How India changed its master narrative

In 2016, two psychologists, Kate McLean and Moin Syed, defined the term' master narratives' in the following manner: "Master narratives are culturally shared stories that tell us about a given culture, and provide guidance for how to be a "good" member of a culture; they are a part of the structure of society." In the first few decades post-independence, India's master narrative was built around: Failure as exemplified by the hammering that China handed us in the 1962 war or the country's failure to generate per capita GDP growth north of 2 per cent. Frustration to generate employment was exemplified by Naxalite violence, which swept across Eastern, Central and parts of southern India from the late 1960s onwards. Famines in 1966-67 and 1972-73 were a recurrent reminder of the economy's medieval state. Fear of not just losing one's ability to earn a living but also of one's life as a wave of terrorist attacks hit the country. The stifling socialism of the 'License Raj', where private capital was dissuaded from being employed, was partly to blame. The result was a nation perpetually low in confidence that manifested in sub-optimal results. This dire state prompted the best Indian minds to migrate to the West at the first available opportunity. A massive scramble ensued among those who stayed back to land a government job. The 180-degree turnaround in the last two decades Fast forward to 2023, and India is the only large stock market with a 20-year annualised return in dollar terms approaching 12 per cent. Not only has India been the best-performing large stock market in the world over the past two decades, but it is also, by some distance, the fastest-growing large economy globally. Over the last decade, the public infrastructure in India has visibly transformed, with the national highway network seeing a near doubling, domestic air travel passengers more than trebling over 2009-2019, households with broadband connections growing around seven times over 2013-2023 and the number of bank accounts growing nearly three times between 2015 and 2023. This begs the question, "How

This article was originally published on February 01, 2024.