Once a colony under British imperialism, India has reportedly passed the United Kingdom in terms of economy for the first time in over 100 years. With such achievement, India has now become the sixth largest economy by GDP after the US, China, Japan, Germany and France.
The feat was expected to be achieved by 2020. Due to the rapid economic growth seen over the past 25 years and due to Brexit, India achieved this feat early. The value of the Great Britain Pound (GBP) plummeted by nearly 20% in the last 12 months, as reported by Forbes. UK’s GDP now stands at 1.87 trillion GBP or US$ 2.29 trillion. And India’s GDP is at ₹153 trillion or US$ 2.30 trillion.
The report also said that the gap is expected to widen further as India is growing at 6% to 8% p.a., whereas UK’s growth is at 1 to 2% p.a. It is clear that Indian economy has surpassed the economy of UK and even if the currency fluctuates, India has better growth prospects as per the Forbes report.
Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju while celebrating India’s landmark, tweeted, “India overtakes the UK & becomes 5th largest GDP after USA, China, Japan & Germany. India may have large population base, but this is a big leap,”
2016 has been a landmark year for the Indian economy, as it surpassed China in February by becoming the world’s fastest growing economy. Its GDP is predicted to increase by 7.6 % through 2017.
According to International Monetary Fund (IMF), India’s economy benefitted from a global commodities price slump through large trade gains and lower-than-expected inflation.
The UK had the upper hand in economic growth during the 18th century after the industrial revolution, when India was under their rule. Post-1947, UK and India grew almost at the same pace because of the latter carefully following a socialist economy. The game, however, changed after 1991, after India adopted market reforms. India experienced rapid growth after 1991 more than that of UK.
This is a monumental success for the Indian economy. But the per capita income in India in still far behind that of the UK. It is only about one-fifth that of the UK. (Per capita income – average income earned per person in a given region in a particular year. It is calculated by the region’s total income by total population).
Despite such significant achievements, India’s growth came at the cost of several factors such as creating unified national taxes to deregulating the agricultural industry’s fertiliser pricing, as a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted.