India is immersed in the largest electoral process the world has ever seen.
The election, which started on April 19 and will last until June 1, and in which nearly 1 billion people will participate, is crucial to achieving the country’s growing ambitions.
According to polls, the majority of the electorate is expected to choose to grant the prime minister Narendra Modi a third term.
Modi has the advantage that during his tenure India’s global position has improved and its relations with the United States have strengthened.
It is one of the few nuclear-armed powers, and a country that recently displaced China as the most populous in the world and became the first in history to successfully land on the south pole of the Moon.
Thanks to its growing middle class, its business dynamism and, of course, helped by its 1.4 billion inhabitants, it also hopes to become the new economic superpower of the 21st century.
“India will be a superpower: it has a large consumer base and a very young population,” Pushpin Singh, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Business Research (CEBR), a consulting firm with headquarters in London.
According to a CEBR report published in December, India is expected to maintain strong growth of around 6.5% between 2024 and 2028, and become the world’s third-largest economy by 2032, overtaking Japan and Germany.
Projections for the end of the century see India emerging as the world’s largest economic superpowerwith a gross domestic product (GDP) 30% larger than that of the United States by 2080.
The Asian country’s leaders rely on Indian demographics and its diplomacy to accelerate the nation’s future rise to superpower.
1. Self-proclamation as a voice of the global south
Before thinking about challenging the United States for hegemony, India has already set itself a short-term objective: to be the leader of the so-called global southa term used to refer to developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that want to have more say in global affairs.
In a speech during the second Voice of the Global South summit in November 2023, Modi assured that the group wants autonomy and is willing to assume great responsibilities in global affairs.
He further stated that India was proud to represent the voice of the south in global forums like the G20.
Ronak Gopaldas, an economist and political scientist at Signal Risk, an Africa-based consultancy, says India is taking advantage of its growing economic power to gain influence in various regions of the worldespecially in Africa, a continent that has become key for India.
“By the year 2050, one in four people in the world will be African. It is a continent that has the youngest working-age population in the world and has critical minerals that the world needs for the energy transition. “Africa is too big and important to ignore,” he tells BBC Mundo.
“Many African countries see India as a democracy that used to be poor and is now prospering, while India sees itself as the self-proclaimed voice of the global south“.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the presidency pro tempore of the G20 and the summit held in New Delhi last year to promote India as a “symbol of inclusion” among countries in the global south.
Maybe your greatest diplomatic success last year was to get its proposal to include the African Union as a permanent member of the forum accepted.
Economist Pushpin Singh agrees that India is increasingly seeking and gaining influence internationally.
“It wants to attract foreign investment to the country and form alliances with the rest of the world, with the aim of becoming a major international player and compete with other powers”, Explain.
Singh does not believe his country is desperately seeking superpower status.
“India knows there is still a lot of work to do, but I think it recognizes that sooner or later it is something that will happen.”
2. Multialignment
While the Cold War shook and dictated the international politics of many countries, India turned to a policy of non-alignment that in 1961 ended up becoming a forum: the Non-Aligned Movement.
But for some years now, New Delhi has abandoned its historical position of non-alignment to exercise “strategic multi-alignment.”
In May 2022, India participated in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) leaders’ summit in Tokyo, where Modi stated that India shares common goals with the other members (Australia, Japan and the United States) in the Indus region. -Peaceful.
In June of that same year, he appeared accompanied by the president of China, Xi Jinping, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at the 14th Summit of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) held in virtual format and asked to strengthen the group’s identity.
Soon after, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz invited India to attend the Group of Seven (G7) Summit in Bavaria as a partner country.
By participating in these summits with such diverse visions of the world, India exercises a “strategic multi-alignment”: a foreign policy that is more pragmatic than ideological.
In it, the country’s strategic priorities come first and geopolitical alliances tend to be fluid: an ally on one issue can be an adversary on another.
“India is an important economic and security partner for the West and knows that it is. At the same time, it sees itself as the leader of the global south and has a historical relationship with Russia,” explains economist Ronak Gopaldas.
“For all this, he is trying to Maximize your strategic and economic influence to achieve favorable economic agreements for the country”.
Golpaldas points out that strategic multi-alignment requires very good diplomacy and India has so far been successful in implementing this policy as a rising power that has “one foot in the Quad and another in the BRICS.”
“But there will probably come a time when you will have to choose a side, it will all depend on how effective your diplomacy continues to be.”
3. A powerful diaspora
India has one of the largest and most successful diasporas in the world.
According to the UN, there are 18 million, but New Delhi assures that there are 30 million Indians abroad (if those who have renounced their nationality are included, since the country does not allow dual nationality).
They live mainly in the countries of the Persian Gulf, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.
These emigrants have become a great economic force. In 2023 they sent almost US$125 billion in remittances to their country, around 3.4% of the country’s GDP, making India the main recipient of international remittances in the world.
The Indian diaspora is usually educated and wealthy. Two great examples of the success of their descendants are Kamala Harris, the vice president of the United States, and Rishi Sunak, prime minister of the United Kingdom.
And in the middle of last year, Ajay Banga, born near Bombay, was appointed president of the World Bank, one of the most important financial institutions in the world.
Indians or those of Indian descent also lead tech giants like Google, IBM and Microsoft.
Since coming to power in 2014, Prime Minister Narenda Modi has sought to forge close ties with his countrymen abroad, whom he calls “brand ambassadors.”
He knows that having a successful diaspora usually creates a positive image of the country of origin and that he can count on it to promote your country’s interests abroad.
“There is no doubt that the large Indian diaspora that is currently spread around the world, in which I include myself, is also helping to increase the influence of the country and its soft power”, estimates economist Pushpin Singh.
The influence of the Indian diaspora is not new, but it is increasingly visible.
“Indians abroad played a critical role in improving relations between the United States and India two decades ago and this made it possible for both countries to sign a nuclear agreement,” Chietigj Bajpaee, researcher and expert on the nuclear issue, tells BBC Mundo. South Asia from Chatham House, a London-based research institute.
He believes that the size of the Indian diaspora, its level of education, their wealth and their presence in great powers They make it an important asset for the Asian nation.
Internal obstacles
Chietigj Bajpaee points out that India will not obtain superpower status in the near future and before that happens it faces numerous challenges, both economic and social.
“The economy suffers from structural problems. The same government has admitted that two thirds of the Indian population receive some type of food aid“That is almost 800 million people,” he tells BBC Mundo.
“There are also infrastructure, logistics problems and India still maintains a protectionist economy,” he continues.
Bajpaee believes that a key indicator of whether India will emerge as a superpower is when it is able to replace China as the world’s economic engine and becomes an alternative in the global supply chain reducing dependence on China.
Modi believes it will be like that. “India will be the engine of growth in the world,” the president declared during a visit to South Africa last August.
At the end of 2023, the country consolidated its title as the world’s fastest-growing large economy, with progress of 8.4% in the last three months of the year.
Addressing the growing disparities between the north and south of the country is also a priority for many Indians.
Although it is true that the country has experienced rapid economic growth in the last 20 years, wealth has not reached the entire country.
In general, the south and west of the country (except Rajasthan and Kerala) are richer and more developed than the north, which is more rural and populated.
While in the south you can see a thriving India, full of new companies and industries, millions in the north live in poverty and are the most affected by unemployment, a major problem nationwide.
Only 40% of India’s working-age population works or wants to work, according to Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) figures from last year.
The new government of India needs to create enough jobs for its population and encourage the incorporation of women into the labor market: only 10% of working-age women were working at the end of 2022, according to the CMIE.
Polarization
Political polarization has also become a big problem.
Since the 19th century, the dilemma over whether India should be a secular or Hindu nationsince around 80% of the population identifies with this religion.
The debate has intensified since 2014, when Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP party won the election.
Meanwhile, discrimination against the Muslim population has increased.
Author Devika Rege, who recently published Quarterlifea novel that talks about India’s transformation after the 2014 elections, believes that his country is experiencing a wave of “communal disharmony.”
He assures that society has become polarized and that civil liberties have been compromised since that vote.
Geopolitical tensions
Many also believe that India’s growth can be seen hampered due to its geography.
“It is in a region with many geopolitical tensions,” explains economist Pushpin Singh.
India maintains a very tense relationship with Pakistan, a neighboring nation that has also developed nuclear weapons and disputes the Kashmir region, where Muslims are the majority.
Both countries claim the entire picturesque region, but control only parts of it. They have already fought two wars and a minor conflict in the region.
India and China, which also claims a portion of Kashmir, also disagree over the border line in the Himalayan region and have clashed in the past.
Since the 1950s, China has refused to recognize borders designed during the British colonial era.
In 1962, this led to a brief but brutal war between the two countries, which ended in a humiliating military defeat for India.
More recently, in 2020, both powers faced each other again.
India’s other neighbors include Afghanistan and Myanmar, countries that are currently mired in civil wars.
These are conflicts that, according to Bajpaee, tarnish India’s growth and potential.
“The big question is whether India can prosper without its region,” says the Chatham House researcher.
Most believe it will.
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