From Nalanda to NASA: Bharat’s Leap from Past Glory to Future Power

 

From Nalanda to NASA: Bharat’s Leap from Past Glory to Future Power

A meditation on Bharat’s timeless intellect — her journey from inherited grandeur to engineered greatness, where civilisational memory meets scientific modernity.

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Make India Great Again: Bharat’s Rendezvous with Destiny

“Make India Great Again.” To some ears it may sound like a slogan borrowed from foreign political theatre. But in the Indian context, it is not a hollow catchphrase. It is a civilisational summons. For Bharat, greatness is no novelty to be engineered afresh; it is a patrimony to be reclaimed, recalibrated, and rendered relevant to the twenty-first century.

Our forebears gave the world the concept of zero, the rhythms of yoga, the curatives of Ayurveda, and philosophies that married reason with reverence. Colonisation, however, truncated this trajectory, leaving behind poverty and a fractured self-confidence.

Today, as Bharat strides into her Amrit Kaal, the time has come to blend ancient grandeur with modern vigour — to convert slogan into strategy, aspiration into arithmetic.

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The Engines Already Whirring: Current Achievements

It would be churlish to deny that parts of the MIGA process are already in motion:

• Economic Expansion: India has emerged currently as the world’s forth-largest economy and consistently the fastest-growing among major world economies.

• Digital Alchemy: Aadhaar and UPI have wrought what the French call a coup de maître — turning even the humblest villager into a participant of the digital economy.

• Spacefaring Prestige: ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 touched the lunar south pole; Mangalyaan circled Mars at a fraction of Western costs — proof that thrift and triumph are not mutually exclusive.

• Start-up Surge: With the world’s third-largest start-up ecosystem, India births unicorns at a pace that suggests entrepreneurial élan, not merely enterprise.

• Democratic Depth: Despite cacophony and contestation, 600 million citizens cast ballots in the largest democratic spectacle on earth — res publica in its truest sense.

These are no trifles. They show that Bharat’s engines of greatness are idling, awaiting acceleration.

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The Lacunae: Where We Falter

Yet plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose — the more things change, the more they remain the same. Progress coexists with persistent gaps:

• Education as Quantity sans Quality: Enrolments soar but critical thinking and creativity languish.

• Research Deficit: At a paltry 0.7% of GDP, India’s research spending is anemic. By comparison, Israel devotes over 5%, South Korea over 4%. Res ipsa loquitur.

• Inequities Abound: Urban–rural divides, gender gaps, caste cleavages remain stubbornly unresolved.

• Bureaucratic Drag: Noble schemes often perish in red tape, delayed funds, or indifferent implementation.

• Environmental Neglect: Rivers run sullied, air is scarcely breathable, forests shrink. Without ecological dharma, greatness is but a chimera.

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The Metrics of Magnitude: What MIGA Must Mean in Numbers

Greatness cannot subsist on poetry alone; it must be pegged to measurable horizons:

• GDP per Capita: Today ~US$2,700 → Target: US$12,000–18,000 by 2047 — lifting Bharat from modest to middle-high-income status.

• R&D Intensity: Today ~0.7% → Target: 2.5–3.5% — sine qua non for genuine innovation.

• Researchers per Million: Today ~260 → Target: 2,000+ — a tenfold increase to match OECD standards.

• Innovation Index: Today ranked ~38 → Target: Top 20 within two decades.

• Human Development Index: Today 0.685 → Target: ≥0.800, firmly in the “high human development” bracket.

In other words: to transform grandeur from rhetoric to reality, Bharat must invest in brains as much as in bridges, in laboratories as much as in highways.

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Illustration: Charting Bharat’s Ascent — From Present Realities to 2047 Horizons

(A visual encapsulation of the Make India Great Again roadmap — juxtaposing India’s current developmental metrics with the aspirational benchmarks of 2047.)

 

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The Raison d’Être: Why Bharat Must MIGA

Why must Bharat bother? Because mediocrity is an abdication of destiny.

1. Demographic Dividend: A youthful nation today; a demographic time-bomb tomorrow if jobs and skills are absent.

2. Geopolitical Gravitas: In a multipolar world, India cannot remain a mere “balancing power.” It must be a leading pole in its own right.

3. Civilisational Continuity: A people who built Nalanda and Konark cannot forever subsist on borrowed technologies.

4. Moral Responsibility: A planet in ecological peril looks to India — the land of prakriti reverence — to lead the green transition.

5. Equity at Home: True greatness lies not in Gurgaon’s glass towers but in ensuring that a farmer’s child in Gadchiroli or a weaver’s daughter in Madurai has the same chance at dignity.

Thus, MIGA is no vanity project. It is raison d’être — the reason for being.

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A Roadmap to 2047: Phases of Renaissance

• Phase I (0–5 years): Raise R&D to 1% of GDP, double PhD slots, ensure universal broadband and reliable electricity.

• Phase II (5–15 years): R&D to 2%, researchers per million to 1,000, Global Innovation Index into the Top 30.

• Phase III (15–30 years): R&D beyond 2.5%, GDP per capita $12k–18k, HDI ≥0.800, innovation Top 20.

Ad astra per aspera — through hardships to the stars — must be our mantra.

 

 

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Coda: The Indian Cadence

Let us not content ourselves with borrowed quips and imported dreams. Let us conclude with our own wisdom:

“யாதும் ஊரே, யாவரும் கேளிர்” - கணியன் பூங்குன்றனார். —புறநானூறு. 

"Every town is our hometown, and every person is our kinsman"- Kaṉiyan Pūngunṟanār - Purananuru, Sangam Era

If we live by that maxim, India will not merely be “great again”; she will be great anew — her lamp rekindled, her light radiating once more upon the world’s mantelpiece.

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