In 1998, APJ Abdul Kalam, a scientist and administrator associated with India’s missile programme as well as the Pokhran-II nuclear tests, ...
In 1998, APJ Abdul Kalam, a scientist and administrator associated with India’s missile programme as well as the Pokhran-II nuclear tests, co-authored a book titled India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium.
It had a simple message: India would be a superpower within the next two decades. As predictions go, this was extremely bold. In 1998, India was a poor country, unable to reach even average global standards of human development. How would it suddenly leapfrog to superpower status? However, instead of being greeting with scepticism, Kalam’s extreme optimism was met largely with adulation.
“Seldom does one, in these troubled times, see such a lucid marshaling of facts and figures to bolster the thesis that India is mere two decades away from super-power status,” wrote The Times of India.
The book supercharged Kalam’s popularity, already riding high after the 1998 nuclear tests. He was even elected president. Even today, homilies delivered by Kalam – or sometimes falsely attributed to him – float around as motivational Whatsapp forwards.
By a mile
The only problem in this is that Kalam was completely off the mark. India is not a superpower in 2020. Far from it, in fact. When it comes to the quality of life it provides to its citizens, India still languishes somewhere at...
