This propaganda is so strong, it is also being spread and many times it is misleading that the country has become a developed country today, surprisingly, many leaders have started addressing us by saying developed India. Therefore, it becomes necessary to see whether our country will really join the ranks of developed countries by 2047 or not? The ruling party of the country and the current government are raising two important issues of the country’s economy, first, that India will soon become the third largest economy in the world in terms of gross domestic product. Second, India will join the developed countries of the world by 2047. As far as the first issue is concerned, the International Monetary Fund has also estimated that by 2027, India will surpass Japan and Germany in terms of gross domestic product and become the third largest economy in the world after America and China. Earlier, India was at the 7th position in this ranking, but today it is at the fifth position after the US, China, Japan and Germany. According to another method of estimation by the International Monetary Fund, i.e., according to the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), India is already the third largest economy in the world, after China and the US. According to this, China’s GDP in 2024 is 35.26 trillion dollars, the US’s is 27.74 trillion dollars and India’s is 14.17 trillion dollars. According to the purchasing power parity, India’s per capita income in 2024 is 11942 dollars and the country is 119th in the world.
As far as the second issue is concerned, a conclusion can be reached only after a lot of discussion and analysis of important facts. It is very important that whether the country will become a developed country by coming third in the world in terms of gross domestic product or not? In this regard, the most important indicator of the economy, per capita income, along with some selected indicators such as human development index, number of people engaged in agriculture, number of people suffering from malnutrition, hunger, infant mortality rate and women’s participation in the workforce and economic inequality will be studied comparatively with selected developed countries of the world, which India has surpassed in terms of gross domestic product or will surpass in the future. Since 1987, the World Bank has been dividing the countries of the world into different groups according to gross national income per capita, such as the group of high-income countries, the group of upper-middle-income countries, the group of lower-middle-income countries and the group of low-income countries. India has always been in the low-income group, while the US, Japan, France, Germany, England, Italy and Canada have been in the high-income group, known as developed countries. India moved out of the low-income group in 2009 during the Manmohan Singh-led government and has remained in the lower-middle-income group, even though its GDP has increased and it has moved up the rankings.
According to the latest classification of the World Bank, countries whose gross national income per capita is more than $14,005 at current prices are included in the group of high-income countries, those whose income is between $4,516 and $14,005 are included in the group of upper-middle-income countries, those whose income is between $1,146 and $4,515 are included in the group of lower-middle-income countries, and those whose income is $1,145 or less are included in the group of low-income countries. It is worth mentioning here that the countries with which India competes in terms of gross domestic product, all those developed countries have very high gross national income per capita, close to $61,420, and are included in the group of high-income countries. While India’s gross per capita national income is only $2409, it can be estimated from this that for a long time India has not been able to increase its gross per capita national income sufficiently. Because from the following description it is clear that when India was at the ninth place in the world in terms of gross domestic product in 2013-14, but at the same time the country was at the 147th place in the world in terms of per capita income, that is, the country was above some island-like and extremely poor countries. It is worth mentioning that India’s poor neighbor Bangladesh is also ahead of India in terms of per capita income. Then when the country came at the 7th place in terms of gross domestic product, the country is at the 141st place with a very small increase in per capita income and now it is at the 5th place in terms of gross domestic product, but at the 139th place with a slight increase in per capita income. It is clear that the country is very far behind in terms of annual per capita income.
Now let us study India’s performance with selected developed countries, USA, Japan, France, Germany, England, Italy and Canada, on some selected indicators such as Human Development Index, number of people engaged in agriculture, number of people suffering from malnutrition, hunger, infant mortality rate and women’s participation in work and economic inequalities. First of all, if we talk about Human Development Index, it is found that in 2024 it was 0.644 for India and 0.933 for selected developed countries and the ranking of these countries in the Human Development Index among the countries of the world was also in the top 25 countries, while India’s ranking was at number 134. 44 percent of our country’s population is employed in agriculture, while in developed countries only 1 to 4.1 percent
The population is engaged in agriculture. Today, 13.7 percent of India’s population is undernourished, while only 2.5 percent to 3.2 percent of the population of developed countries is undernourished. It is worth mentioning here that selected developed countries are not included in the survey of the Global Hunger Index (GHI), because these countries are not suffering from hunger, but rather these countries are (Food Secure) food secure. Whereas, on the contrary, India is included in this survey and in 2014, when the current government took over the reins of the country, the country’s hunger index was 28.2 and ranked 101st among the countries of the world and in 2022, the hunger index increased to 29.1 and the rank slipped further to 107th. In 2024, its hunger index is 27.3 and its rank is 105th and India is among the countries with severe hunger. The hunger indices and ranks of neighboring countries Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are much better than India. In India, 25.8 out of 1000 children born die at birth, while in developed countries this rate is only 1.7 to 5.4. Only 24 percent of the female workers in our country are working. In developed countries this percentage is 41 to 61. In India, economic inequality, that is, in income and wealth, high levels of inequality are found, while in developed countries there are low levels of inequality.
The above analysis and facts make it clear that even if India becomes the world’s largest economy in terms of gross domestic product by 2047. But its per capita national income is very difficult to be equal to that of developed countries and the distance seems long. As far as becoming a developed country is concerned, it is very far away, because important economic, social and other indicators of the economy are at a very low level and are in a bad condition, it is not easy to make them equal to developed countries in such a short time, because this can be said on the basis of very little improvement/progress in these important indicators in the past. Political parties and leaders can certainly win elections by making political statements related to the economy and gaining political benefits, but to make the country a developed country in the future, first of all, there must be willpower among political leaders. Economic and other policies should not be used to serve the interests of the rich, capitalists and corporates, but policies should be used to serve the interests of the common people, especially the oppressed. Another, to bring important indicators at par with developed countries, the government will have to make huge public investments in these sectors, especially education, health, and gainful employment, over a long period of time, because most of the important indicators are related to these sectors.
