“Is India an Emerging Power?” The Graduate Institute of Development Studies invited Associate Professor Raviprasad Narayanan from the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University to analyze India’s political economy and social development. This was the 18th lecture in the Institute’s “Developments in the Global South” series, hosted by Professor Mei-Chuan Wei.
Before returning to his alma mater in 2015, Narayanan had served at NCCU’s Institute of International Relations. At the beginning of his talk, he shared fond memories of living and working in Taiwan for three years, especially of exercising and reflecting on the NCCU campus track. He opened the lecture by citing the Indian Constitution, which defines India as a “sovereign, secular, democratic, and socialist state,” and explained the ideals and visions held by leaders of India’s independence movement. He then briefly introduced India’s economic performance and political and social development.
Regarding India’s economy, Narayanan emphasized that while many assume India is primarily an agricultural country due to its large population, the dominant sector in terms of GDP is actually services. According to 2013 data, the service sector accounted for 64.8% of India’s GDP—an uncommon feature among developing countries. However, despite India ranking 15th globally in total GDP, it ranks only 127th in GDP per capita based on purchasing power, largely due to its vast population.
Narayanan noted that India adopted a socialist planned economy after independence and shared his personal experiences of queuing for food rations and the prevalence of ration shops. In the 1980s, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi recognized that India’s economic development lagged behind East and Southeast Asia, prompting them to initiate economic liberalization reforms that shifted the country’s development from state-led to market-driven. In the early 1990s, facing a debt crisis and severe fiscal deficit, Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao advanced further liberalization efforts.
Narayanan explained that although India was founded on socialist ideals, it lacked the economic foundation and resources to support welfare-state policies, leading to fiscal difficulties. He also noted that “welfare politics” is often used as a vote-buying tool by political parties, which contributes significantly to India’s unsustainable fiscal burden. On politics, he observed that India’s democracy is highly participatory with stable elections, but issues such as bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption continue to undermine democratic governance.
Toward the end of the lecture, Narayanan reflected on India’s brain drain, questioning why many Indian professionals succeed abroad—particularly in the U.S.—but the country struggles to harness their expertise domestically. He also explored debates on whether India is best defined as a “civilization” or a “sovereign state,” discussed the persistence of democracy in South Asia, and examined what type of democracy India represents. These reflections led him to question whether India truly meets the standards and expectations of an “emerging power.”
During the Q&A, attendees asked about the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its “populist leader” Narendra Modi, questioning whether they pose a threat to Indian democracy. Narayanan responded that the BJP is a Hindu nationalist party and that Hinduism is a way of life rather than a religion. He noted that Modi formed a coalition government in 2014 but has governed alone since 2019, which raises concerns about potential challenges to India’s secularism as enshrined in its Constitution.
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Original article (Chinese): NCCU Campus News
