India was one of the most developed regions
in the world in the 18th century. It was richer than either Europe or China. India has some
of the most fertile land in the world, a large population, and a hub for trade between Europe,
Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia. It has almost everything it needs within its
own borders. If India had managed to industrialize similarly to North America, Western Europe,
or East Asia, itās economy would be about 80 trillion dollarsā¦ about the same as the
entire world economy was in 2020. So how is it possible that in only 250 years India went
from the wealthiest regions of the world to one of the poorest regions in the world? It began in 1757. India at this time was a
collection of kingdoms and empires who fought over control of their part of the world, similarly
to what the Europeans and Meso-Americans did. During a civil war in Bengal Subah, the rebellion
asked the British East India Company for help. This company was mainly interested in trading
with the world, mostly owned small forts or ports, and its army was assigned to protect
their trade interests. But now they were asked to help in a rebellion. The rebellion was
successful and the British East India Company was able to put a puppet on the throne of
Bengal. Meaning that the leader of Bengal had to do whatever the British told him to
do, or else the British would put someone else on the throne. And so the British suddenly
realized they could repeat this process to conquer all of the Indian subcontinentā¦
and they did. Over the next century they would give the Indian rulers a choice: join the
British and hold on to power, or resist the British and get conquered. Many decided to
remain in power as British puppets, gaining access to the British trade network, positions
of power for their children, and some of the best education of its time. And so India became
a political mess where different regions were under a different type of administration.
With many of the rulers staying in power. And all that kept it together was the threat
that Great Britain could send in their advanced military to put down any rebellion. Until
the people tried something else: non-cooperation. If the people stopped working, the British
wouldnāt earn a profit, and eventually the occupation of India would be too costly. This
strategy worked and by 1947, India became an independent country. This new and independent India faced many
problems: the first problem was to keep the country together. India had been unified 5
times earlier and each time it fell apart again. And ot many, this process appeared
to already be happening in 1947: The British Indian colony had been split up into various
countries: Pakistan, Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives, and India itself. It was not
unreasonable to assume that more regions would split off to form their own countryā¦ such
as happened in Pakistan in 1971, when Bangladesh became an independent nation. About half of
India was ruled through princely states, where princes held on to power and not the central
government. And now that the British army was leaving India, there was no reason for
any of the princes to stay with India. In essence, upon independence, India was confronted
with the problem that they had a country without a functional government. And so the Indian
central government needed a reason for them to stay. And the reason they decided to go
with, was money: India was going to invest in infrastructure across the country, connecting
the various regions together so that it was easier to trade. The rich and powerful earned
money through owning businesses or taxing businesses. So if those businesses were able
to sell to more Indians, that meant more money for the rich and powerful. And so the elites
would want to stay with India to increase their own wealth. This is a process which
India is still undergoing today, with large parts of Indian economic growth coming from
increased trade within India. India is a diverse country; there are 122
languages spoken by at least 1 million people, there are various cultures spread out across
the nation, and customs ranging wildly between regions. And by investing in infrastructure,
these people would become more connected. They will move to other parts of the country,
meet new people, and learn about their own nation. After several generations, the people
will no longer things of themselves as belonging to a particular region, but to a single nation.
This is a process a lot of countries have gone through; France, Germany, and Italy began
this process in the 19th century and they still face the problem of regionalism, such
as Bavaria where ā
of the population supports independence from Germany. But India started
this process only 70 years ago and so for the first decades of the independent India,
it had to spend a significant amount of money to create an India where Indians would feel
like Indians. And this infrastructure was desperately needed,
because India upon independence in 1947 faced shortages of almost everything, particularly
food. By the late 1940s, about 150 million Indians had to receive food directly from
the government, each person receiving 1200 calories per day, just enough to survive.
But why did Inda face such massive shortages? When the British took control over the Indian
subcontinent, innovation practically stopped in India. This is because when there was a
problem that needed solving, the new Indian leaders would simply hire more people to do
the work because India had such a large population. At the same time, Western Europe, North America,
and Japan focussed on machinery to solve problems. As a result, these regions innovated in better
machines so that each worker would be more productive. Over time these machines became
so good that they were more effective than the large labour force of India and eventually
Indian industry was surpassed by European, North American, and Japanese industries. In
essence, India was still stuck in the 18th and 19th century because it didnāt innovate
under colonial rule. Industry was therefore severely lacking alreadyā¦ And then India
was dragged into the war by the British and declared that India wasnāt allowed to build
new factories, unless those factories supported the war. And so for 6 years India didnāt
produce more products. But at the same time, India gained 42 million new people. These
people needed products. But with no new factories being set up to sell those products, India
faced a shortage. In addition, bad weather in the 1940s caused many harvests to fail,
resulting in a starving people. With a severe lack of even the most basic
of products, how could India solve their problems? Well, the solution seemed simple: if you have
a shortage of goods, you need to produce more goods, and the best way to produce more goods
is to invest in machines. And so India decided to go on a campaign of industrialisationā¦
But how were they going to manage industrialization for 360 million people? The system they chose
was a combination of capitalism and a command economy, often also referred to as Soviet-style
communism. A command economy is a system where the government takes control over most aspects
of the economy, with the government planning nearly all aspects of the economy from supply
lines to where factories should be built, to what products should be produced.
Today we know that command economies donāt workā¦ So why did India decide to use this
system? Well, for that we need to look at the option available to India at the time.
Back then there were only 3 systems that had succeeded at bringing wealth to a nation.
The first system was the European model, whereby a country would colonize other parts of the
world and use the wealth extracted from these colonies to invest in industries in their
own countries. Eventually leading to a system where a small part of the empire was industrialised
while the majority lived in poverty in far-off regions. India was unable to adapt this model,
as most of the world was already colonised and it wasnāt interested in imposing this
system on other people, right after having gained independence themselves from that same
system. Then there was the US model: with this model
a country would go to war with other countries to force them to open their markets to you.
This allows you to gain a lot of foreign customers every time you win a war. But India didnāt
have the military power to do so and there was no country with enough customers so 360
million Indians had work in factories. So this model couldnāt be implemented either.
And so the last model was the Soviet model, which managed to industrialise the nation
in just a few decades. In just the first 10 years the Soviet Union produced 4 times more
iron and steel, 2.5 times more oil, 7 times more electricity, and 250 times more cars.
And while India was aware of a lot of the criticisms, such as the lower quality of goods
and the high death toll of the people working to industrialise the nation, Indiaās leadership
believed it could industrialize without atrocities while keeping the quality of products relatively
good. They were able to point towards Latin American countries during the Great Depression
in the 1930s as an example of economic growth through government control, where many Latin
American countries had industrialised during the Great Depression as a way to end the economic
crisis in their country. So from the perspective of the Indian leadership in 1947, this type
of economic management seemed far more effective than capitalism or imperialism. And they argued
that the poverty of India was because the British squandered Indiaās resources. So
if the government was in charge of economic management, they would be able to make sure
the wealth of the nation would be shared with the poorest people of the nation, not just
the rich.And so, presented with these 3 options, India chose to adopt the Soviet model. But it couldnāt go as far with the Soviet
model as the leaders wanted to. This is because the Indian elites who owned industries or
ruled over the princely states wanted to keep their power. If the central government would
take over the factories, they would lose their power. This is common through modern Indiaās
history: the country is so large and has so many different peoples living within its border,
that any decision taken by any of the governments immediately comes into conflict with one of
these groups of people. And so Indiaās democracy is filled with lobbyists and infighting who
fight over everything. And as a result, the compromises often make no sense. In this case,
where they had to decide how the economy would be managed, they made a compromise where India
would have a system that incorporated aspects from socialism and capitalism. Such a system
can be very effective. Today, the countries with the healthiest, happiest, and best educated
people use the best parts of socialism and capitalism, called social democracy. India,
however, decided to take the worst parts of each system. The state would take direct ownership of the
military industry, atomic energy, and railways. Existing businesses were allowed, however,
the government was the only one allowed to set up new businesses in vital sectors: coal
mining, iron and steel production, aircraft manufacturing, shipbuilding, telecommunications,
and the mining industry.Over time, businesses in this industry would be taken over by the
government. And this was one of the worst decisions they could have taken, because a
bunch of government officials are simply incapable of managing an economy effectively in a country
the size of India, humans are simply not intelligent enough for a centrally planned economy. Under
a healthy capitalist system, however, thousands of businesses have to compete with each other.
When a business lags behind the other businesses, it wonāt make a profit, and it will go bankrupt.
This system assures that the most efficient businesses will remain in business and thus
creates an incentive for companies to make better products at less of a price. But when
a single government manages all these 1000s of businesses, there is no process by which
inefficient businesses are replaced with more efficient ones. And so the businesses run
by governments are usually far less efficient than businesses owned by people.
And the type of businesses that were supposed to be run by the government are the most important
businesses in a country. For example, the iron and steel industries are of vital importance
to growing the economy: new machines need steel, factories are often made from steel,
vehicles use a steel frameā¦ And steel is just as important to regular people. If you
look around you, almost everything you see requires steel: support for the building you
live in, the case of your computer, and the ship, train or vehicle bringing the products
to the store. So to grow your economy, you need access to steel. And so, because the
government took control of the vital industries, it was making sure that the industries needed
to grow your economy would also be run the least efficiently. To give an example of such
efficiency; the Bokaro Steel Mill is one of the major steel producers in India. It was
built with the help of the Soviets, but the soviet designs often couldnāt be used for
Indian manufacturing, it often broke down, and the quality of the products it produced
was relatively low. And
the capitalist parts of the Indian economy were flawed as well. As mentioned earlier,
a healthy capitalist system requires competition, so businesses which donāt innovate will
go bankrupt. In India, however, businesses were often protected from competition. If
you wanted to set up a new business in India, you needed to get a licence. Receiving such
a licence would often take years. In those years, other businesses will have looked at
your license application and have prepared for your arrival. By the time your facility
is finally ready to start producing new products, your competitors will have already made those
same products and cornered the market. Meaning that if you invested in India you would likely
not earn a profit. So the capitalist system was unhealthy, without competition, and the
rich and powerful were able to keep in power without needing to improve their operations. So in summary, the Indian economy lacked competition,
which in turn meant that it was less innovative. It kept out foreign investors and knowledge,
which in turn meant it didnāt have as much access to the more advanced machinery and
equipment of the developed world. And the basic products needed to create new factories,
machines, and equipment were managed in an inefficient way. And as a result, India took
some of the worst aspects of both systems. But as a wise man once said: You should never
half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing! And so Indiaās economy in the 40s and 50s
grew slowlyā¦ So slowly in fact, that India decided to ask for foreign aid. Because India
used aspects of a soviet economy and a western economy, it maintained a good relationship
with both sides of the cold war. India used this to their advantage by taking money from
both sides. By the 1950s foreign aid had become the largest source of investment in Indiaā¦
And yet, the economy still grew slowlyā¦ So slowly that the leaders realized they were
doing a poor job. They concluded that the reason Indiaās economy didnāt grow fast
enough, was because the government didnāt have enough control over the economy. And
so existing businesses were taken over by the government and private businesses were
allowed in fewer industries. And through the late 50s and early 60s the Indian government
became more and more involved in economic management of the country. But of course,
using a failing system more, doesnāt change the fact that it was a failing system. And
the more they took control, the less efficient the economy was run, and the more foreign
aid the government asked for. By the 1960s Indiaās economy had become
insignificant in world affairs. For example, in 1955 India produced nearly 46% of all exported
peanut oil in the world. By 1960, this was only 1%. The world no longer wanted to put
Indian nuts in their mouths. Indiaās failure to modernise its economy meant that other
countries could sell the same products for a lower price. India was caught in a cycle:
the more it took control over the economy, the less efficient it became, and the more
customers it started losing abroad, the less the government would earn in taxes, and the
more it relied on foreign aid, and the more India had to take control over the economy
to use this foreign aid, becoming less efficient, losing customers, etc.
And so India was doomed from the start, with a culture which didnāt put an emphasis on
innovation, the British military departure meant Indiaās regions could split apart,
a government which controlled the fundamental aspects of economic growth, and a capitalism
that did not allow for healthy competition. So it was now clear that the economic system
India used, was a broken system that couldnāt work. And so Independence from the British,
resulted in becoming dependent on the Soviet Union and United States to keep their economy
afloat. And by now there were other countries that were far more successful: Western Europe
and Japan recovered quickly after WW2, while South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore rapidly
grew their economy. The people in these parts of the world were becoming rich at a much
faster speed than India was and they were capitalist nations. So clearly, government
control of the economy was not an effective way to bring prosperity to the country. And
so the USA saw an opportunity to promote capitalism in India. They threatened to reduce the amount
of foreign aid they would send to India, unless India opened up its markets to US companies.
India needed that foreign aid to buy food every time a bad monsoon damaged their crops.
This time, however, the USA wanted to sell agricultural tools to India. The USA had one
of the best agricultural industries in the world and it could export its knowledge, technology,
and machines to India with their hundreds of millions of farmers, each of which was
a potential customer. And if those farmers became richer, they would be able to purchase
more US products, earning the USA even more profits. And so India had a choice: they could
either starve or they could abandon a failing system in favour of more capitalism. India
chose to become slightly more capitalist: they stopped centrally planning their economy,
they sold government-owned businesses, the system of licenses was reduced, farmers were
given grants to invest in more efficient farms, new infrastructure was built, and India allowed
foreign companies to set up new businesses with Indian companies, where the Indian and
foreign company each owns the new business, called joint ventures. This strategy was successful:
it brought valuable knowledge and skills to India and new factories were built across
India to produce luxury goods such as radios, fridges, processed food, and more. And for
the first time since independence, India, a country with some of the most fertile farmland
in the world, was finally able to feed its own people reliably. This strategy was clearly
a success and the Indian government wanted more of this success. The government still controlled important
industries, so the leaders decided to sell these vital products, such as steel and electricity,
at a very low price. The government wouldnāt earn any money from it, but people could set
up new businesses at a much lower price. New businesses were created across India. By the
late 1960s, about 80% of Indiaās economy was privately owned and the economy grew by
7%. At that time, that kind of growth for a large country like India was unheard of.
But even in the 1960s, India still struggled to provide enough food and products for everyone
in the country, however. But at least now, India was finally moving in the right direction
and might become a developed country within the next 100 years.
With economic growth finally achieved, Indiaās next goal was to become as self-sufficient
as possible. This means that India would try to produce every type of product the Indians
wanted to buy. The reason for such a policy was the belief that if a country could produce
what they needed themselves, then other countries can never take advantage of them. To give
a recent example, the UK does not provide enough food for its own people. So the UK
imports food from other countries, particularly countries from the European Union. When the
UK decided to leave the Union, it faced the problem that the country might not be able
to get enough food. Thus, the EU had significant leverage over the UK. India was afraid of
something similar happening to them and that India would once again become a colony of
a foreign nation if those other nations had too much influence over India. And so, India
was going to try to produce as much as they could themselves, so that they would become
a strong independent country who needs no trade partner. But the problem with this approach is that
certain countries are naturally good and bad at certain things. For example, Japan has
lots of mountains which makes it impossible for them to grow enough food. Japan will therefore
never have a strong agriculture. But it does have a lot of coast lines, which means that
wherever you build a factory, you will have a port nearby. As a result, Japan is naturally
good at transporting heavy products such as cars or electronics across the world because
no matter where in Japan you are, the coast is always nearby. And transporting goods with
cargo ships is cheap. So Japan instead uses a process called ācomparative advantageā.
This is a system in which a country focuses on things they are good at and then sell those
products for a large profit and buy the things they canāt produce themselves. So Japan
sells what they are good at such as cars, adult tentacle entertainment, and integrated
circuits, while it buys fuel, machinery, and food. And as a result, Japan is far richer
by focusing on certain goods than they would be trying to create everything they needed
themselves. And so the choice of India to try to build
everything themselves meant that the country wasnāt focussing on certain things they
were good at. As a result, it was usually cheaper to buy products from other countries,
because those countries had focussed on just a few industries and could sell the same products
at a lower price than India could. And as a result, almost nobody wanted to buy Indian
goods by the 60s and 70s, except inside India itself. This is because India made it illegal
for anyone to import goods that could theoretically be made in India, regardless of whether it
was actually being produced or not. So if, for example, you owned a factory and you needed
to buy parts from abroad, you would either have to pay a very high tax on those products
or you had to try to make them yourself. As a result, Indiaās industry remained very
inefficient even though the economy was finally starting to grow significantly. To show the mismanagement in concrete terms,
instead of abstract examples, letās look at Indiaās agriculture. So what COULD India
have done instead to see the same levels of economic growth as Taiwan, China, or Ireland?
Well, there are some things India is better at than most countries: India has many rivers,
frequent rains, and tropical climates. This makes it a perfect location for growing certain
types of crops such as rice or spices. In fact, India has the most farmland of any country
in the world. India could therefore have focussed on growing their agricultural sector for such
luxury products, to sell them for a high profit to colder and richer countries such as the
West, the Soviet Bloc, or Japan. Indian farmers couldnāt earn a profit because the elites
of the country were in control of the wholesalers, these wholesalers were often the only ones
willing to buy someoneās harvestā¦ and there was usually only one wholesaler to whom
a farmer could sell. This meant that the farmer had to accept whatever price this one wholesale
was willing to give them or not sell anything at all. India could have broken up the wholesalers,
so that they would have to compete with each other. As a result, farmers would have a choice
to which wholesaler they would sell their crops and thus demand a higher price for their
produce. This would have meant that farmers would earn more money the greater their harvest.
As a result, they would invest in better equipment, machines, and fertilizer to increase their
output, because that would have meant more money for them and their families.
The government could then have helped the farmers by investing in factories making fertilizer,
possibly with the help of foreign experts who had experience in industrialized agriculture
such as in Europe or North America. It could have set up universities and vocational schools
where people could learn about better and more efficient agricultural techniques. Eventually
creating research facilities where Indian researchers would develop better tools and
develop better seeds, such as plants immune to droughts or flooding and able to produce
more food per m2. Eventually, India could have become the largest producer of food in
the world, exporting a variety of tropical fruits, flowers, spices, and rise across the
world. The profits from agriculture would have allowed India to invest in other industries
so the country could have a diverse economy focussing on multiple industries, the same
way other developed countries have done; focussing on a couple of industries to use those profits
to buy things it didnāt produce itself. Instead, countries like the Philippines and
Mexico were the ones focussing on better seeds for tropical climates. And by the 1960s, India
was buying seeds from these countries because it failed to create its own research facilities.
And even to this day, Indian farmers are often buying seeds from foreign companies, despite
India being one of the most suitable locations to research tropical agriculture due to the
large amount of farmland, farmers, and frequent harsh weather conditions. One of the many
failed opportunities Indian leaders squandered with ineffective policies. And when a country
squanders opportunities, there are always foreign countries willing to exploit you. By the 1970s India no longer needed to worry
about feeding their own peopleā¦ [VICTORY SOUND] But the rich elites did not like this
new system: they were afraid that farmers might demand higher prices, cutting into their
profits; they were afraid new companies might be more efficient, cutting into their profits;
and they were afraid that foreign businesses could produce products cheaper, cutting into
their profits. And so the elites put in place during colonisation kept being a problem Indiaās
leaders had to deal with. As a result, the government had to keep control over various
parts of the economy so that these elites could use this control for their own benefit.
As a result, Indiaās more open economy was still limited: Indiaās economy still lacked
a healthy competition between businesses, its infrastructure while improving was still
poor, and the government did not provide a good safety net on which people who failed
in this system could try again. All of these are effective measures to grow your economy,
but was blocked by many of the elites who feared it would cut into their profits. And
to this day, some of the most powerful people in India use their influence to block reasonable
economic policies, in order to enrich themselves. And the opening up of India is still taking
place to this very day. So while countries like China or South Korea opened to the outside
world in just a few years, India has spent the last 60 years opening up. And to this
day, India is still relatively closed off ot the outside world and many investors choose
to do business in another, more open country instead. And most of the time, Indiaās reforms are
forced upon it. From the famines to foreign aid, its usually the outside world demanding
India opens its country for freer and open business, because India has hundreds of millions
of potential customers. And in the 1980s, another change occured: The Breakup of the
Soviet Union. You see, India tried to remain friends with botht the western countries and
the Soviet countries. But by the 1980s the Soviet economies were far weaker than the
western economies. Eventually the Soviet Union decided to focus on internal problems. For
India, this was a major problem. Because the Soviet Union decided to stop sending so much
money to India and instead keep it for their own people. The USA saw this and decided to
do the same. And the Indian government faced the problem that they wouldnāt have enough
money anymore. Then, a few years later, the Soviet Union collapsed. This collapse was
a disaster for the economies of the former Soviet countries and its people became significantly
poorer. And because the people were poorer, they didnāt buy as many Indian products
anymore. And so Indian businesses suffered from this collapse.
India had a simple solution: if we lose customers in the former Soviet countries, we will simply
do more business with western countries. Afterall, the economies of the west were far larger
than the economy of the Soviet Union. And so India shifted more towards the westā¦
At the same time, China also pivoted to the west. And just like the Soviet Union and India,
it too abandoned the disastrous policy of a command economy in favour of capitalism.
China opened up quickly to the outside world and focussed their economy on manufactured
goods, with factories opening across China. India saw the billions of dollars invested
into China and wanted the same thing. But India had a problem: Industry accounted for
only 27% of the Indian economy, while it accounted for 45% in chinaās economy. This meant that
China had far better facilities for factories than India had, plus Indiaās industry was
controlled by the elites and thus protected from foreign investmentā¦ India decided to
focus on services instead. Such as customer service, administration, and IT. India has
a large population of English speakers while many of the richest countries in the world
spoke English. And so it began selling cheap services to countries like the USA, Canada,
New Zealand, etc. Itās industry, however, would focus on selling to India.
In the 90s India was once again forced to open its markets further, when it was being
sued at the court of the World Trade Organisation. This court ruled that India created unfair
competition by protecting its own businesses with high tariffs. So if you wanted to buy
a product from abroad costing 100 rupees, there was usually a high tax on it going up
to 400%. This mean that the 100 rupee product now becomes 500 rupeesā¦ so most Indians
decided to buy the Indian product, which was more expensive than 100 rupees but cheaper
than 500 rupees. The court decided that this was illegal and India had to reduce its tariffs
on a large range of products. This was very advantageous for Indian businesses because
most of them needed parts from other countries to produce their own products. And as foreign
parts became cheaper, Indian products became cheaper. And as Indian products became cheaper,
more people started to buy them. As a result, Indians became richer because India was once
again FORCED into making good economic policy. And so the modern Indian economy had its foundation
in the 80s and 90s: an economy focussing on exporting food and services while selling
manufactured goods to other Indians. While globalisation would not be an Indian priority.
As a result, Indiaās growth is smaller than those of countries which embraced globalisation,
such as Vietnam or China, but it also doesnāt suffer as much during worldwide economic crises.
Causing India to have steady growth while having suffered only 3 recessions in its entire
history. Todaysā India is a relatively stable country.
While it doesnāt see the enormous economic growth rates of China, itās still growing
at a steady pace of around 6% per year and itās people are becoming richer at a steady
rate. The government has managed various aspects quite well in the recent decades: it doesnāt
have a lot of debt, it doesnāt spend too much, and has large reserves of money should
a crisis ever occur in India. India keeps slowly opening up to the world
and investments in the Indian economy are growing. But it also faces many problems it
needs to solve if it wants to keep up this growth: its education system doesnāt properly
educate with only 55% of 10-year olds able to read and understand a simple story; many
people do not receive a healthy meal on a daily basis, with nearly half of all childhood
deaths caused by draughts; its financial systems such as banks are in a poor state, but banks
are also some of the biggest investors in an economy, so unhealthy banks means fewer
investments; foreign companies still find it very difficult to do business in India
and prefer doing business in Bangladesh or vietnam; and the Indian healthcare system
is unable to care for all its people. And as more and more developing countries are
implementing healthy economic policies in the 21st century, it means that more countries
across the world will develop their own industries. This will cause more competition. And whether
India will be able to compete with countries that are far better managed, remains uncertain.
India will likely not become a superpower within the next decade, yet most of us will
probably live to see a day where India will become a dominant power in the world. It is
expected that by 2050, India will overtake the USA in economic power, becoming the 2nd
largest economy in the world, right behind China. And as long as the Indian government
does not make major mistakes, like it has done in the past, this outlook seems very
likely. And a world with India as one of the 3 superpowers seems likely. If you want to vote on what video we should
work on next, you can do so in the poll in the description. This was Avery from History
Scope, thank you for watching.
Well, he is trying to not go too hard on us so we wouldn't dislike his video and he will continually get Indian views. In reality, India is and will be the poorest major economy in the world if we don't get our shit together. Which is impossible in the near future.
China's per capita GDP was less than what India's was in 1990. Now china's per capita GDP is 5 times that of India. China has gotten so rich that its cities look better than American cities. https://youtu.be/5XEtBHYUPg4
Here's a good video explaining India's predicament https://youtu.be/izjIk8N_v8g I
Only 5 to 10% ppl pay tax in a population of 1.5 billion
When you have to pay a bribe to get a driving license
Is there a way to fix this?
Indian government lacks vision. These guys are sitting in front of imaginary mirrors due to which they don't see anything but themselves and do things not for the chair but themselves.
Corruption in our nation starts from the get-go (the lowest ranks of cops). Hence, to avoid that shouldn't there be a call made for always on body cams for cops. With the amount of crimes happening here and the level of procrastination of the officers coupled with corruption, we really aren't going uphill.
Government is trying to make India look rich and developed by starting metro projects, building statues (which is highly extravagant) and what not, without fixing the existing basic facilities like proper roads, availability of trash cans at regular intervals, working street lights, working cctv on roads, and I can keep going but the list will never end.
India will prosper when a person with a vision takes control of that chair (someone like Ratan Tata) and starts making the change from a lower point, which will actually help the citizens in their day to day lives. I don't say that all will, but the taxpayers number will go up when the taxpayers see it paying off and the corruption within the government and our local services shrinks.