Are Some Pakistanis Feeding into Indian Delusions of Grandeur?

[Riaz Haq]

Many Pakistanis are singing effusive praises of India on social media platforms and racking up millions of views, according to a report in the Indian  mainstream media. These Pakistanis are boosting their earnings by feeding into the Indians' delusions. The "India Today" report claims that, in the last 6 months alone, the number of channels using the hashtag #pakistanireactiononindia on YouTube increased by 1,000, and the number of videos by 5,000. Calling it an "industry" is an acknowledgment of the profit motive of the Pakistani YouTubers. These YouTubers steer clear of anything that even remotely challenges their unadulterated praise of India. For example, they make no mention of India ranking worse than Pakistan on income poverty, hunger and overall happiness. Nor do they talk about thousands of Indian farmers killing themselves every year.  Nor do they mention extremely high levels of unemployment in Modi's India. 

Modi Claims "chhappan inch ki chhati" (56 inch chest)

India's Population:

India is the world's most populous country with a population (1.4 billion) over 6 times larger than Pakistan's (230 million). India has the world's largest number of social media users and hundreds of millions of book readers. The profit motive for praising India extends beyond just the social media. It also includes book publishers and authors who see an opportunity to profit from it. India's English language book market is the world's third largest, behind that of the United States at the top and of the United Kingdom at number 2.  It is the fastest growing market today which will make India the world's number 1 market in the next ten years.  It could happen sooner if the book sales in the US and the UK decline faster or those in India grow more rapidly than they are already.

Indian Delusions: 

Delusions are a symptom of mental disorders, and are characterized by a belief in something that is not true. Here's how India Today describes what it calls "The Praise India Industry" and how it is received by Indians: 

"Indians love people from abroad lauding their achievements, but seem to derive the biggest satisfaction when Pakistanis gush over India's success. Pakistanis have understood that and have tapped into that, creating an entire industry of YouTubers in Pakistan". 

India's leaders and their western boosters have been promoting the country as an emerging superpower to counter rising China. They cite the size of India's economy, demography, military and consumer market to back up their assertions. These claims are challenged by India's former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman, former head of IMF in India, in an article titled "India's Size Illusion".  In a similar article titled "The Chinese Threat No One Is Talking About — And How to Counter It", Sameer Lalwani, a senior fellow for Asia strategy at the Stimson Center, has raised serious questions about India's ability to counter China in the Indian Ocean region. 

Akhand Bharat (Greater India) Mural in India's New Parliament Building

Modi's 56 inch Chest:

"Desh ka bahut nuksaan hua hai", acknowledged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his military's 2019 failures against Pakistan in Balakot and Kashmir. This marked a major shift in Modi's belligerent tone that has been characterized by his boasts of "chhappan inch ki chhati" (56 inch chest) and  talk of  "munh tor jawab" (jaw-breaking response) and "boli nahin goli" (bullets, not talks) to intimidate Pakistan in the last few years.  These events should force India's western backers to reassess their strategy of boosting India as a counterweight to China.

India's Illusions:

Indian government's former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian has enumerated and challenged arguments for what he calls "India's Size Illusion" as follows:

1. India’s economic size has not translated into commensurate military strength. Part of the problem is simple geography. (German Chancellor Otto Von) Bismarck (1815-1898) supposedly said that the US is bordered on two sides by weak neighbors and on two sides by fish. India, however, does not enjoy such splendid isolation. Ever since independence, it has been confronted on its Western frontier by Pakistan, a highly armed, chronically hostile, and often military-ruled neighbor. More recently, India’s northern neighbor, China, also has become aggressive, repudiating the territorial status quo, occupying contested land in the Himalayas, reclaiming territory in the east, and building up a large military presence along India’s borders. So, India may have fish for neighbors along its long peninsular coast, but on land it faces major security challenges on two fronts.

2.  Then there is the question of market size. As Pennsylvania State University’s Shoumitro Chatterjee and one of us (Subramanian) have shown, India’s middle-class market for consumption is much smaller than the $3 trillion headline GDP number suggests, because many people have limited purchasing power while a smaller number of well-off people tend to save a lot. In fact, the effective size of India’s consumer market is less than $1 trillion, far smaller than China’s and even smaller relative to the potential world export market of nearly $30 trillion.

Indo-Pacific Dominance:

In an article titled "The Chinese Threat No One Is Talking About — And How to Counter It", Sameer Lalwani, a senior fellow for Asia strategy at the Stimson Center, has raised serious doubts about India's ability to counter China in the Indian Ocean region. Here are a couple of excerpts from the article:

1. China has been building dozens of advanced warships that seem poised to head toward the vast body of water through which 80 percent of global seaborne trade transits.....Indeed, a deeper (US) partnership with India — the world’s largest democracy, on an upward economic trajectory, seemingly perfectly positioned to counter China on land and at sea — has been something of a holy grail for at least four U.S. administrations.......Yet what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a decade ago called a “strategic bet” on India does not seem to be paying off. Indian naval and political power in the Indian Ocean region is faltering, giving way to influence by Beijing. Many of these problems are of India’s own making.

2. There is increasing discussion and advocacy among China’s foreign policy scholars and former officials about an Indian Ocean fleet. Indeed, the idea is consistent with China’s efforts to acquire military facilities in the Horn of Africa, on Pakistan’s Indian Ocean coast, in Myanmar and in the UAE, which offers access to the Persian Gulf. China has also engaged in intelligence collection efforts in the region and increased its port visits and diplomatic presence.

India's "Accidental" Missile Firing:

India's March 9 "accidental firing" of Brahmos nuclear-capable supersonic cruise missile into Pakistan has raised serious questions about the safety of the Indian nuclear arsenal. Do the people in charge of India's nukes have basic competence to handle such weapons? Was this really an "unauthorized" or "accidental" firing? Why was there a long delay by New Delhi in acknowledging the incident?  Could Pakistan be blamed if it assumed that extremist right-wing Hindu elements had taken control of the missile system in India and fired it deliberately into Pakistani territory? Has the Indian government risked the lives of 1.6 billion people of South Asia?

Could this "errant" missile have brought down commercial passenger planes that were in the air at the time of this "accidental" firing? Here's an excerpt from Bloomberg detailing air traffic in the flight path of the Indian Brahmos:

"Several planes passed through the direct trajectory of the missile that day, which flew from the Indian garrison town of Ambala and ended up in Mian Channu in Eastern Pakistan. They included a Flydubai jet heading to Dubai from Sialkot, an IndiGo plane going from Srinagar to Mumbai and an Airblue Ltd. flight from Lahore to Riyadh. All crossed the missile’s trajectory within an hour of its accidental launch, data from flight-tracking application Flightradar24 show.  Other international flights in the vicinity of the missile’s trajectory -- and within its range -- included a Kuwait Airways Co. jet heading to Guangzhou, China from Kuwait City, a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight to Riyadh from New Delhi, and a Qatar Airways service from Kathmandu to Doha, the data show. No advisory to pilots operating in the vicinity -- known as a notice to airmen or NOTAM -- was issued". 

India: A Paper Elephant:

In an article titled "Paper Elephant", the Economist magazine talked about how India has ramped up its military spending and emerged as the world's largest arms importer. "Its military doctrine envisages fighting simultaneous land wars against Pakistan and China while retaining dominance in the Indian Ocean", the article said. It summed up the situation as follows: "India spends a fortune on defense and gets poor value for money".

After the India-Pakistan aerial combat over Kashmir in 2019, New York Times published a story from its South Asia correspondent headlined: "After India Loses Dogfight to Pakistan, Questions Arise About Its Military".  Here are some excerpts of the report:

"Its (India's) loss of a plane last week to a country (Pakistan) whose military is about half the size and receives a quarter (a sixth according to SIPRI) of the funding is telling. ...India’s armed forces are in alarming shape....It was an inauspicious moment for a military the United States is banking on to help keep an expanding China in check".

Related Links:

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[Riaz Haq]

Economic Dependence Will Make New Delhi Forever Vulnerable to Beijing
By Harsh V. Pant and Kalpit A. Mankikar


https://www.foreignaffairs.com/india/fatal-flaw-indias-china-strategy

But since the 2024 Indian general election, which returned Modi to the prime minister’s office, albeit with a reduced majority, influential voices—including from within the administration—have challenged the government’s resolve. In its latest annual analysis of the economy, India’s Ministry of Finance called for further Chinese investment in India and the broader resumption of economic engagement with Beijing. The government publicly rebuffed this suggestion, but it has still offered signs of softening its approach to China. It has launched a portal to expedite visas for Chinese professionals, as well as an interministerial committee to fast-track Chinese investment proposals. Civil aviation ministers from both countries met in September to discuss the resumption of direct passenger flights after they were suspended in 2020.

THE IMPERATIVE OF ECONOMIC SECURITY
This willingness to see China as both a security threat and an economic boon will hurt India. It is the Achilles’ heel of India’s China policy. Dependence on China for critical components and equipment makes India vulnerable to price gouging, especially during emergencies. Giving leeway to China in the economic realm will have several other costs: it tarnishes India’s image as a rising power that can withstand Chinese coercion, undercuts the notion that India can serve as a bulwark against Beijing’s expansionism, and threatens initiatives that include India in the task of rebuilding supply chains outside China. And India’s forgiving economic policy toward China may encourage smaller regional countries such as Bhutan, which is a strategic buffer between the two powers, to seek accommodation with China—to India’s inevitable detriment.

Indian policymakers must reckon with the dissonance of the government’s tough line on the border and its more permissive approach to economic ties with China. Security and economics cannot be put in silos. The government has to settle a major policy debate on what should power the Indian economy, manufacturing or services. The prevailing wisdom has it that services will provide the growth India needs, but such orthodoxy has resulted in trade deficits, particularly with China. New Delhi’s dependence on China with respect to components or heavy equipment for industrial supply chains coupled with India’s weak manufacturing sector presents a vulnerability that China can exploit for geopolitical leverage. India will have to protect its market from Chinese goods and invest more in domestic manufacturing.

[Riaz Haq]

Economic Dependence Will Make New Delhi Forever Vulnerable to Beijing
By Harsh V. Pant and Kalpit A. Mankikar


https://www.foreignaffairs.com/india/fatal-flaw-indias-china-strategy

Indian policymakers must reckon with the dissonance of the government’s tough line on the border and its more permissive approach to economic ties with China. Security and economics cannot be put in silos. The government has to settle a major policy debate on what should power the Indian economy, manufacturing or services. The prevailing wisdom has it that services will provide the growth India needs, but such orthodoxy has resulted in trade deficits, particularly with China. New Delhi’s dependence on China with respect to components or heavy equipment for industrial supply chains coupled with India’s weak manufacturing sector presents a vulnerability that China can exploit for geopolitical leverage. India will have to protect its market from Chinese goods and invest more in domestic manufacturing.

Facing the threat of Chinese expansionism in the long term will require India not only to manufacture better military equipment and engage in nimble diplomacy but also to embrace the concept of comprehensive economic security. In practice, this means reducing economic vulnerabilities that adversaries can weaponize and reconciling those constituencies that want growth and those that stress security. So far, Indian policymakers have divided national security from economics when it comes to China. But other countries offer models for better ways forward. India could learn, for instance, from the way in which Japan set up a ministry of economic security in the aftermath of the shock induced by the pandemic. Such an institution in India would draw from the expertise of professionals from the private sector with a deep understanding of trade flows, supply chains, and technology. This economic security ministry could undertake an audit of supply chains to pinpoint risks and seek alternative suppliers to diversify imports. Such diversification would make India less vulnerable to Chinese attempts to exert influence within its borders. In areas in which analysts insist that Chinese know-how and capacity are necessary—such as in the green transition—the economic security ministry could lay the groundwork for alternatives. It could help find foreign investment to better develop those sectors in India in which China has the lead, such as in green technology and electric vehicles. The Indian private sector must devote its energy to pursuing its own innovations in these technologies in the long run.

It will not be easy to establish India’s economic security in the shadow of its giant northern neighbor. But Modi can use his third term to make this shift. After ensuring that Beijing gets the message clearly that New Delhi will forcefully push back any Chinese aggression, he must find consistency in his China policy and break the silos of business and national security. If his government does not manage to do so, Modi’s desire to play a greater role in the international system will be confounded by China’s overweening presence, both at the border and within India.

[Riaz Haq]

’Leave India! It’s high time’: Startup founder’s controversial post on Reddit goes viral | Company Business News

https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/entrepreneur-controversial-...


A startup founder's Reddit post on the r/India subreddit titled “Leave India! It’s High Time!” has become the centre of a heated debate. The now-deleted post, written by a user named ‘u/anonymous_batm_an,’ urged high-earning professionals, especially innovators, to leave India for countries with better opportunities and governance, as reported by TOI.

The author introduced himself as someone who graduated from a top Indian engineering institute and completed postgraduate studies in the US. After working at a leading American bank, he returned to India in 2018 to start a company. Despite raising significant funds and employing nearly 30 people with an average salary of ₹15 lakh, the entrepreneur expressed disillusionment with India’s socio-economic landscape.

Key Concerns: Regulations, Taxes, and Civic Issues
As reported by TOI, the founder accused India's regulatory environment of stifling innovation. “You have to be a bureaucrat, politician, or celeb to get things done easily,” he wrote. To illustrate this, he shared a personal anecdote where his company helped police solve a fraud case, even ensuring the victim recovered their money. However, the case against his company was not closed, and police officials demanded bribes. “This is India for you,” he remarked

He also criticised high taxation levels coupled with poor public services like roads and hospitals. “In a nutshell... leave the country where they will even tax your popcorn because they are out of ideas to make it a 5 trillion dollar economy!” the post read.

The entrepreneur further described facing frequent “regional hate” from service providers like auto drivers, cab drivers, and restaurant staff. He added that social status in India is tied to wealth and appearances. “If you don’t look rich or wear branded [clothes], you are a piece of filth in this country,” he claimed.

The post also touched on declining civic sense, recalling an incident in Goa where he confronted a group littering on the street. Their response was dismissive: “Mind your own business or pick up the trash if you want.”

Warnings of Economic Collapse and Suggested Alternatives
In addition to socio-economic challenges, the founder warned of an impending economic collapse and a massive depreciation of the Indian rupee. He urged professionals and innovators to consider relocating to countries like the UAE or Thailand, citing better work environments and opportunities.

Mixed Reactions from Reddit Users
Before being removed, the post garnered over 300 comments, sparking a wide range of opinions. One user living in Australia agreed with the founder, stating, “Indians pay a lot of taxes and get nothing in return. Bad roads, healthcare, bad infrastructure, mass corruption, pollution, [and] backwards policies.”

Another user humorously responded, “The day you pack your business and leave, let me know, my bags are packed, just waiting for you to shut shop and leave with me.”

While some echoed the founder’s frustrations, others argued that the post painted an overly negative picture of India, emphasising that systemic changes require active involvement rather than emigration.

The sentiments expressed in the post resonate with recurring debates about India’s socio-economic conditions, particularly for entrepreneurs and professionals. India, while being the world’s fifth-largest economy, continues to grapple with challenges like bureaucratic inefficiencies, corruption, and poor infrastructure.

The post has reopened discussions on how policymakers can address these issues to foster a more conducive environment for innovation and entrepreneurship. Whether the concerns raised will lead to meaningful dialogue remains to be seen.