Will India be a developed country by 2047? Raghuram Rajan says ‘nonsense’

Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan said that India is making a big mistake believing “hype” around its strong economic growth. There are major structural problems that need to be fixed in the country to meet its potential, he told Bloomberg, saying that the biggest challenge is improving education and skills of the workforce.
He said, “The greatest mistake India can make is to believe the hype. We’ve got many more years of hard work to do to ensure the hype is real. Believing the hype is something politicians want you to believe because they want you to believe that we have arrived. But it would be a serious mistake for India to succumb to that belief.”
India will not be a developed economy by 2047, Raghuram Rajan said adding that it would be “nonsense” to talk of that goal “if so many of your kids don’t have a high school education and drop-out rates remain high.”
He said, “We have a growing workforce, but it is a dividend only if they’re employed in good jobs. And that’s, to my mind, the possible tragedy that we face.”
Citing studies showing a drop in the learning ability of school children to pre-2012 levels after the pandemic, he said that India needs to firstly make the workforce more employable and then create jobs for the workforce it has.
He said, “That is the kind of number that should really worry us. The lack of human capital will stay with us for decades.”
The government is too focused on high-profile projects like chip manufacturing instead of fixing the education system, he said, adding, “The ambition of the government is real, to become a great nation. Whether they pay attention to what needs to be done is a different question. I worry that we’ve become more fixated on prestige projects, which suggest more great nation ambition, such as chip manufacturing, while leaving the underpinnings that will contribute to a sustainable chip manufacturing industry.”
The former RBI governor said, “What we need is a pragmatic approach. Quoting China’s former leader Deng Xiaoping, he said that if India learns anything from China, it should be that “it doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, it matters whether it catches mice.”