-
One of the top thinkers in the United States today, Ashley Tellis says there are three major obstacles that come in the way of implementation of reforms to pave the way for PM Narendra Modi's vision for India's rise. Tellis was speaking at a panel discussion with India's Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian – the debate was on the recent call by PM Modi for India to be a leading power and on a report authored by Tellis himself in this regard. Subramanian is in Washington ahead of the US visit of the FM Arun Jaitley to attend the annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
-
Tellis said, “In Narendra Modi's vision, a leading power is essentially a great power. However, India will only acquire this status when its economic foundations, its state institutions, and its military capabilities are truly robust. It will take concerted effort to reach this pinnacle.” Tellis added, "There are three obstacles that come in the way of India's rise. First historically, India has never desired to be a great power. It was content to be a great civilisation to be recognised as a great country but never pursued the goal of becoming a great power in the sense that conventional great powers are seen in international politics. So, Prime Minister Modi's recent shift advocating that India be a great power can truly be transformational if they do the things required to get them there,” Tellis added.
-
"The second is that India has never built the kind of economy that allows it to generate capital, produce the resources that the state can use to underwrite great power ambitions. There is whole agenda of economic reform that is implicated here and which India has still to complete," he said. "And the third constraint has been India’s own weaknesses with respect to state capacity," Ashley Tellis concluded. CEA Subramanian, during the conversation, highlighted his belief that India's economy has the potential to grow between eight to 10 per cent if the country continues the pace of reforms.
-
"There is no doubt that India needs to grow very rapidly to be a leading power (of the world). My own view is that India's potential growth is somewhere between eight to 10 per cent. "It would place India among sustainably fastest growing economy and actually among democracies, non-oil countries…So India's economic transformation has been pretty good," he said.
