A question that periodically floats in the air, more often raised by the nationalist camp in Indian politics, is: Will India be the next superpower? I was asked to debate this recently.
In an earlier era, before industrialisation, the population of a country decided its power status to a large extent. We, however, no longer live in those simpler times. The literature on International Relations, broadly settles on overwhelming might and superiority in four factors that determine a superpower—military might, economic might, administrative capacity and moral purpose.
The operative term here is might. When the literature mentions military might for example, they do not mean merely having robust armed forces that can defend the country’s borders effectively. Or even one that is capable of being a regional hegemon. What it means is military prowess that strikes fear in the hearts and minds of the countries at the precipice of superpower status or existing superpowers. Whatever you think of India’s military might, it is far from that perch of striking fear in the hearts and minds of the Americans or the Chinese. Second, India is still reliant on Russia for a significant chunk of its military hardware. And Russia has been in a stalemate for over 600 days with a smallish neighbour in what seems like trench warfare from a century ago. This doesn’t bode well for India.
It is not that India isn’t taking or hasn’t already taken significant steps to diversify its hardware sourcing. It has. But the results of that bearing fruit are far in the horizon and therefore don’t allow us to check the box on military might for the “next” superpower. So, maybe we should take a pause. Military might alone means nothing, anyway. Most erstwhile Communist dictatorships are testimony. As the old adage goes, it’s not the sharpest sword but the deepest pocket that wins a war.
On economic might, it’s not high growth or even prosperity that puts a country on the path to becoming a superpower. It is might. What the literature means is control of global finance and or the supply chain with an ability to bring global trade and commerce to a standstill. And better still, an ability to fund forever wars. The way Britain did in the late 19th and early 20th century. France did it before and America has been doing since. To be on the superpower ladder is to see a clear path to that and possibly exceed that capacity, even. India, despite what BRICS wants to do in ending the dollar dominated capital markets system, is nowhere on that ladder. To win the race, one needs to take part in it. This is a race, I’d argue,India is not even running in.
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On human progress
While these two factors should seal the deal, the third factor is really what makes this superpower claim from some quarters in India either deeply disturbing or absurd—administrative capacity. It is ultimately a nation’s ability to generate human potential. That is the necessary condition to make progress in any area, including the aforementioned ones. After all, human progress—in terms of pushing thought forward leading to good and results in material benefits like economic progress or military might—is what happens after a society moves beyond basic sustenance and has mental and material bandwidth to spare. This is what results in cultural output, too, which in some ways is just as important in projecting power.
Consider someone born in India. The probability of that person, rather an infant, dying in the first year, is comparable to Sub-Saharan Africa. The Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) is generally considered the best metric to measure not just the health of a society but its overall governance. It’s even found to predict civil wars, revolutions et al. With an IMR that’s about as good or bad as Sub-Saharan Africa when no one thinks that part of the world is going to be a superpower, what gives India that confidence?
Let’s stay with the child. Consider the probability of its mother dying during childbirth. Or the child doesn’t get adequate nutrition. If the child goes to school or does it complete schooling without dropping out. If it gets enough healthcare should there be a need. The child’s higher education. Better still, finding work that’s not agricultural after education or earning enough wage to have a shot at being middle class. In each of these measures, this hypothetical child in India, is comparable to one in Sub-Saharan Africa.
A point to concede to the nationalist chest thumping camp is: India doesn’t need social development indicators that are comparable to Scandinavian countries to become a superpower. Its scale—of being one fifth of humanity—allows it some leeway without actually topping the charts. But not topping the charts is one thing. Being worse than many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa is entirely another. India’s IMR is sandwiched between Kenya and Eritrea.
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Lack of moral purpose
The reason we want these indicators to be much better, and I can’t believe this needs restatement— is that a healthy and prosperous society that is assured of itself and its place in the world is a necessary condition for projecting power. Both hard military might and the more important cultural output that projects strength. It doesn’t matter how much military hardware we buy or build, if the probability of a child born in Madhya Pradesh celebrating its first birthday is as poor as that in war torn Niger or Afghanistan.
Finally, there’s the question of moral purpose. It’s not that we have to be philosophically “correct”. The Soviet Union, for example, was not anyone’s idea of a perfectly moral state. It still qualifies the box because the Soviet Union put forward its purpose in the world in all its actions, whether one agreed with that purpose or not. Similarly, the other superpowers over time— mercantile ideas of Britain, dollar dominated free market systems that the United States has established—all had some version of this and stated it as a goal, even while doing immoral things to achieve it. India’s problem is that it seems to lack any purpose—forget that being right or wrong—for it to stand up for. The entire rhetorical toolkit of the Ministry of External Affairs is now indistinguishable from loudmouthed politicians; which is to ask or say “what about” followed by someone else or some other country.
And despite failing on all four parameters, it’s likely your nationalist friend will text you again about India becoming the next superpower. Ask him, it’s usually a him, if he wants to play a game where we rate all countries on these four factors and rank them in descending order. It’s fun to play on group chat.
Nilakantan RS is a data scientist and the author of South vs North: India’s Great Divide. He tweets @puram_politics. Views are personal.