India: A great power or a great presence?

Is India ready to enter the league of superpower nations?

Michael Wood’s epic BBC documentary, Story of India, chronicles his journey across the Indian subcontinent, lauding India’s antiquity, its traditions and cultures from days of yore and acknowledging its status as the cradle of one of the world’s oldest civilisations. He says, “As the brief heyday of the West draws to a close, one of the greatest players in history is now rising again.” This marked a perfect segue from culture to commercial as India began the 21st century as one of the leading players in the Global South, rising slowly but firmly into the higher echelons of the economic powerhouses.

The Cold War ended in the 20th century, but a new form of Manichean duopoly was framed as a race between “the elephant and the dragon”, caricatured to represent two richly endowed civilisation countries, now re-writing their second avatar and their meteoric rise in their economic conquests. India and China were part of BRIC and then later BRICS — the Goldman Sachs codified term, an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and then new entrant South Africa — alluding to the burgeoning economies of the Global South that would script their own economic glories and seal their place in the pantheon of powerhouses.

Since then, hagiographies have been written, paeans have been sung and prognostications have been made of when India would catch up, perhaps, even dislodge other G7 countries and adopt the mantle of “superpower”.