India super poor, not superpower, says Shashi Tharoor

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The eminent writer and Congress MP, Mr Shashi Tharoor, on Thursday did some plain talk on India’s global aspirations and said the country was ‘super-poor rather than a superpower’.

Talking to BBC presenter, Ms Anita Anand, on ‘India and China — The New Superpowers,’ Mr Tharoor said he would rather describe the two countries as being on the way of becoming significant powers.

“A superpower is a political, economic and military giant that has global reach,” he said. “The US still holds that position. It can fight a war in East Asia or any other part of the world. But I can’t imagine China or India doing that.”

He added that a large chunk of India’s people did not get three meals a day, had no roof to sleep under and were unable to educate their children. “We still haven’t solved these basic problems,” he said. “So we can’t claim to be a superpower.”

Mr Tharoor, an ace diplomat, added that he would much rather live in a world without superpowers. “In fact, I am penning a book on the theme of a network of countries, a multi-polar world, drawing on the metaphor of the Internet,” he said.

The MP said he felt awful when he heard the Western coinage ‘Chindia’ to refer to the two aspiring superpowers. “Though we are neighbours, we don’t have much in common,” he said. “There is ignorance, indifference and hostility towards India in China.”

There was not much soft diplomacy in terms of people-to-people contact and tourism to create more awareness of each other either, he added.