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After a visit to India, veteran Indian-American journalist and author Fareed Zakaria said that he was struck by the country's optimism in the face of growing global concerns.
During his show on CNN, Global Public Square, Zakaria described India's growth and said that Indians are excited about the future at a time when the rest of the world is trying to navigate a looming recession and soaring inflation rates.
"I’m just back from India and what I saw there was a bullish nation, brimming with excitement. It has some hurdles to clear, but I lay out a path for it to truly become an incredible India."
He added:
The political commentator said that he was worried that he has seen such a situation with India before. Narrating a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2006, he said that he saw India proclaiming it to be the world’s fastest-growing free market democracy.
However, he added that India has been able to accelerate growth because of a series of revolutions, even though it has remained the second-fastest growing large economy after China. According to Zakaria, these are:
The Adhaar Unique Identification Number revolution
The Jio revolution.
An infrastructural revolution
He said that these three could "truly transform India – but they can do so in the best way by helping in the country's greatest challenge: bringing in hundreds of millions of Indians who are still on the margins economically, socially and politically."
He added that there is an even larger challenge of inclusivity of Indian women, who remain societally and institutionally pressured to not work outside the house.
“A focus on inclusivity would also transform India’s religious tensions, bringing into the fold India’s Muslims, roughly 200 million people, a 7th of the country, who face persistent persecution,” he added.
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