Is India Really a Developing Nation?

We sometimes ridicule our country saying that India doesn’t have suitable infrastructure, literacy and other so called developed countries facets. Have we done a profound search and evaluated ourselves with others in every sense? I don’t know how many of us have ever given a thought. Let me contrast India against America with my approach. Today, America is known as the super power of the world. America got their independence on July 4, 1776, over 231 years ago. In 1776 America’s population might had been around 4 million. As we all know, America is sanctified with all kind of natural resources one can think of. America being such a vast country with all its sanctified natural resources was perfectly positioned for growth after independence. Around 4 million population, blessed with the majority of natural resources were very conducive for a great nation in making. Nothing similar to religion or caste system predicament was their. Constitution forming members were having very less problems to consider before framing it. No pressure of defense, since there was no country surrounding them, which can intimidate. It has taken a 231 years to build today’s America. Also adding to this, there was no other element to consider such as poverty, drought, irrigation, illiteracy etc that they had to consider. They utilized the whole 231 years tenure to develop and nothing else to consider. In this period they were able to develop fantastic education system with number of world class universities, providing American citizens exposure to modern scientific thinking, in those days. They were able to develop apposite network of transportation system that included roads, railways and later airways. Now the population of America is around 300 million, they all can reap the benefit of appropriate planning and natural favor that they have got in the past 231 years, they have nothing to start from square one.

Enough of America, let us take our position, where we stand with developed countries from my point of view. 60 years back India got independence, compared to America, it is 171 years less. Our population at that time was around 330 million, compared to America it was 8250% more, and furthermore, even now America’s population is less. Number of religion prevails here, with copious caste systems in them. During independence India was partitioned, that assured us of one more threat to our defense along with China. British ruled us for more than 100 years, and in this many years they have exploited us in every domain. We lost precious years of development due to this. Preceding British, Mughals subjugated and oppressed us for centuries, starting from 1526 when Babur invaded us. There was no field in which we got head start after independence. With population over 330 million, defense concerns, poverty on the increase, lack of education institutions, scientific backwardness and many more things made us vulnerable before start. During constitution framing number of issues had to be taken into account. With so many problems and paltry forex reserve, India had to begin from ruins, during the times, when the so called developed nations had won over the issues mentioned earlier.

Even though we had disadvantage in every field except population, but that didn’t mean we are going to be the same forever. In 60 years of independence, starting from morsel, with fragile infrastructure, now India is among the fastest growing economies in world. Everyone knows where India stands in the world with respect to power generation, forex reserve, transportation, irrigation, agriculture, unity, defensive strength, nuclear capability, export, commercial industries, technical capabilities, satellite launching, media and other realms. Even having over 1000 million population, so much illiteracy, political instability, religious sensitivity, defensive concerns and other quandaries, we have grown enormously. Given 60 years with so many restraints, I don’t think any country in the world can develop even fraction of what we have done. I can go on incessantly over this topic, but I will stop here and want you people to think over this and tell yourself whether India is a developed country or a developing nation?