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India Today
a day ago
- Business
- India Today
From broken colony to economic giant: How India rewrote its destiny
In 1947, India was a nation on life support. The departing British Empire left behind a hollow shell: 75% of the population trapped in subsistence farming, literacy at a dismal 17%, and a per capita income of just 240. The colonial extraction machine had perfected the art of draining wealth, exporting raw materials whilst destroying local industries with cheap manufactured imports. Railways served ports, not people. Independence brought political freedom, but economically, India faced an existential that broken nation stands as the world's fourth-largest economy, with a GDP of $4.19 trillion. The transformation reads like an epic screenplay, but the journey was anything but smooth. The Socialist Years: Dreams and StagnationJawaharlal Nehru's vision was bold: a self-reliant India powered by state-led industrialisation. The Five-Year Plans became the blueprint for development, focusing on heavy industry, irrigation, and power generation. The Green Revolution of the 1960s banished food shortages, turning India from famine-prone to alongside achievements came the License Raj, a suffocating maze of permits and controls that strangled entrepreneurship. By the 1980s, India's modest 3.5% annual growth had earned the mocking label "Hindu rate of growth". The socialist dream was alive but sluggish, and cracks were showing in the Great Awakening: 1991 ReformsThe breaking point arrived in 1991 with a balance of payments crisis so severe that India had barely two weeks of import cover remaining. The government quietly pledged gold reserves to the IMF. Survival demanded radical Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Dr Manmohan Singh wielded the scalpel with precision. The License Raj was dismantled, tariffs slashed, and the rupee devalued. Foreign investment caps were lifted, loss-making public enterprises privatised. For the first time in decades, competition was embraced rather than results were electric. GDP growth shot up to 6-8% annually, foreign exchange reserves ballooned, and the IT revolution transformed Bangalore into a global technology hub. IT exports exploded from $565 million in 1991 to tens of billions within two Acceleration: 2000s and BeyondBetween 2003 and 2008, India achieved near-China levels of growth, clocking 7-9% annually. The 2008 global financial crisis tested its resilience, but stimulus measures cushioned the impact. The 2010s brought ambitious reforms: the 2016 demonetisation drive targeted black money, whilst the 2017 Goods and Services Tax unified India's chaotic taxation delivered a severe blow, shrinking GDP by 7.25% in 2020. Yet India bounced back remarkably, the crisis actually turbocharging its digital economy. UPI payments exploded, e-commerce became mainstream, and fintech startups Present RealityBy 2025, India had achieved the unthinkable, leapfrogging Japan to claim fourth place globally. Growth in 2024-25 reached 6.5%, the fastest among major economies. Exports hit a record $824.9 billion whilst inflation cooled to 2.82%. Policy initiatives like Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat supercharged manufacturing and technology challenges persist. Income inequality yawns wide between states, per capita GDP still lags developed nations, and job creation struggles to match youth aspirations. Agriculture employs nearly half the workforce whilst contributing less than 15% to Road AheadThe IMF predicts India will overtake Germany by 2028, potentially crossing $5 trillion in GDP. With a young population, digital dominance, and reform-hungry policies, the question isn't whether India can rise further but how quickly it can rewrite global league tables colonial plunder to planned stagnation, from socialist caution to capitalist ambition, India has shapeshifted through every storm. The fourth-largest economy tag isn't the finish line; it's merely the halfway mark in a marathon towards economic superpower status.- Ends
Epoch Times
27-05-2025
- General
- Epoch Times
Reviving the Soul: Lessons From the Great Awakening
Imagine if a televangelist like Joel Osteen or Billy Graham made the front page of every newspaper in America. Not because of a scandal, but simply out of enthusiasm for their spiritual message. This is what happened in 1739, when English minister George Whitefield toured America. A star celebrity in his day, Whitefield was already famous in England for his charismatic preaching style that stressed personal conversion. Instead of reading long sermons as other ministers did, Whitefield spoke in a more impromptu way and made emotional appeals to congregations. His oratory made him popular, but also controversial. George Whitefield preaching, in an 1857 engraving. Public Domain In his famous 'Autobiography,' Benjamin Franklin described the excitement this preacher stirred up when he came to America: 'In 1739 arrived among us from Ireland the Reverend Mr. Whitefield, who had made himself remarkable there as an itinerant preacher.' By 'itinerant preacher,' Franklin meant that Whitefield traveled from church to church. Some of the local ministers in America were offended by his bluntness, seeing him as a threat to their established orthodoxy. They 'soon refused him their pulpits, and he was obliged to preach in the fields.' Franklin was among the huge 'multitudes of all sects' that gathered to hear the man. Attending out of curiosity and silently resolving 'that he should get nothing from me,' the rational inventor ended up emptying his pockets into the collection plate. Franklin was one of thousands who had been won over. He Related Stories 5/10/2023 1/11/2023 Franklin was right. The world was 'growing religious.' But why? Reacting Against Materialism Whitefield was exceptional, but he was not the only preacher stirring things up. In the 1730s, change was in the air. The period preceding what is now known as the 'Great Awakening' was a time much like our own. In the early 18th century, American civilization was undergoing a crisis. Tired of the religious wars that had dominated the previous century, the educated classes turned to science and reason as a guide. The Enlightenment began to take hold as thinkers like Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton inferred the laws of nature from experiments and mathematics. Ordinary people, however, were not satisfied with these materialistic explanations. In their unrest, they turned to charismatic preachers like Whitefield to feed their spiritual hunger. Early Social Media To realize their goals, these preachers used the printing press. While its existence was not new, its use became more widespread during this time. Whitefield himself cultivated a 'preach and print' strategy to attract his massive crowds, exploiting the commercial possibilities of newsprint to build his revival. It sounds impressive to learn that every newspaper in America was reporting on Whitefield's preaching. Actually, though, there were only 12 colonial newspapers in print in 1739. Boston had five, New York two, and Pennsylvania three. Just two, the Virginia Gazette and South Carolina Gazette, were located in the South. The head of one of these papers was, in fact, Benjamin Franklin. It was he who helped publicize Whitefield's evangelism in his Pennsylvania Gazette, even supporting construction of two separate building projects, a preaching venue and an orphan house. It worked. In 'Inventing the 'Great Awakening,'' historian Frank Lambert writes that 'even armies arrayed for the biggest battles did not match the revivalist crowds in number.' Mass Conversions Jonathan Edwards (L) published "A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God" in 1737. Public Domain Jonathan Edwards was another popular preacher of the time. The opposite of Whitefield, Edwards had a quiet voice more suited to intimate settings than large crowds. Thanks to the power of printing, though, he was able to reach a wide audience. It was Edwards who helped launch the Great Awakening through a 1737 publication. In 'A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God,' he described how hundreds of people in his small town of Northampton found spiritual salvation by turning away from the material realm. Their hearts became wholly absorbed in 'the great things of religion and the eternal world,' he wrote. 'All the conversation, in all companies and upon all occasions, was upon these things only.' Worldly affairs, by contrast, were treated as 'a thing of very little consequence.' Following this, other preachers began publishing similar accounts of awakenings in their communities. Strange things began to happen. Jonathan Parsons, in an account of the revival at Lyme in Connecticut, Rev. Jonathan Parsons. Public Domain Though the Great Awakening subsided after the 1740s, it led to the rise of new denominations, including those of the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians. Following criticisms from Whitefield and others that institutions of higher learning had become corrupt, four new universities were eventually founded: Princeton, Brown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth. The echo of the Great Awakening can be heard down to our own day. It reminds us that the true measure of a life well-lived lies not in possessions, but in purpose. What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
