For more than being just a bright spot

Why being the fastest-growing major economy is not enough to make India rich

- PUJA MEHRA

In 2014, on an invitation from the International Monetary Fund, IMF, I joined a group of journalists drawn from around the world to spend a few days in Washington. The idea was to get an understanding of how the IMF works, the state of the world of finance after the shock of the global financial crisis, and also cover its annual meetings. It was a fun fellowship during which I learnt a lot. A senior IMF official said to me in an interview that India had done remarkably well to exit the 'Fragile Five' crisis and was, in fact, a bright spot on an otherwise so-so global economic scene. The data he gave to make this case was mostly for the financial year ended March 31, 2014, which implied that the economic indicators had been improving before the change of governments in New Delhi in May. But the interview was done and published after the government in office changed. As details and facts don't matter much for political narratives, the interview generated tremendous excitement on both sides of the political divide. It was too much of a feel-good story to resist for them. Both those who had been voted out and the government that had been voted in wanted credit for India's smart turnaround. Since then, successive IMF big shots have hit the headlines in India for essentially saying the same thing: India is a bright spot; it's the fastest-growing major economy in the world. This isn't something to complain about.