India is a vibrant democracy and a pluralistic society.. By: Ambassador A. R. ganshyam

For most of the two-thousand-year period of the Gregorian calendar, India was the largest economy contributing one-third of the world's output, and archaeological evidence traces the origins of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization to the fifth millennium BC.

During the Middle Ages India also witnessed many glorious empires and great civilizations spread across millions of miles under the rule of enlightened emperors.

In the last quarter of the last millennium, India came under the influence of the East India Company for almost a century during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Then a rebellion of Indian soldiers in 1857 forced the British to place India directly under the British Crown for another ninety years.

For nearly two centuries, India was associated with Great Britain solely to serve the interests of the British Empire.

Of all the colonies that the British occupied, controlled and benefited greatly from, India was by far the largest and richest and was often referred to as the "jewel in the British crown".

Before leaving India permanently, the British divided the Indian subcontinent into two states in three sections: India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan.

India's population at that time was 330 million and its gross domestic product was 2.7 trillion Indian rupees, or only 3 percent of the world's gross domestic product.

Thus the country, which represented a third of the world's output two thousand years ago, was dried up by the colonial masters.

independent India.

Independent India witnessed seventeen free and fair Parliamentary elections with fifteen Prime Ministers holding the reins as each of them contributed to the growth, stability and development of the Indian nation, society and economy.

How the Prime Ministers of India attempted to build modern India from the wreckage of two centuries of British Empire rule is in itself a great story and has been told by many Indian and foreign authors.

In the 75 years since independence India has negotiated a difficult and at times treacherous journey filled with five wars 1948, 1962, 1965, 1971 and 1999 and facing recurring natural disasters such as floods, famines, droughts and epidemics.

Two of its elected prime ministers were brutally assassinated and a third died in mysterious circumstances after the signing of the cease-fire agreement in the Soviet city of Tashkent after the India-Pakistan war in 1965. The 21-month period between 1975-1977 remains an aberration in India's democracy, which has not broken otherwise. When the basic rights of Indian citizens were suspended during the period of national emergency.

Achieved development...

The Ganges has been flooded since India gained its independence.

During the period from 1950 to 1951, contributions to India's GDP by agriculture, industry and services sectors were 56 percent, 15 percent and 29 percent, respectively. Agriculture employed the largest workforce at 72, with manufacturing and services providing 10 percent and 18 percent, respectively. Today, services are 54 percent of India's GDP, followed by industry and agriculture at 25.92 percent and 20.19 percent, respectively.

The average life expectancy on the eve of independence was 32 years.

It has now been nearly 70 years.

In 1950 the infant mortality rate in India was 145.6 per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality ratio in the forties was 2,000 per 100,000 live births, which dropped to 1,000 in the 1950s.

There were only 50,000 doctors across the country and the number of primary health care centers was 725. Today the infant mortality rate is 27.7 per 1,000 births and the maternal mortality rate is 103 per 100,000. India now has more than 1.2 million doctors.

There are 54,618 sub-health centers “SHC”, 21,898 primary health centers “BHC” and 4,155 urban primary health centers “UPHC” as of December 8, 2021, and there are up to 70,000 public hospitals and special.

As of April 5, 2022, there were 117,771 Ayosh Man Bharat Health and Wellness Free Health Program centers operating in India with the exception of 748 e-hospitals set up across the country as part of the “Digital India” initiative by the government.

As for education, when the British left India, there were 210,000 primary schools, 13,600 middle schools, and 7,416 upper secondary schools in India, in addition to 498 colleges and 27 universities. Today, there are 1.6 million schools and 42,343 colleges.

future prospects..

In the past ten years, despite the decline in growth rates since 2016 until the recovery of the economy this year and the huge burden of unemployment chasing policy makers in the country, there is a quiet revolution taking place in the field of technology, digitalization and innovation led by young Indian companies, which gave the campaign for self-reliance (Atmanibharta) impetus for it.

The latest research on the Indian economy in the past 10 years by analyst Ruchir sharma has made some exciting discoveries.

In 2011 India had 55 billionaires with a cumulative wealth of $256 billion which was equivalent to 13.5 percent of India's GDP.

Ten years later, in 2021, India has 140 billionaires, with a cumulative wealth of $596 billion, equivalent to 19.6 percent of GDP.

Mr. Sharma adds that 110 of those are the new billionaires who have been formed over the past decade alone.

At the time of independence, India was the sixth largest economy in the world.

And in 2021 it kept the same ranking which does not mean achievement with the population of India more than quadrupling.

Despite the above, there is no room for complacency because

(a) India still has a large population living below the poverty line, which the World Bank estimates at 140 million, or 10 percent of the population.

(b) The formal and informal sectors may not be able to absorb the large number of educated youth graduating from colleges (the 2022 estimate is 10.76 million..

(c) External and internal factors will continue to haunt the policy establishment in its efforts to achieve the double-digit GDP growth rate which India now needs.

However India also has many advantages (i) a life expectancy of less than 30 years (ii) a strong focused government, (iii) a growing market, and (iv) India's innovative youth.

If India continues to build and strengthen its infrastructure, maintains a cohesive and cohesive society and strikes a balance in predictable and consistent policy formulation and implementation, it will be possible to ensure a brighter future for generations to come.

Ambassador A-R-Ghanashyam is a retired Indian diplomat who served as the Ambassador of India to Angola