The Opportunity called INDIA

In wake of the recent conditions and situations which is unfortunately misleading our core objective as Indians and creating a untrue reason to project us as what we are not, than to take pride in what we are and what we can become. This article is an effort to relieve and remind all of our glory & potential so that we can realign and refocus our efforts in building this country rather than choosing to break its growth.

India is often misunderstood as a country, when it is more like a continent with 1.3 billion people. It is a young country brimming with energy as more than 50% of the population is under 35 years of age. Thus, India has an enormous consumption driven demographic dividend at hand. India has historically struggled to unleash that potential. However, with prime minister Modi a series of important reforms have been implemented to realize this potential. With this background, we see India's best stories in the coming decade.

To what India will become is something I have found captured in a beautiful quote by Michel Wood, an eminent Historian "One of the greatest players in history is rising again. Its tale is of one of the incredible dramas and the biggest ideas. It is a place whose children will grow up in a global superpower and yet still know what it means to belong to an ancient civilization".

Diversity as a strength - India really can’t be defined like a country, but more like a continent with 1.3 billion people – please see the map below for an illustration purpose. It constitutes 29 states and 7 union territories (quasi-states). The division of these states is broadly based on linguistic and cultural identities. Many of the states are countries in themselves. India has 22 official languages, 122 major languages and 1,599 dialects; 18 major cuisines and 44 creative art forms. It is a melting pot of diversity, which makes for the world’s largest democracy. India’s rich diversity is its real inherent strength.

By the mere strength of population alone India = All these countries (as shown in the illustration below)

India’s economic history is just as fascinating as its diversity. For nearly 2,000 years until the mid-18th century, it was the leading economy accounting for nearly a fourth of the global GDP. In a span of 200 years since 1750, India lost its economic sheen. By 1947, the country was reduced to being amongst the poorest in the world with a mere 12% literacy rate (73% now) and 34 years (66 years now) of life expectancy. It is only now, a good 70 years since independence, that India is once again in the position to stake its claim on the global economic map.

The demographic dividend and the acceleration phenomenon - While India is an old civilization, it is also a young country brimming with energy. Over 50% of the population is under 35 years of age. This provides India with an enormous demographic dividend. Nearly 10 million people are added to the workforce every year. As shown in figure 2 it is the fastest urbanizing country in the world with around 40 cities with a population of over 1 million and another 397 cities with between 100,000–1 million people. As per the UNs State of World Population report, by 2050, nearly 53% of the country’s population will reside in urban areas compared to 35% currently. 

Given its demographic profile India can be considered the last major economy with untapped scale and size benefits. India is a USD 2.8trn economy and is projected to grow at more than 7% in 2019 as per the IMF. Measuring GDP per capita, India currently is at USD 2000. This is often considered an inflection point for consumerism. China also accelerated at similar levels of GDP/ capita. Here it is important to understand that discretionary household spending doesn’t develop in a linear way in line with income growth but can grow more exponentially. This is because households earning below a critical threshold cannot afford to purchase certain products. However, when income rises above that threshold, consumer discretionary demand kicks in. As an example, it is estimated that a household can afford to buy an automobile when income surpasses USD 15,000 annually. We thus have what is termed an “acceleration phenomenon”.

The independent research company Gavekal has analyzed India’s consumer economy to better understand the acceleration phenomenon and has divided households with discretionary consumption into three groups: emerging, aspiring and affluent households. Their analysis shows that the total number of households will rise from 122 million currently to 312 million by 2030. Within this total, the number of emerging consumer households will double, but the number of aspiring and affluent households – the ones that can afford discretionary consumption – will triple and quadruple, respectively.

Reforms to unleash the potential - Historically, India has struggled to unleash the great potential and harvest the strength of its diversity. However, over the last few years with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in charge, a series of important reforms have been implemented to release this potential and achieve sustainable long-term growth. These reforms addresses the key structural issues, which historically have hindered sustained economic growth. With many more upcoming reforms planned, India stands poised under an able political leadership to accelerate its growth potential in every sphere.

• It's time for all Indians to realise that the Global Economic scenario is at just the kind of situation which will propel this India OPPORTUNITY, to India GROWTH, into India LEADING story.
• It's time for all Indians to shred all growth defying acts & deeds and ignore all misunderstood & misleading informations and FOCUS on the OPPORTUNITY which would BETTER the lives of all Indians, its friends and partners.
• It's time for all Indians to UNITE and UNIFY to ensure that it is country first and that we should ONLY be FOCUSSED for INDIA's GROWTH and NOT be fooled into any one's or any groups self benefitting interest.

Our former President, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam had written a book called 'Advantage India: From Challenge to Opportunity' I would like to conclude by illustrating a section of the prologue of the book..

Let us UNITE & UNIFY to UNLEASH the OPPORTUNITY called INDIA.