Politicians resort to selling hope rather than progress for a reason

livemint.com:

World Cup final, a screenshot suggesting that India’s gross domestic product (GDP) had crossed $4 trillion went viral. GDP is an estimate of the economic size of a country in a particular period. Soon, this screenshot was all over social media.

Mixed with the belief that India would beat Australia in the match, it made for a marketable nationalistic message. Of course, by the end of the day, India had lost the cricket final. Nonetheless, by then it had travelled far and wide, thanks to politicians, corporate boss-men and you and I actively sharing it on social media.

Few users bothered to find out whether Indian GDP had actually crossed $4 trillion. As per the World Economic Outlook published by the International Monetary Fund, Indian GDP in current prices is expected to touch $4.1 trillion in 2024. Now, if we look at World Bank data, Indian GDP (in constant 2015 US dollars) in 2022 stood at $2.95 trillion.

So, there is still some time before India reaches a $4 trillion GDP in constant terms adjusted for inflation. Of course, mass market messaging and nuance really don’t go together. But this raises a bigger question: Why are we—politicians, corporates and everybody else—so obsessed with India’s GDP crossing $4 trillion, $5 trillion, $10 trillion, $30 trillion and so on? These are figures which India will eventually cross at some point of time.

Moreover, why is there so little talk about the genuine progress that has been made? Let’s take two very important data points: the country’s infant mortality rate (IMR) and total fertility rate (TRF). IMR is the number of deaths of children under one year of age, expressed per 1,000 live births. Data from the United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation