acche din loading....
This is a long post guys. I am taking a deep dive into the gdp myth, indexes, government and all of it.
recently india slipped from its 4th position to 6th in gdp rankings and the response has mostly been- relax it's just currency fluctuations because the united kingdom technically overtook india due to exchange rate movement. not because india suddenly stopped growing which is somehow supposed to make it sound less serious. but its not.it actually makes it worse, because if your global rank can shift just because of currency movement then what exactly is that rank built on? india has more than 1.4 billion people. with that kind of scale being a 'top 5 economy' isn’t some unbelievable achievement. it’s the bare minimum.the expectation is growth and stability that doesn't swing with every economic cycle. and the moment you sit to think about it a more uncomfortable question pops up- if the economy is this big, why does everything elsefeel so mid?
because GDP only tracks activity. it doesn’t care about context.GDP goes up when people spend more money. It doesn't ask why they are spending it. When parents decide to put their child in an expensive private school because the public schools are not competent enough, gdp goes up. When people choose private hospitals for medical surgeries because they don't want to wait for so long in public hospitals, gdp goes up. When we install water purifiers in our house, because of lack of natural clean drinking water, no suprises there, gdp goes up. On paper, this looks like growth but in reality its people trying to make up for the system that didn't provide. We can say that gdp is misleading on quantitative terms as well.
u take any 'quality of life' index and india ranks consistently low in all of them. 1. human development index - 131 out of 193 countries 2. global hunger index- 102 out of 127 countries ( we are in the 'serious' category in this one) 3. world happiness report- 118 out of 147 countries 4. global gender gap- 131out of 148 countries(another serious one) 5. world press freedom index -151 out of 180 countries (i think its quite evident with the way the media has literally sold itself) 6. world air quality report - 6th most polluted countries in the world( basically we are now on the same position with our gdp and air quality...shitty basically)
see the pattern?? India is not leading in any of them( yeah we are not getting any 'acche din anytime soon guys) delhi is experiencing extremely hazardous aqi levels, heatwaves are getting worse, public goods are inconsistent, our food literally contains cancerous items. u cant help but notice that anything that requires long term accountability - things that take years to fix barely move. public education, public healthcare, environmental regulation, institutional transparency- these are slow and difficult. Nobody wants to change that. And when talking about developement, their first instinct is cutting down trees and forests that have been here longer than we are. pehle humse ped lagane bolo - 'ek ped maa ke naam' and what not and then proceed to cut those same trees, forests, wildlife corridors. These are all capitalist tendencies and it helps nobody but the government donors. All the public goods which the government is conveniently avoiding to fix are hard to measure over time but their effects are visible no doubt over a longer horizon period. But itna time lag gaya to election mein kya bataenge? How do we convince the majority of the voter bank which is illiterate that hum samaj keliye kuch kar rahe hai? so they resort to short term spending. Its very evident now with the bengal elections going on - pre-election freebies, announcements and allowances that the government pays with literally our money, tax payer's money. May i ask sir, can i expect something for the tax-payers since you are busy appeasing the incompetent voters??
so yeah, india being a large economy matters. but it is not about the ranks.
the real question is how an economy this large still be so fragile. how is it growing without translating into stronger foundations.
because if rankings shift this easily and quality of life indicators stay low, then maybe the number everyone is focusing one is not telling you the full story in the first place.