India - a country punching below its weight?

The Raisina Hill houses many
government ministries and the President's
official residence.

Today, the growing importance of India, emerging as a new axis on the world stage, and gaining tremendous influence in many aspects, cannot be understated. But as an emerging great power, India seems to not be doing enough to assert its worldview, and its perspective on geopolitics on the world stage in an effective fashion.






For instance, India's independent foreign policy has allowed it to maintain valued and consequential strategic relations with both Russia, and the United States. But a small country like Israel, with its then prime minister Naftali Bennett, made more efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, than India ever did. India played it too safe, and in my opinion, for the leverage that India has with both Russia and Ukraine (aka the West), with proper mediation, could have prevented another huge crisis, when the world was already crawling out of one.

Another example is India's economy. Antiquated and vague banking laws, extremely complicated redtape, and fundamental lack of policy reform, render a huge and capable workforce utterly redundant. Lack of funding for research, heavily undermines self-reliance, a key goal for any great power in the world. Lack of incentives for the manufacturing sector, results in tangible export figures of $335.44 billion#1, which may sound like a lot, but compare that to a country like, say, Vietnam, a country with a population 13 times less than that of India, having an export figure of $336.31 billion#2, speaks volumes about India's economic standing.

What India needs is a fundamental sector-by-sector policy overhaul, to meet current needs, expectations and standards, that will enable India to catapult itself to great power status. Such reforms are already being implemented, but the pace at which it is currently going on, is not nearly enough. 

With immense potential for a South Korea-style economic miracle, it is incredibly important for India to play its cards right to achieve this. With the recent discovery of 5.9 million tons#3 of lithium in the Jammu and Kashmir territory, making it one of the world's 5 largest reserves of lithium, this find may be the short-term boost that India needs to get this hypothetical miracle started.

The ball is very much in India's court and now it is only a matter of time to see whether India plays its cards wisely and propels itself to become a major axis or misses this opportunity.


Sources cited:

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