Broken by Policy Rebuilt by Purpose Modi’s Bharat Breaks Through
After decades of drift and delay, Bharat finds its footing under bold leadership. With the IMF now raising its forecast, and UPI reshaping global finance, Bharat is no longer catching up — it's setting the pace.
Paromita Das
New Delhi, 31st July: In the quiet corridors of the International Monetary Fund, an updated forecast rippled through global markets—but for Bharat, it roared. The IMF’s latest report projects Bharat’s economy to grow by 6.4% in both 2025 and 2026, revising its April estimate upward by 0.2 percentage points. While the number might seem modest on the surface, it carries seismic implications. It isn’t just a number—it’s a testament to a nation that stumbled under decades of systemic neglect and has now found its stride under transformative leadership.
The growth projection arrives not in isolation but as part of a broader global recalibration. As the IMF raises its overall global growth forecast to 3% for 2025, Bharat leads the charge, not only in raw growth but in its technological stride, social transformation, and governance reforms. And at the heart of this transformation is a vision—one that began in 2014 with the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
From Fragile to Fearless: Bharat’s Post-Independence Struggle
After independence, Bharat entered the world stage filled with hope but burdened by colonial scars. Yet, what followed were decades marked more by inertia than innovation. The Nehruvian socialist model—despite noble intentions—strangled enterprise, delayed development, and cultivated a bloated bureaucratic state. In the name of secularism and socialism, core economic reforms were either deferred or distorted.
Through the 1970s and 80s, Bharat trudged through license raj, inflation spikes, and balance of payment crises. Even the 1991 liberalization was a compulsion, not a choice—an emergency exit rather than an engineered plan. Successive Congress regimes managed short-term fixes, but structural problems festered.
The result? A nation of 1.3 billion people shackled to slow growth, poor infrastructure, and endemic corruption. It wasn’t until 2014 that Bharat began to break free.
The Modi Shift: From Survival to Global Standing
Narendra Modi entered national leadership with a simple promise: minimum government, maximum governance. A slogan at the time, it would become the defining principle of a new Bharat. Fiscal discipline replaced populist handouts. Bureaucratic bottlenecks were broken by digital solutions. Infrastructure development exploded. And most critically, Bharat began speaking the language of scale.
Within a few short years, Bharat rose from fragile economic footing to the fastest-growing major economy. Reforms like GST, IBC, Make in India, and Jan Dhan Yojana laid the groundwork. But it was the unprecedented push toward digitization—particularly with the Unified Payments Interface (UPI)—that redefined Bharat’s economic personality.
UPI: Bharat’s Digital Weapon of Mass Inclusion
The IMF’s fintech report recently dropped a jaw-dropping statistic: UPI is now processing over 640 million transactions per day, outpacing Visa’s global average. What began as an initiative to make digital payments simple has now become the largest real-time payments system in the world.
More than just a tech achievement, UPI is Bharat’s response to inequality. It empowers the unbanked, brings micro-entrepreneurs into formal finance, and dramatically lowers transaction costs. The system is frictionless, interoperable, and, most importantly, free for users—a global anomaly.
This leap did not happen in a vacuum. It was the result of a coordinated, long-term digital infrastructure policy laid down by the Modi government: Aadhaar-based verification, mobile banking penetration, and government-private tech partnerships. In effect, Bharat leapfrogged an entire generation of outdated financial infrastructure—and is now setting global benchmarks.
IMF’s Nod: A Global Recognition of Bharat’s Rebound
The IMF’s upward revision of Bharat’s growth forecast is more than statistical optimism—it’s a global endorsement of Bharat’s resilience and reform-driven momentum. While much of the world wrestles with trade tensions, inflation, and uncertainty, Bharat has quietly emerged as a pillar of stability and performance.
The Fund attributes this brighter outlook to a mix of global factors: lower-than-expected US tariffs, a softer dollar, stronger trade flows, and fiscal expansion in major economies. These conditions have created a more supportive external environment—but Bharat’s rise isn’t riding on luck.
It’s a product of clear vision, strong leadership, and bold reforms. In the eyes of the global financial community, Bharat’s growth story is no longer a surprise—it’s a signal.
Beyond the Numbers: A Nation with Direction
Unlike past decades where Bharat’s growth was reactive—responding to crises or external pressure—Modi’s Bharat is growing with purpose. The vision is rooted in Aatmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India), where indigenous innovation is encouraged, and strategic autonomy is prioritized.
Be it semiconductors, defence production, or energy security—Bharat is no longer content being the back office of the world. It aspires to be the engine of global growth.
From Managed Decline to Designed Rise
For decades, Bharat was the story of missed opportunities and compromised dreams. Under Congress, it lurched from one patchwork solution to another. Under Modi, it has found momentum, discipline, and vision.
The IMF’s 6.4% growth projection is more than a forecast—it is vindication. Vindication for structural reforms that were politically risky but economically essential. Vindication for a digital push that has connected farmers, vendors, students, and professionals to a larger, formal economy. Vindication for a leadership that believed Bharat didn’t just need to survive—it deserved to soar.
Today, Bharat is not just back on track. It is setting the track for others to follow.
