WHERE will India be in 2010, in five years from now? Let me focus on three areas: its domestic politics, its developmental status, and its international relations. I present a relatively optimistic picture, though there are developmental challenges ahead that are quite monumental.

In domestic politics, the first thing one can safely predict is that India will still be a more or less liberal democracy with mass franchise. Elections will be held in time and will be as free and fair as in the past.

Notwithstanding the rant of the communists and the cant of the right (or is it the rant of right and the cant of the communists!), liberal democracy has roots in this country, going back at least 60 years but in reality further back given the development of local councils and legislatures and state elections, however limited, in colonial times. The left sees liberal democracy as false consciousness and a cover for the ruling class. The right does not trust ordinary citizens and ideally would like parliament to be inhabited by mahants, sants, seers, gurus, pirs, maulvis, and other religious and clerical figures who would preside over our destiny (what an ambition!). Indians have got used to liberal parliamentary democracy, with all its fallibilities, and five years from now we will still operate such a system.

Having said that, we can with some confidence say that the right will be back in power by then. The BJP-led NDA or some other coalition with the BJP at its head will be back at the helm in New Delhi. The present fracas between the various members of the Sangh Parivar will have been settled. Advani and Vajpayee will have more or less vanished from the political scene. If so, the electorate will bring back the BJP/NDA. There is a fairly well-established trend in Indian electoral politics: it is to throw the incumbents out and bring in the other lot. Judging by that, the Congress-led UPA will depart the scene to make way for the BJP/NDA lot. The third force is basically a spent force, and though it does represent a genuine constituency, its leaders appear so bizarre and comical to everyone else that no one can work with them for any length of time. Since this leadership is relatively young and continues to be ambitious, it is unlikely that there will be any great change in fortunes of the third force.

Speaking of aged politicians and spent forces, who will be at the forefront of politics in 2010? I won’t hazard a prediction here, but one thing that is striking is the number of influential middle-aged women who already have a presence and will continue to be significant in any political reckoning: Sonia Gandhi, Sheila Dikshit, Priyanka Gandhi, Jayalalitha, Mayawati, Mamata Banerjee, Brinda Karat, Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje, and Uma Bharti, to name just the most prominent. If the women’s reservation bill goes through, we will also have a parliament in which one third of the members will be women MPs. Surely this is going to make a difference, though exactly in what way isn’t clear.

By 2010, we will most likely have another President. Gujarat will no longer have Narendra Modi since he will have made his way back to Delhi by then. The BJP will still be in power in Gujarat though. Ayodhya will still be an issue because the Hindu right cannot afford to let it go and come to a sensible, honourable agreement and because the power of the courts in this matter is limited. The Naga problem will have been solved. The Kashmir militancy will be winding down. However, Punjab may be poised for another phase of instability, and the Akalis will be in power. Kashmir and Punjab’s fortunes are linked by Pakistani behaviour. When Islamabad had to prop up the Kashmir militancy, it eased off on Punjab. When it comes under pressure in Kashmir, it will start things up in Punjab again, as we are perhaps already seeing.

 

By 2010, India will have grown again, economically, at an average of 7% per annum. Thus, its GDP will have risen by 50% in relation to 2005. India will probably never attain Chinese levels of growth – the 8-10% per annum levels that have so astonishingly lifted China – but, despite the best efforts of various domestic critics and forces, the economy will not slow down below 7% per annum.

As a result of economic growth, the proportion of Indians living below the poverty line will decline further, to roughly 20% of the population. In five years from now, illiteracy will have reduced as well, and Indians will be closer to full literacy. By 2020, India should be at full literacy. This will entail a social revolution, the effects of which are hard to predict. It will be cause for celebration though. A developing India has a moral duty to ensure that its population is at least literate up to an 8th standard education. With an educated population, we will have laid the foundation for higher growth rates.

 

Several other issues will be in sharp focus by 2010. VAT will be everywhere, even in the holdout states. Economic reason, in this area, will prevail eventually, irrespective of who is in power. As in China, this should eventually rationalize tax collection and enrich the public coffers. It is another matter how we spend our public riches. India will be no better off in five years with respect to its deficits. We will be spending way beyond our means. There is no sign of a political force that is serious about the rational pricing of public goods and services.

India’s energy situation will continue to be a tight one. But there will be more discoveries of oil and natural gas. The find in Andhra Pradesh is a significant one, and probably closer to what Narendra Modi revealed (though he did so prematurely, before the figures were properly verified by the ONGC). India will still not have inked a deal with Iran and Pakistan; and Bangladeshi natural gas will continue to tantalize our planners. The United States will have delivered on the deal it has just signed with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. There will therefore be a resurgence of interest in nuclear power.

However, India will depend principally as before on oil and gas and coal. Clean coal technologies will be the buzz word of the energy sector. We will talk about alternative energy and energy saving, but that’s all we will do – talk. India has the hydroelectric potential of North America combined. Yet we are nowhere close to North America’s use of its hydro capacities. India does not have to invest in big dams to realize this potential. Building micro and medium dams, and ecologically and socially responsible policies with respect to the construction of dams is not beyond our capacities.

In five years from now, we will be looking back to evaluate the usefulness of the Free and Compulsory Education Bill that the NDA government drafted in its dying days and that the UPA government is about to bring to Parliament. The compulsory education part of the bill will have helped the cause of full literacy. Whether or not the second part of the bill will have advanced the cause of education will be controversial. By reserving 20-25% of all admissions in private schools, the government hopes to spread quality education and social integration. Whatever the long-term outcome, the first five years will be chaos. The Indian educational system will be reeling from the effects of the new policy.

 

Private education, which has been one of the success stories of post- independent India, will be in shock. The government will interfere so massively in the running of private schools as a result of this bill that even the most efficiently run private schools will have been reduced to shambles. Local government and the central government will intervene in admissions, in fee structures, in hiring and firing, and in matters of discipline and classroom conduct by teachers. In all likelihood, the courts will support the government, as the judiciary has already demonstrated its proclivity for legislation in the education sector.

 

Once in, the government will not know how to extricate itself from the school sector. The divestment of public sector units will seem like child’s play in comparison. The left will stack schools with its nominees when and where it is in power, and the right will imitate the left by doing the same. Since the right is more powerful in India, and will continue to be so for many years, it will slowly gain even greater control over education. Apparently, this thought has not crossed the minds of those who are pushing for reservations in school admissions. The government, which has made such a mess of public education, will now complete the process in style and make a mess of private education as well.

HIV-AIDS is already an epidemic in India, that is, it has crossed the one per cent mark in terms of infection rates. Some states and cities in India are well over the one per cent bar. There are regions where the infection rate is between 4-10%. The Indian government will become increasingly public about the HIV-AIDS epidemic which will threaten to destroy most of the socio-economic gains of the past twenty years. In South Africa, HIV-AIDS went from 1% to 20% within a decade. India is beginning to resemble the South African situation. We will not quite get there, but we will not be as successful in controlling HIV-AIDS as the West, Thailand or, more recently, Uganda.

HIV-AIDS is in cities, it is along trucking routes, it has penetrated villages and small towns, it is being passed on to children by pregnant mothers, it is spreading via unsafe heterosexual and homosexual sex, infected blood, and intravenous drug use. The Indian government has a terrible record in being transparent about HIV-AIDS and in reacting to the epidemic, is using all kinds of spurious arguments about India’s traditional restraint in matters sexual, in painting it as a ‘western’ disease, in suggesting that it is less important than tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, and so on.

The government’s figures on the extent of the epidemic are widely questioned – by international organizations, medical professionals, and NGOs. There will be some change in all of this, but there will not be enough change. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee spoke publicly on HIV-AIDS several times in his term of office. Manmohan Singh has unfortunately not been as outspoken. He should be. It is a time bomb, and it is already too late to defuse it.

 

Incidentally, an index of how important HIV-AIDS has become is that the Indian armed forces now publicly share their concern. The military has gone to the press with the problem, and in many cantonments you will see the HIV-AIDS clinics as you drive through. In 2010, India will have more HIV-AIDS victims than any other country in the world. We have a serious national security and human security issue on our hands that will be all the more visible in five years.

Water scarcity will be an issue in 2010. Two-thirds of India is either in completely water scarce areas or in areas that are ‘water stressed’. We have already seen water riots and sporadic water-related violence in the cities. The moral economy of rural India is probably more resilient – who gets water and who does not, how water is shared in times of scarcity, is better developed in the villages of India. With population growth, the demand for water can only grow. In five years from now, demand will have increased. Our ability to manage water – to provide potable water, to harvest it, to conserve it, and to distribute it, and where necessary, to charge for it – will not increase apace. Tempers will therefore fray. The issue will become politically more charged.

 

All this in a country where there are immense riverine resources and, in most years, a bountiful monsoon. Indian agriculture will not keep pace with food demand if we do not use our water efficiently. India has more arable land than China (which is twice India’s total land area). With enough irrigation, modern farming methods, soil conservation, and good seeds, India’s agricultural output could be more than enough for its own consumption. India could be a breadbasket for the region. Will this happen by 2010? No, because we will not evolve the requisite water or agricultural policies. And while we will continue to produce enough food, we will not have the kind of surpluses that we could produce. Our responsibility in this regard is not just a national one. The world needs food, Africa in particular. India should be playing a role here.

Five years from now, an ecological audit of India will show that we have not made much improvement in terms of forest cover, biodiversity, and the pollution of air, water, and soil. It is estimated that India’s forest cover declined by 40% over the past 500 years. It will take a long time to regenerate even a part of that. While there are signs of some recovery – we have increased our forest cover somewhat in the past few years but have lost dense forest space – the pace of recovery is slow. The government aims to raise forest cover from 23% to 33% by 2012, which is unrealistic. Amongst the positive signs, ecologically, are the better awareness of ecological issues (the Supreme Court has now directed all schools to make a course in environmental education mandatory from the 1st to the 12th standards and corporates are far more sensitive to their green responsibilities), the increasing role of NGOs, and greater attention to growing and marketing organic foods.

 

What about our man-made environment, particularly our cities, old and new? In five years, India’s largest cities will be even larger and more frustrating. They will continue to attract migrants from smaller cities and from district towns and the villages. Still, India’s urbanization has been relatively slow: 70% of all Indians continue to live outside the city. The six big metros will improve public transport and sanitation. Delhi’s Metro has been a great success and the idea of the metro will spread (Kolkata is already gearing up to expand its older system). Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Chennai have made huge strides in sanitation, particularly in picking up garbage, and their successes will be emulated by the second rank cities south of Bhopal (alas, the north will, as in many other things, lag behind). Most Indian cities though will remain a disgrace. Indian conceptions of public space have much to celebrate, but cleanliness and civic spiritedness about its use are not amongst them.

Noise pollution in the cities has begun to ameliorate, and urban spaces should be more tranquil in 2010. The Supreme Court in a recent judgment has again charged citizens and public officials with enforcing stricter standards even against places of worship which seem to think that in a world full of media, the Almighty needs a megaphone or two to stay competitive! The greater restraint exhibited at Diwali in northern India is an indication that we are reaching the limits of noise tolerance.

Indian cities, five years from now, will have more malls, more shops with more goods, restaurants, more internet and telephone facilities, and more transport, but they will also be more unsatisfying culturally. The art of conversation is dying, as we become more digital. The sudden surge of television and access to western cultural products, particularly popular cultural products, is reducing India’s interest in classical culture, Indian and non-Indian. Young Indians are obsessed with popular culture and find classical culture too remote and challenging. Instantaneity – the desire for immediate satisfaction and distraction – is rampant. Indians are obsessed also with ‘practicality’ and doing things that are ‘relevant’. They increasingly disdain the classical arts. Philistinism has never been higher.

 

The stress of life, to use Hans Selye’s authoritative phrase, on the young (and I refer here mostly to middle class India) is intensifying. The academic and career expectations of parents, unstable families, media exposure (and so many media), cramped living conditions in crowded cities, the violence of urban life, all these are pressing in on the emotional life of young people. Up to 13% of Indians may have mental health problems, putting us ahead of the U.S. Young people increasingly suffer. To deal with it they are experimenting on an unprecedented scale with banned substances.

Schools are infested with alcohol but also hard and soft drugs. And contrary to the comfortable assertion that the problem is localized in the ‘public schools’, where all those terrible ‘rich kids’/babalog hang out, banned substances are everywhere: they are in private schools and government schools, big schools and small schools, in famous schools and unknown schools, in residential schools and day schools, in boys schools and girls schools. We are sticking our collective heads in the sand if we think that anyone, especially in the cities and towns, is outside the alcohol and drug menace in schools. This problem is here to stay, and the first move in dealing with it is to acknowledge it rather than cringing and waving it away. Thank god for the CBSE (The Hindu, 26 July 2005) which has gone public in asking schools to be more alert and to begin to act rather than behave as if drugs was someone else’s problem. In five years from now, we will have more drugs in schools, but we will also have much more awareness of its spread and what to do.

 

Young people, five years from now, will find some aspects of their lives less stressful though. There is a widespread view that the Indian educational system has gone about as far as it can go in loading down young people with a curriculum built almost exclusively around a graduating examination. The government and educationists are thinking about how curricular stress can be reduced. The government’s decision to introduce life skills classes as a grades subject to reduce stress is not one of them: to reduce curricular stress by introducing more curriculum is rather bizarre! A more sensible effort is the government’s dialogue with the IITs on how their entrance exam can be made less fantastic in terms of the standards expected. If in five years we can do something about IIT-mania we will have done a lot to relieve the stress on middle class Indian children.

What about India’s international relations? Where will we be in respect of our foreign relations? Before saying anything else, it should be said that five years from now India will not be a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. There are too many forces opposed to India and others joining the Permanent Five. These forces are global as well as regional, and the recent attempt by the G-4 (Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan) to enlist support has not helped India’s chances. India will walk away from this attempt somewhat scarred. No one, anywhere in the world, will want to open up the issue again, at least not for a decade. By then Indian economic might, a thicker relationship with the U.S., a border deal with China, and perhaps even a deal with Pakistan on Kashmir will have been achieved, which should put everyone in a better mood about India’s candidacy. More than anything, it will be India’s economy that will overcome international resistance.

 

What will India’s relations with South Asia be like in 2010? The most important relationship is the India-Pakistan one. In 2010, the détente with Pakistan will continue to deepen. There will be ups and downs, but the capacity of the two countries to manage the oscillations will be better. Ultimately, better relations with Pakistan depend on Pakistani attitudes and domestic politics in that turbulent country.

Where will Pakistan be in 2010? It is hard to say. However, one thing that we can say with a fair degree of confidence is that President Musharraf will either be gone or will be on his way out. No Pakistani leader has stayed at the helm for more than eleven years. Musharraf came to power in 1999 and will have done eleven years by 2010. There is nothing magical about eleven years, of course. Ayub Khan was in power from 1958-1969, and Zia stayed at the top from 1977-1988. Nobody else in Pakistan has come close. Indeed, except for Jawaharlal Nehru, no South Asian has been in power more than eleven years at one stretch (Indira Gandhi’s longest period as prime minister was from 1966 to 1977 – eleven years!).

 

It would be historic if Musharraf lasted longer. He could go sooner. In his favour is the support of the U.S., but this may change, and in any case there are internal forces that may work against him. If he goes, we could see a period of uncertainty in India-Pakistan relations. The two countries have a window of opportunity therefore. The clock is ticking, and we have only five years to go. A new leadership in Pakistan in 2010 will take at least another 2-5 years to make any big decisions vis-a-vis India.

With China, things are set on a more predictable course, as they have been for a good 20 years. So, in 2010, the relationship should be stable.

India-China relations are built around several elements: summits, a security and strategic dialogue, confidence building measures, the border talks, and trade. Over the past ten years, India-China summits (foreign ministers, prime ministers and presidents meetings) have been held regularly, indeed more often than at any point in the past. India-China have now committed to holding an official-level security and strategic dialogue. They have worked the CBMs they negotiated in the late 1980s and early 1990s for over a decade. There is therefore much greater transparency in their military capabilities and intentions.

The border talks have quietly made progress, particularly in the past 2-3 years. The mapping of the line of actual control has advanced, and there is much greater clarity about the principles by which a settlement of the border dispute will finally be achieved. India and China will not have solved the border problem five years from now, but they will be much closer to a solution, which will probably emerge in the period between 2010 and 2015. By then, those who remember the 1962 war between the two countries will have passed from the stage, and a more pragmatic view of the quarrel will have consolidated itself.

Finally, and most impressively, India-China trade has taken off to the point where it looks likely that China will replace the U.S. as India’s largest trading partner! In 2010, India-China trade will be a massive fact in world trade. It may have doubled from present levels. In the early 1990s, there were doubters who said that India and China could only be competitive economies because they supposedly produced the same goods. What they overlooked is that all the major trading nations in the West plus Japan produce roughly the same set of goods, and yet they trade mostly with each other!

 

Finally, what about India’s relations with the U.S. in 2010? In June 2005, India and the U.S. signed a defence agreement that has a life of ten years. By 2010, half the life of that agreement will have expired. The most important operational part of the agreement relates to defence trade and cooperation including technology transfers, co-production, and research. It is safe to predict that by 2010, India and the U.S. will have struck at least a couple of important deals on the sale of military equipment and technology to India.

In July 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came to an agreement with President George W. Bush on nuclear relations between the two countries, the gist of which is that the U.S. will recognize India as a ‘responsible nuclear’ country and will move domestic legislation and international cooperation with India to allow New Delhi to develop its civilian nuclear programme. In return, India will separate its military and civilian nuclear programmes, place its civilian reactors under IAEA safeguards, maintain its moratorium on testing, work with the U.S. towards an international agreement on a fissile material cutoff (FMCT), and refrain from proliferating. By 2010, the U.S. should have cleared the legislative decks to allow nuclear technology to go to India’s civilian nuclear plants including Tarapur (which is ailing). India should also have struck nuclear deals with other international suppliers. India, for its part, will have completed the separation of its military and civilian programmes and have opened up to IAEA inspections and safeguards in its civilian programme.

India-U.S. relations will move forward at a fairly decent clip. Every major political formation in India – the right, the left of centre, and the centrist – has been quite pragmatic with the U.S. since 1982 when Indira Gandhi decided to engage the U.S. Every formation in power has talked to the U.S. about military sales, cooperation, and nuclear matters. This is why the process is likely to go forward at some pace, despite the fire and brimstone spewing forth from the leadership of the right and the left.

Does this add up to a grand conclusion on where India will be in 2010? It’s a relatively optimistic picture, particularly on foreign relations and in domestic politics. Developmentally, the picture is much more fraught. There are good signs in the development sector too, but there are many challenges here as well. Development is the base for good politics and international relations, so to ignore it would be perilous.