A quick checklist of the major dangers that could still retard our country's march into the 21st century.

"YOU are becoming known as a champion booster of the new India," writes a friend after seeing my February 18 column. "But we all know nothing is perfect in our country. What do you see as the vulnerabilities that might throw India off course?"

Fair question, because ours is a country where predictions are both ubiquitous and foolhardy, and where the future is never quite what it used to be. So in reply to her, I ventured a quick "top ten" checklist of the major dangers that could still retard, if not scuttle, our country's confident march into the 21st century. Here's my first instalment:

1. The threat to India's pluralism

Regular readers have heard me often enough on the need to preserve India's pluralism. Everyone in India, irrespective of the circumstances of their birth, must feel that he or she has a stake in the country, that they can create a decent life for themselves (and, for that matter, attain the highest office in the land) regardless of which ethnic or religious or linguistic background they hail from. The whole point about being Indian is that you can be many things and one thing: you can be a good Muslim, a good Gujarati and a good Indian all at once. I've celebrated the fact that a country that is 81 per cent Hindu has a Muslim President, a Sikh Prime Minister, a Catholic leader of the ruling coalition and now, a Dalit Chief Justice. But ours is also a country where religious riots have scarred the face of our land, where untouchability still condemns millions to degrading lives, and where the dangers of a triumphant majoritarianism are ever-present. The moment we allow the pettiest and most bigoted of our politicians to create an India that reduces some Indians to second-class status is the moment when we fail ourselves and betray our future. An India that is denied to some of us will one day be an India that is denied to all of us.

2. The danger to India's democracy

Democracy is indispensable to India's survival as a pluralist State. For all its flaws, the flawed miracle of democracy, with its exchange of demands and promises, hopes and compromises, has enabled India to manage its own diversity and deal with the extraordinary challenges of growth and development. But India's democracy has largely been ill-served by its political leaders; with honourable exceptions, mainly at the very top, an indispensable and impressive system is today overrun by unprincipled and unimpressive operators. Corruption and criminalisation have taken their toll on people's faith in our democracy. That 100 of our 543 members of the Lok Sabha should have criminal cases pending against them is an abomination. Despite the encouraging entry of bright, educated young politicians into Parliament in recent years, the continuance in office of venal and violent men could gravely discredit the system by undermining people's faith in their elected representatives.

3. The persistence of poverty

Despite all the good economic news I celebrated in my February 18 column, 22 per cent of our population — some 250 million people — are still living below the poverty line, in conditions that are a blot on our individual and collective consciences. By poverty I don't simply mean the kind of poverty that economists refer to, measured in the numbers of people living below a dollar a day. Our poor cannot afford to feed themselves, but I am equally concerned about their lack of opportunities in our society, which prevents the complete participation of large masses of Indians in their nation's democracy, and in our country's governance. We must take the necessary steps to ensure that every Indian is given the means to live a decent life, to feed his or her family, and to acquire the education that will enable him or her to fulfil their creative potential. Failure to accomplish this will be a real threat to India's future.

4. The strains of overpopulation

Most Indians have tended to take as an article of pride rather than shame that we are a nation of 1.2 billion people who are likely to overtake China in the next three decades to become the world's most populous nation. There is little doubt that the larger our population, the more difficult it will be for our society and economy to sustain them. Indeed, the size of our population both reflects and underscores our poverty. I have often argued, echoing Mahmood Mamdani, that people are not poor because they have too many children, but that they have too many children because they are poor. For the poor, children are an asse

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