Can India become the next leader of the emerging markets?

India has the second largest population in the world and since its population is still increasing at a very fast rate, we can expect India will soon take over China to become the largest population. The Indian economy is the 6th largest economy in the world and is still growing at 8.2\% (almost a double digit rate). Many people believe that India will take over China to be the next leader of the emerging markets, especially when people see that the Chinese economic growth rate has fallen below a double digit rate. However, is it really possible for India to take over China to be the next leader of the emerging markets?

India has a huge of gender discrimination against females. There is intensive literature which finds that female politicians are more likely to generate higher economic growth in India. In addition, there is a high criminal rate among Indian political participants and people are shocked by how evil these politicians are. However, once a bill was proposed to forbid criminals from entering politics, all Indian political parties just voted against the bill, so this bill has never been passed. So the Indian politics is not impressive at all.

Moreover, India has many states, and different districts have different languages and cultures. When people are speaking different language, it is harder for people to cooperate. Although Indian people can learn English and many do know how to speak English, they still cooperate with higher costs.

Overall, it is not easy for India to take over China to be the next leader of the emerging markets. I do not think India can manage that in the next decade.