second-generation economic reforms which deliver real benefits to the bottom of India's
socio-economic pyramid.
The first chart in our three-chart collage shows the ranking of the top five countries by
GDP in 2050 as per Citi's projections. Indian GDP in 2011 is estimated at $4.45 trillion
(PPP). To reach $85.97 trillion in 2050, the Indian economy will have to grow at an
average annual rate of 8.1% a year for the next 39 years. Optimistic? Perhaps, but not
overly so.
The Citi study relies heavily on India's two dividends - demographic and democratic.
The demographic dividend will ensure that India has the largest number of working-age
people in the world (over 800 million) between 2015 and 2035 before tapering off as our
population reaches a plateau of just over 1.60 billion and starts ageing (as China's
already is). Fertility rates of increasingly educated urban and rural Indian women will dip
from today's 2.6 to 1.7, which is when a country's birth and death rates equalize.
A large number of working-age Indians between 18 and 60, however, will be less than
optimally productive if they remain poorly educated and are therefore unemployable. To
gain from our 20-year demographic sweet spot, education reform must clearly top the
government's agenda. Infosys mentor N R Narayana Murthy was partly right when he
said that the standard of IIT students has fallen. It has. Too many are rote-learners,
spewed out by coaching classes, not creative thinkers.
Education reform must start with government-run primary schools. Shockingly, in some
villages, primary schools have no teachers, no students and an empty shed that serves
as a classroom. The government spends 52,000 crore on education every year. That is
less than it spends on fertilizer subsidy alone (55,000 core).
The second dividend Citi banks on to project India's rise to the top of the GDP rankings
in 2050 - especially in comparison with China - is democracy. China's autocratic
government, the argument goes, can command 10% GDP growth, build superhighways
and create gleaming infrastructure.
But beneath the towers and the maglev bullet train tracks of Shanghai lurks social
tension. As China's per capita income rises, its 1.34 billion people will increasingly yearn
for real freedom: a free press, an open Internet and, most crucially, democracy.
If the Chinese government can't deliver on these, a "Chinese Spring" a decade hence
cannot be ruled out. That could plunge China into years of uncertainty. Throughout
history, as countries grew richer, they grew freer. Will China prove an exception?
Unlikely. By that token, India's democracy is a double-edge scimitar. Our raucous, open
society takes us two steps forward economically and then one step backwards.