The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.– Karl Marx

There are quite a few people in India who are frustated that India is yet to become a super-power, a promise that Nehru made several decades ago:

"We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?"

After more than 50 years of independence, a reputed physicist from Calcutta remarked to students of the Indian Statistical Institute that they must investigate whether there is something in the genetic makeup of the Chinese that makes them superior to the Indians. It is fashionable for arm-chair scientists to find genetic rather than social alibi. Recently the co-discoverer of the DNA remarks about inferiority of woman and Africans in general (despite of the fact that his own popular discovery of DNA helix was proposed earier by a woman scientist, Rosalind Franklin), also indicates how looni scientists can become at times, espcially at an old age. It can also be proposed that intellectual capability of a scientist decays rapidly with age and of course such things can also be proven to be a scientific fact if you have the correct connections with the state.

One of the other alibi Indians generally think is what is holding them back from becoming a super-power is population growth, but then China has managed to overcome that hurdle. Sanjay Gandhi, son of one of an excellent dictator of India, Indira Gandhi, once tried to sterilize lot of poor people around Delhi and, fortunately for India, he died in a plane crash. The idea however survived that India is poor due to its high population although agricultural production has been able keep up with the population growth. In any case the argument is circular, in that India is poor because there are too many poor people.

The other alibi that is very popular in many places across the world, including China, is foreigners and minorities — an idea Hitler made very popular by tragetting Jews, although Europeans now because of out-sourcing boom have started targetting Asians. It is difficult to find these foreigners in a multi-racial country like India, so you have to find religious minorities like muslims, but then the main reason for creating India and Pakistan was to remove this alibi, so each has its country: Hindustan and Islamistan. Arms race between the two neighbours could be a source of their poverty but it is also at the same time their fast track to super-power status that North Korea keeps flaunting. A sudden change in pecking order is strongly questioned in the community of nations represented by their bourgeoisie, so even if you flaunt your nuclear weapons, you may not be admitted as a permenant member of United Nations.

The Tamils and the Sinhalis had their own nation within SriLanka before it was converted by the East India company and other market forces, into a hotels, farm houses and tea estates. However, the Tamil areas in the northern lower plains were neglected in the market development process as only the mountainous area can produce tea. This neglect produced revolt by the Tamils and the counter state terrorism we see now. The price collapse of tea caused a collapase of the SriLankan economy and was quickly blamed on the Tamil rebels and the JVP, and both of these were massacred by the state, which is effectively nothing but a collection of hotels, farm houses, tea estate owners and their representatives.

Many terorrist attacks have happened in India and many have died, but when the attack happened on Five Star Hotels, the whole of Indian and international community went into action. The home minister of India resigned, an unthinkable both by Congress and Indian standards — they usually hold on to their posts like limpets. This fact then becomes clear that these countries are ruled by Hotels, Farm House, Prime Estate owners and so the adjective "Banana Republic" used by Arundhati Roy to describe India is quite apt.

The question then is:

Has India become a country of Hotels, Farm Houses, Prime Estates and Golf Courses?
What are the obstacles that come in its path of this progress and super-powerdom?

The obvious answer to this question is "people".
People come in all shapes and sizes in India – peasants, laborers, tribals.
There are also other people like shop-keepers threatened by supermarket chains, etc… but being petty bourgeoisie they have no capacity to revolt.

These are the poor people that India is ashamed of in its progress towards becoming a super-power and by defacto the "terrorists’ of India.
 

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