India the next superpower? Not any time soon, says a London School of Economics study.
The hopes of those in the West who would build up India as a democratic counterweight to Chinese superpower are unlikely to be realised anytime soon, says the study, titled ‘India: The Next Superpower?’
The LSE study comprising essays by nine experts in the areas of India’s economy, defence, government, culture, environment and society advises “caution in assessing India’s claim to superpower status”.
Well-known historian and one of the contributors to the study Ramachandra Guha cites reasons for the cynicism.
“The challenge of the Naxalites; the insidious presence of the Hindutvawadis; the degradation of the once liberal and upright Centre; the increasing gap between the rich and the poor; the trivialisation of the media; the unsustainability, in an environmental sense, of present patterns of resource consumption; the instability and policy incoherence caused by multi-party coalition governments.”
Besides Guha, other contributors to the study are Rajeev Sibal, Iskander Rehman, Nicolas Blarel, Oliver Stuenkel, Harish Wankhede, Mukulika Banerjee, Andrew Sanchez and Sandeep Sengupta.
Despite “impressive” achievements in various sectors in recent years, India is unlikely to be a superpower and in fact, should not aspire to become one, a study by the London School of Economics (LSE) has concluded.
