Is India really developed?

Truly speaking, it’s not easy to make a full-fledged review of India’s economic development in a few paragraphs. It does depend on the frame of mind of the reviewer or how does he/she evaluate the economic stability in India. It is quite obvious that a staunch Left does find everything wrong in the Indian state structure whereas a Right happens to be the supporter of the Indian state structure and the coveted domination of capitalist class on the whole. Nevertheless, to asses the present economic scenario in India you have got to be liberal or open-minded.

Each and every open-minded or unprejudiced person has got to admit that the Indian economy has advanced a lot qualitatively from the year 1991 (year that witnessed India’s economic transition). Ever since then the whole nation has witnessed exceptional growth in an assortment of sectors and any comparison with the country’s economy during state control makes the scenario more authentic. Now the question remains whether India’s experiments in 50s and 60s were utterly wrong. Well, nothing can be far from truth if the same is said. In reality, the country was quite successful to achieve targets during the first two plans and that led to the financial basis of the country. The sole credit goes to the founding fathers of the nation; they did adopt the doctrines of mixed economy and thanks to that India could steer clear of economic disasters over the time period.

Well, something went wrong in the following decades and from late 60s to early 90s negative growth ruled the show. The adoption of strategy of economic transition was highly opportune and it did save the country from economic disaster. But there is also a question. Where are we heading to? Even if the rate of growth has been exponential and rising with the passing of years, a large section of native population is yet to get its benefits. Hence, we find polarization in social sphere is rising by leaps and bounds.

While the urban India is taking pleasure in Coca-cola, rural India is coping with the reality of poor sanitation and inhumanly disastrous drinking water situation. What is more pitiable, India’s human development index is getting worse. Bear in mind that the Naxal problem (India’s greatest internal threat) does stem from an escalating class struggle, a domino effect of mounting economic schism. Is this also a development?