Pandemic leaves Indian dream in tatters

The raging COVID-19 pandemic in India raises the question on whether the "Indian dream" proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still achievable.

It is already a worry of the world that India may be the first country to collapse because of the pandemic. That could lead to a global catastrophe.

Many Indians held hopes that India would become a leading power and in Modi's "Indian dream", the 21st century would be the Indian century.

India's gross domestic product grew at 7.2 percent and 7.4 percent in 2017 and 2018 respectively, a remarkable performance indeed among major economies, and thereafter the Modi administration had vowed to overtake Japan to become the world's third-largest economy.

But the growth soon fell to less than 5 percent in 2019 under the pressure of the country's high unemployment rate, mounting debt and weak infrastructure facilities. The Modi government frantically played the nationalism card and used the border dispute with China to try to divert domestic attention, but this only made India's economic troubles even worse.

The pandemic has exacerbated India's economic woes. The OECD estimates that India's economy might have contracted 9.9 percent last year. Given the grave pandemic situation, the country's economy will probably continue to shrink this year, making Modi's "Indian dream" increasingly unattainable.

India's weak public health system and people's haste in relaxing their vigilance and abandoning almost all the necessary pandemic prevention and control measures are to blame for the surge of infections and deaths in the country. The appearance of several new variants of the virus has made the situation even worse.

If the shortage of essential medical supplies, such as medical oxygen, cannot be resolved, it will only be a matter of time before the country's public health system crumbles as the number of new daily infections is rising from over 300,000 to half a million. The situation is the ultimate test for Modi, who is facing calls to stand down, and also a test for the country's governance capabilities.

However, political instability will make it even harder to unite the nation, which is crucial to cut the transmission chains of the novel coronavirus.

The Modi administration needs to mobilize all resources to fight the virus. It should also take the opportunity to reflect on its foreign policies, as countries' responses to India's desperate calls for help have shown who India's true friends are.