Potential Superpowers - India

India

Several media publications and academics have discussed the Republic of India's potential of becoming a superpower. Newsweek and the International Herald Tribune join several academics in discussing India's potential of becoming a superpower.

Anil Gupta is almost certain that India will become a superpower in the 21st century. As an example, he states that due to India's functional institutions of democracy and its relatively corruption-free society, it will emerge as a desirable, entrepreneurial and resource and energy-efficient superpower in the near future. He predicts that by 2015 India will overtake China to be the fastest growing economy in the world and emerge as a full-fledged economic superpower by 2025. In addition to that, he states, India has the potential to serve as a leading example of how to combine rapid economic growth with fairness towards and inclusion of those at the bottom rungs of the ladder and of efficient resource utilization, especially in energy.

Robyn Meredith claims that both India and China will be superpowers. However, she points out that China is decades ahead of India, and that the average Chinese person is better off than the average Indian person. Amy Chua also adds to this, stating that while India's potential for superpower is great, it still faces many problems such as "pervasive rural poverty, entrenched corruption, and high inequality just to name a few". Also like China, India lacks the "pull" for immigrants, and Indians still continue to emigrate in large numbers. However, she notes that India has made tremendous strides to fix this, stating that some of India's achievements, such as working to dismantle the centuries-old caste system and maintaining the world's largest diverse democracy is historically unprecedented.

Fareed Zakaria also believes that India has a fine chance at becoming a superpower, pointing out that India's young population coupled with the second largest English-speaking population in the world could give India an advantage over China. He also believes that while other industrial countries will face a youth gap, India will have lots of young people, or in other words, workers. According to Zakaria, another strength that India has is that despite being one of the poorer countries in the world, its democratic government has lasted for 60 years, stating that a democracy can provide for long-term stability.

Founder and President of the Economic Strategy Institute and former counselor to the Secretary of Commerce in the Reagan Administration Clyde V. Prestowitz Jr. has predicted that "It is going to be India's century. India is going to be the biggest economy in the world. It is going to be the biggest superpower of the 21st century."