| August 18, 1997 | ||
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India 2047
India, like the world, will over the next half century move from government for the people to governance by and of the people, with various elements of civil society becoming actors in a new regime of self-determination. The nation state will weaken but not disappear and sovereignty will increasingly come to be shared by more and more players, national and global. Satellites, the micro-chip and multinational companies have already empowered people and undermined the supremacy of the state. New bodies of global governance and peacekeeping will have been fashioned and, alongside intermeshing regional groupings, will have created a mosaic of international relationships that cut across traditional state boundaries. India will probably have become the world's most populous country, overtaking China, and will be among the Big Five in terms of political, economic and technological power. Its per capita ranking will remain modest but poverty, as we know it, will be a thing of the past in what will be a more integrated society. Standing on the crossroads of a millennial opportunity, will India be able to make a leap -- let alone a great leap -- into the next century? Here is the big picture. D
E M O G R A P H Y
GOING by World Bank estimates India's population will be 1,579 million in 2047, or a 450 per cent increase within a century. India's demography, like its development, has yet to make a critical transition. Though the birth rate has dropped from 42 to 28 per 1,000 population, it is still too high. Ideally, the replacement level (a couple replaced by two children) of 21 per 1,000 population should have been reached by at least 2000. Population stabilisation is now unlikely to be realised for another 100 years. The world over, rising female literacy has been accompanied by lower birth rates and enhanced social and economic indices. India has these past 50 years neglected the girl child, whose development is the only way to demographic salvation. The burden of population growth will consequently weigh heavier. The quality of life will be affected. The challenge of providing basic services like adequate food, clothing, housing and water will be enormous. For instance, we will need about 400 million tonnes of grain by 2047, or more than double the current production, on more or less the same arable area. Productivity must therefore double, which means huge investments in irrigation and on improved land and water management. A demographic explosion over the next 50 years will create any number of political, economic, social and environmental tensions. The different growth rates of different communities, castes and regions could become a political time bomb. Tamil Nadu, for instance, is disquieted about losing some parliamentary seats as a result of a reduction in its population growth rate and altered national demographic ratios. Giant laggards like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar will gain. Caste differentials, specially in the Hindi belt, could aggravate rivalries. Above all, the consumption standards of the poor will be eroded by rising numbers.
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Editorial Office: © Living Media India Ltd |
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To
provide an idea of what may be, not necessarily of what
will be, INDIA TODAY invited
the Centre for Policy Research, a premier New Delhi-based
think-tank, to conduct an exclusive exercise at crystal
ball-gazing, to map an India of the future. Many of the
seeds of change are already there. And what is projected
here is plausible and is certainly within the realm of
possibility.
