A Little More About India

India, a former British colony that has been independent for over 70 years, is currently one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. However, in 2019, the country lost its place as the world's fastest-growing economy after it grew more slowly than expected in the first half of the year. For the first time in nearly two years, India's growth rate fell behind China's. It is the world’s third-largest economy in purchasing parity terms.

Overall, in 2019, the economy of India grew at a rate of 5%.3 This growth was primarily due to strong demand for the country's goods and services, in addition to a high level of industrial activity. The country, once a supplier of British tea and cotton, now has a diversified economy with the majority of activity and growth coming from the service industry. India is expected to become a high-middle income country by 2030.

The dominion of India was reborn on January 26, 1950, as a sovereign democratic republic and a union of states. With universal adult franchise, India’s electorate was the world’s largest, but the traditional feudal roots of most of its illiterate populace were deep, just as their religious caste beliefs were to remain far more powerful than more recent exotic ideas, such as secular statehood. Elections were to be held, however, at least every five years, and the major model of government followed by India’s constitution was that of British parliamentary rule, with a lower House of the People (Lok Sabha), in which an elected prime minister and a cabinet sat, and an upper Council of States (Rajya Sabha). 

Nehru led his ruling Congress Party from New Delhi’s Lok Sabha until his death in 1964. The nominal head of India’s republic, however, was a president, who was indirectly elected. India’s first two presidents were Hindu Brahmans, Rajendra Prasad and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the latter a distinguished Sanskrit scholar who had lectured at the University of Oxford. Presidential powers were mostly ceremonial, except for brief periods of “emergency” rule, when the nation’s security was believed to be in great danger and normal constitutional procedures and civil rights were feared to be too cumbersome or threatening.