An 'Indian century'

Photo: Rashmee Roshan Lall

Anyone like me — born and bred in India and linked forever to the country with an invisible umbilical cord — would naturally feel a thrill of pride to hear about an “Indian century”.

India’s time may be coming, so people are saying. Not only is it the world’s fifth-largest economy, it will soon overtake China in population.

Data released by the United Nations on April 19 estimated that India’s population will be 1.4286bn by the end of June, compared with China’s 1.4257bn. This is the first time in at least 300 years that China will be second on this score. In 1750, China had an estimated 225m people, more than a quarter of the world’s total. India was in second place with roughly 200m, but it was not, at the time, a politically unified country.

Records and anniversaries are a journalistic staple but India’s population milestone is a genuinely big story. There are a number of things to say about having the world’s largest population.

First, estimates are exactly t…