funded by people who are running an agenda for a regime change in India. The Indian opposition parties have also joined this bandwagon as they are now out of power for ten years and see themselves becoming politically irrelevant. Being out of power, they are also losing their funding, hence the desperation. The foreigners are white supremacists and are jealous of India's success and do not want India to progress. So there is an element of racism in this as well. 

The so-called Global South has been exploited for their resources by the rich economies for a very long time. China is the latest country to do so. These countries have never had a voice of their own at the high table of elite countries. India’s presidency of the G20 may provide an opportunity to these countries to make themselves heard. Here, China and India are directly competing for influence.  

China has lost economic momentum. It is also facing demographic challenges. Even though it is opening up, the earlier buzz around business and supply chains, is just not there. Whether there is any truth in the funding report is beside the point. India will have to face many such challenges to its leadership role in the world.

The BBC film on Modi reeks of propaganda. It has come twenty years after the Indian courts have decided on the matter. 

Now George Soros the investor and businessman, has entered the fray and criticized Indian democracy. As said earlier India will have to face many such propaganda wars as it rises. The intensity of these attacks will increase as the 2024 general election draw near.  A S.Jaishankar said recently, the election season has not yet started in India, but it has already started in London ad Newyork.

This may not be to the liking of the west. It will mean sharing of resources and even technology which the west is reluctant to do as history will show. Leadership, however, always comes at a price. India will have its work cut out as it threads this geopolitical quagmire.

Luminosity data

A recent study by ISRO of the Nighttime Lights data which is published by NASA and ISRO’s own remote sensing satellites has noticed a 43% increase in luminosity at night in the last eight years. The surprising and encouraging part of the report is that the traditional backward states in the country like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Ladakh, have reported a higher increase in luminosity than the developed states. This data is considered important as it shows growth in infrastructure and increase in economic activity. It shows that the per capita increase in income is significant in the backward states. The conclusion is that the laggard states may be now catching up with the rest of the country.

The reliability of the data can be seen from the dip in luminosity around 2020 due to lockdowns. Thus, this data can be relied upon to judge the progress of countries or regions where data on the ground is not available or is unreliable. This data shows that India has seen significant change in the last 8 – 9 years on the economic front, and all that the government has been saying about development and progress and its schemes like the Ujala, the construction of roads and highways, the distribution of electricity seem to be delivering on their promises, which is a big positive.