The prominent Indian historian and well-known author Ramachandra Guha thinks that the superpower aspirations of some Indian leaders are stupid and misleading. Guha names ten reasons why India will not be a superpower: religious extremism, left wing terror, discrepancy rich-poor, political favoritism, corruption, the erosion of the public institutions, pollution, apathy of the media political fragmentation, dangerous border conflicts and the instability of the neighboring countries. These problems use up a lot of energy and damage the democracy and the economy. The corrupted and weakens state should, instead of looking for superpower, look for stability.
In his standard work India after Gandhi, which has been translated recently in Dutch, he describes the Indian democracy as a reckless and unique experiment. This largest democracy in the world, with all its populations, religions and languages, is an example and should be protected.
One of the main problems is the situation of the tribal people, the Adivasi.
While the dalits, the former untouchables have a political voice, the Adivasi, the tribal people only have the Indian Maoist movement Naxalites to defend them. Guha explains during a lecture in The Hague, that many Indian politicians want to compete on the international level; it is a kind of machismo. Our PM Manmohan Singh, has gone already three times to the USA, during the last year, but he has not visited a state where the Adivasi live, which would have been preferable.
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