India is a miracle. For all its diversity and problems, the country survives and even prospers to some extent.
But these problems do not go away. They are great, and in some ways getting greater.
There are good reasons why the country has more poor than all of sub-Saharan Africa, and more hungry and illiterate people than any other country despite two decades of rapid growth.
Historian Ramachandra Guha lists ten political and social challenges (in order of importance) that India has to deal with:
- Left wing extremism (the Naxalism)
- religious extremism
- corrupt central government
- decline of public institutions
- growing gap between the rich and the poor
- environment degradation
- political fragmentation of the Indian electoral system
- unreconciled borders
- unstable neighborhood
- apathy of the media
