Mohit Satyanand: “How independent are the 80% of our citizens who depend on the government for food grain? How independent are we when we depend on China, an active aggressor at our borders, for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, for our mobile phones, and the flags fluttering in our streets? How independent are we when depend on a rogue nation for the bulk of our ordinance goods?”
Niranjan Rajadhyaksha: “One way of looking at the Indian development journey over the past 75 years is in terms of breaking structural shackles to growth. India has broken free of three important constraints—the food constraint, the domestic savings constraint and the foreign exchange constraint. One major structural constraint that persists is energy. India is deficient in energy, and prone to economic stress whenever global energy prices rise. The planned switch to green energy in response to climate change offers a window of opportunity to break the energy constraint. The final question is one of political economy—will India resemble East Asia or Latin America? The countries in East Asia have managed to achieve inclusive growth through the creation of competitive enterprises as well as quality jobs for citizens. Public finances have been managed well. Latin America has tended to grow with wide income disparities, macroeconomic imbalances and social tensions. Where will India find itself in 2047? The answer is not yet clear.”
Ruchir Sharma: “To grow faster than 5 per cent, India would have to adopt more radical reform. Only 20 per cent of women are formally employed and doubling that to 40 per cent — merely average for a lower-middle income country such as India — would be transformational. So would encouraging internal migration to better jobs, as China did, given that nine out of 10 rural Indians still live in the district where they were born. But India is as diverse and democratic as China is homogeneous and autocratic: imposing disruptive reform is not on the cards. More likely, 5 per cent growth is now the base case. Even at that pace India will be a breakout star in a slowing world: on track to surpass the UK, Germany and Japan to become the third-largest economy by 2032. At that point India may not yet be a middle-income country, but it will be moving in the right direction, rising gradually in the world.”
