Development of India and China: Why?

“Whoever say whatever, I think India and China have attained the present development status due to the instinct of their visionary leaders to adapt to the changing world” – Shekhar KC, MDEVS

It is highly opined and hard to reject that India and China are emerging superpowers in the world. Within in few decades they are believed to be leading the world economy but it’s even more interesting to identify the factors that led to their current potential to grow into leading economy of the world after US.

My view regarding why India and China are developing so fast might be influenced by my being the citizen of the poor country Nepal which is sand-witched between these two leading economies. As being Nepali and my country not being able to grab the development speed even near to these countries and also the only two neighbors India and China, my analysis might smell frustration of being poor citizen and jealousy of the development speed of these countries. My analysis of why India and China developed might address by the answers of why Nepal didn’t develop?

I believe that the huge land, water, coal, mineral and human resources available in these two big countries are the major driving forces of development. The available huge resources were channelized into productive output and that could be sold everywhere in the world through strong trade relations. These cheaply available manpower could be mobilized to run the industries and produce product in mass number. And I think India and China somehow did the same and attained a considerable amount of economic growth. And not to forget, these both countries got sea ports through which trade anything to earn income for national and sustain livelihood of citizens. These all factors might have helped these two countries to expand their market, properly use available resources and raise income of the nation.

Along with the aforementioned factors, I think development of any country is also the outcome of the circumstances it passed through in past. Only the use of available resources and converting them into money is not sufficient to develop at the level China and India has shown to the world. Their historical hardships are to be considered seriously. China when it went through Cultural Revolution in 1965 had to sacrifice millions of lives. The national unity and motivations might have installed in Chinese people at the cost of those millions of lives. But that happened only under the leadership of visionary leaders and China was lucky to have that. The origin of that strong nationalism backed up by the huge potential human and natural resources in China led to the present China- the leading economy of the world.

India also shares a heart throbbing historical encounters against colonization of British Empire. Indian people through their fighting with British emperor got in contact with the technology and way to develop their cultural and economy. I think most of the infrastructures existing in India today were installed by Britain and it would be hard to imagine present India if the Britain hadn’t colonized India at that time. I think India learned majority of things to develop from Britain and has added less to what India has in current time.

So, development of India and China can be attributed to their existing political stability, leadership of visionary leaders, economic relations with the other nations and peace sustaining within their national boundaries. I think it’s the India and China’s pro-activeness to adapt to new development policies in line with changing context and that had enabled them to reap maximum benefits. And now they are emerging as the two super power economies of the world.

 (submitted as a assignment to Trailokya Aryal, MDEVS lecturer of International Relation)