Neglecting India

China's economic growth and potential attracts a huge amount of attention in the popular and economic literature. Its neighbour India attracts much less, despite growth not far behind and a similarly sized population. The latter observation is the important one. In a capitalist economy, other things being equal, economic output is determined solely by the number of people producing in it. India's economic potential is much the same as China's, and it is getting there just a bit later. Given time, measured in a lifetime or two, its economy will be larger than that of the United States or Western Europe barring global catastrophe.

The neglect perhaps arises from greater familiarity with India than China and less sense of threat in the West. India's ties with the West should not be dismissed lightly; they may be among the last and greatest gifts of the British Empire back to Britain and its interests. Consider an India which had been highly politically repressive in the last century and which today naturally aligned itself with dictatorial regimes in Asia and elsewhere. India's democracy tips the political and economic balance in favour of non-repressive states, and will keep it that way as the world's economy expands. Global warming may be the most important single determinant of the world's future, so to weaken Bismarck's statement about the United States in the 19th Century, the most important political fact for the future of the world may be that India speaks English.