Kaushik Basu: India brims with talent and promise but there seems no escape from politics and pollution

My trip began in West Bengal’s Purulia district, a relatively poor region marked by beautiful landscapes of lakes and rolling hills, some crowned with small ancient temples. Purulia’s population is a mosaic of cultures and tribal communities. Among them are Santhals, an Adivasi community whose ancestors arrived in the subcontinent thousands of years ago, long before the Indo-Aryan migrations around 1600 BCE reshaped its social order.

In the midst of this stark terrain stands something remarkable: the Filix School. Founded in 2014 by two women, it has grown into a state-of-the-art English-language institution, drawing students from villages near and far.

I was there to teach during the school’s week-long Discover the World of Economics course, an annual programme now in its second year that invites upper-secondary students from across India. A select group joins local village students for five days of lectures and field trips. This year’s speakers included Mahan Mj, a monk and renowned mathematician; Prabhat Patnaik, a celebrated Marxist economist from Delhi; and economists from leading universities and the World Bank.

Watching young Hindus, Muslims and Christians from the surrounding villages sit alongside students from Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune—listening intently to lectures on economics, history and math, and occasionally challenging the speakers—was deeply heartening. By cultivating such intellectual curiosity, India could unlock its full potential.

My optimism deepened in Bangalore, where I attended the Infosys Science Foundation’s annual ceremony honouring six prize winners in computer science, economics, math, life sciences, physical sciences and the humanities and social sciences. Laureates spoke about their research and its wider implications, while the keynote address was delivered by the American cell biologist Randy Schekman, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The auditorium was packed.

From Bangalore, I travelled to Pune to visit Symbiosis and Flame universities. These institutions serve India’s more affluent classes and their campuses rival those of leading European and American universities. At the annual conference of the Indian Society of Labour Economics held at Symbiosis, scholars from around the world gathered to debate the impact of technological change and shrinking labour demand. The discussions were rigorous and unsparing.

After weeks of intense discussions with students, researchers, bureaucrats and policymakers, I spent the final leg of my trip in Delhi. There, poring over the latest economic data and listening to political leaders respond to mounting challenges with familiar slogans, my optimism began to fade. India’s promise is undeniable and its talent abundant, yet politics and empty rhetoric continue to undermine its prospects.

Compounding the problem is the lack of reliable statistics. India was once known for the transparency and credibility of its data. But the quality of official statistics has eroded and there appears to be a growing reluctance to release figures that reveal any economic weakness. This, in turn, implies that necessary corrective measures are not taken.

This trend is not confined to statistics. India was once a leader among emerging economies in engineering, science and higher education. The establishment of the Indian Institutes of Technology in the early 1950s, along with major investments in science and mathematics, positioned the country as a research hub for the Global South. That standing, too, has weakened in recent years.

One telling measure is patent activity. After overtaking the US as the world’s leading patent filer, China had roughly 5 million patents in force in 2023, compared with America’s 3.5 million. India’s total, by contrast, was just 188,785, despite five consecutive years of double-digit growth. To be fair, this problem is not new. When I was advising the Indian government around 2009, I argued that far greater attention needed to be paid to intellectual-property rights. In today’s increasingly competitive global economy, that imperative has only become more urgent.

In my view, however, the biggest challenge casting a shadow over India’s future is pollution. Over the past decade, air quality in Delhi and much of northern India has reached intolerable levels. If left unchecked, it will deter foreign investors, dampen tourism, and jeopardize long-term growth.

What should be done? First, the central government must acknowledge the severity of the problem and stop shifting blame to state and local authorities. Air pollution does not respect state boundaries; it requires coordinated national action. To this end, the government should urgently convene the country’s leading scientists and policymakers to craft and implement a coherent, time-bound national strategy.

China offers a useful model. Through binding targets, tighter emissions standards and strict enforcement, it cut air pollution dramatically, showing what determined policy can achieve in just a few years. ©2025/Project Syndicate

The author is a professor of economics at Cornell University and a former chief economic advisor to the Government of India.