Opinion For a $5 trillion economy, India must embrace cutting-edge tech
A country of India’s size and capability cannot just think perpetually in terms of catching up with the developed West and the rest. It has to, instead, think in terms of moving ahead of the curve
The trajectory from here should be more strategic, with greater emphasis on deep-tech R&D, an area in which we lag. 
The Indian economy is on the threshold of crossing another milestone and becoming the fourth-largest in the world. It is a commendable achievement for a country that began its journey as an independent nation in 1947 with a meagre $33-billion economy. Decades of British exploitation left it significantly weakened and poor. The Jawaharlal Nehru government’s Soviet-style central planning, while promoting heavy industries and the public sector, led to low economic growth of 3-4 per cent, pejoratively described as the “Hindu rate of growth”. In 40 years, it could only reach the $266 billion mark.
The first major leap came in 1991 when the Narasimha Rao government introduced economic liberalisation and unleashed the potential of Indian entrepreneurs. The opportunity offered by the digital revolution with the introduction of the internet was quickly seized by some of India’s brightest tech entrepreneurs. The Indian economy grew manifold in the next two decades on the strength of its services economy, which contributed 60 per cent of the nation’s GDP. The economy crossed $2 trillion by the time the Narendra Modi government came to power.
The last 10 years have seen the Modi government giving greater emphasis to faster economic growth through programmes like Stand-Up India, Start-Up India and Make in India. The results are there to see. IMF data from May has projected that the Indian economy will overtake Japan this year, reaching the $4.19 trillion mark. Japan was once a $5.8 trillion economy but has shrunk to $ 4.18 trillion due to stagnation and slow growth rates since the 1990s.
As India demonstrated promising growth, naysayers rushed forward to raise the hollow bogey of per capita income. Per capita income is determined by factors like the size of the population. India is the world’s most populous country. As a result, whatever may be the size of GDP, its per capita figures are bound to remain low. No country’s growth can be measured on the criterion of per capita income alone. Although the US is the world’s largest economy with a $28 trillion GDP, it ranks seventh in per capita. China, the second-largest economy with $18 trillion, ranks 69. The per capita argument is worthless because even if India becomes the world’s largest economy with $30 trillion, it will still be ranked 55th in terms of per capita. The only merit of this argument is that the country should be able to provide better living standards to all its citizens.
In democracies, the fruits of economic growth percolate to all sections of society. This is reflected in the consumption patterns. Surveys indicate that the monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) has increased in India by more than 2.5 times in the last 10 years. Interestingly, most of this expenditure was on travel, health and education, indicating healthy growth parameters.
Tourism has seen remarkable growth in the last 10 years. China still occupies the first rank in the number of domestic and international travellers. India lagged in this sector for decades due to a lack of disposable income and tourism infrastructure. But today, with the incomes of the middle class growing substantially, Indians have started travelling more. Data indicates about 2.5 billion domestic tourist visits last year. Figures for 2024 indicate that almost 29 million Indians travelled abroad marking a 30 per cent growth.
All this indicates healthy economic growth, which has led to the near eradication of baseline poverty and the creation of a strong middle class with disposable income. The Modi government aspires to take the economy to further heights with targets ranging from $ 5 trillion in 2027 to $10 trillion in 2035. The current impressive growth is a result of corrective measures taken by the government. It removed parallel economy, allowed proper distribution of wealth and encouraged greater consumption.
But the path from here needs to be calibrated carefully. Economies grow on the strength not just of consumption but also trade and technology. Quality, quantity and speed are the main determining factors. India and China were leading economies until the middle of the 18th century. But when the industrial revolution occurred first in England and later in America, those two countries surged ahead and became leading economic powers by the dawn of the 20th century. When automation and digitisation progressed in the last decades of the last century, China moved ahead of the curve, emerging as the second-largest economy by 2008.
We are now in the post-manufacturing and post-digital era. Growth in frontier technologies will determine a country’s economic future. A country of India’s size and capability cannot just think perpetually in terms of catching up with the developed West and the rest. It has to, instead, think in terms of moving ahead of the curve.
We missed the first two industrial revolutions as we were a slave nation at that time. We benefitted partially from the third, digital revolution of the 1980s and ’90s and became a leader in sectors like IT services. But the Fourth Industrial Revolution, led by Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum technologies, robotics, space, defence, crypto and bio-engineering calls for new thinking and new priorities. The impressive growth of the Indian economy in the last decade was largely due to the unleashing of its basic potential. The trajectory from here should be more strategic, with greater emphasis on deep-tech R&D, an area in which we lag. It is important to create a climate of hassle-free access to investments in these areas. Only then can India aspire to achieve its goal of becoming a $10 trillion economy in the next 10 years.
The writer, president, India Foundation, is with the BJP
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