>> India will overtake China as
the world's most populous nation
by the middle of this year
according to united nations data
released this week.
Alongside its population of 1.4
billion, India's geopolitical
and economic footprint is also
growing.
Fears are mounting that it comes
at the cost of the liberal
democracy the country has
enjoyed for decades.
>> They arrive from nearby
villages each morning, piling
into a train for the capital,
Delhi, fighting for space or
just oxygen inside or just a
handle to hold outside for the
hour-long ride.
>> For laboring people, if we
did not go to deli, how would we
raise a family, educate the
kids?
There's no industry in our
villages.
That's why we have to go to
deli.
>> An estimated 400 million
people work in the so-called
informal sector, paid by the day
on days when they actually find
work.
>> I have to catch the trains
like this.
You can see how risky it is.
>> These commuters are coming
from a northern state.
They account for about 1/4 of
India's 1.4 billion people.
India's population is not just
the world's largest.
It is also very young.
More than 40% of people in the
country today are below the age
of 25.
The challenge is to find
employment for them.
>> We have to worry about
expanding education,
infrastructure, health.
>> She says the huge numbers
represent both challenge and
opportunity for what is now the
world's fifth-largest economy.
>> The good news is that there
is a shortage of labor in the
rest of the world, so for India
to take advantage of that, it
has to be now and at a big
scale.
>> She charges prime minister
narendra Modi.
He has promised to bring
manufacturing jobs to India.
>> We have to make India a
developed India in 25 years,
before our eyes.
>> At home, he has used his
commanding parliamentary
majority and the country's
growing digital savvy to deliver
basic welfare benefits, gas
stoves to many rural areas to
replace dirty or cooking fuels,
for example.
He has made it easier for most
the dozens to open bank accounts
and use them to deposit
financial support for some
farmers.
His image is omnipresent in
these campaigns.
In a media landscape that has
become largely flooded by the
ruling party.
India has seen economic growth,
but overall, job creation has
fallen well short of the level
economists say is needed for
millions of young people
entering the workforce each
year.
Still, the prime minister
remains highly popular.
>> If you don't have a job, at
least he is making you feel
proud about other things.
He is making you feel proud
about India's place in the
world.
Thth is a new form of populism,
which is this culmination of
basic welfare, basic stability,
and daily, weekly, monthly
reinforcement of how good it is
to be Indian.
>> I'm very optimistic about
India.
>> This prominent member of his
political party.
>> You have an Indian passport,
in the lottery of life, you have
probably won the last prize,
that sort of feeling is gone.
>> He praises Modi for
instilling new pride in a nation
whose aspirations, he says, were
long suppressed, not just under
British colonial rule, but for
centuries before it under rulers
who came from central and west
Asia, bringing Islam and leaving
an enduring cultural legacy.
He says the bjp wants to change
the historical narrative.
>> I think overall, the belief
is that India is principally but
not exclusively a hindu country.
>> But critics charge the bjp
has run on a divisive platform,
especially hostile to the
country's 40% Muslim minority.
A temple built on the side of a
mosque that was demolished by a
mob of protesters in 1992.
There are frequent reports of
lynchings for allegedly
consuming beef.
The cow is revered in hinduism.
In 2019, the government passed a
citizenship law, which critics
say places a burden on many
muslims to prove their loyalty
to India.
Detractors say the bjp has used
courts and tax authorities to
silence political opponents and
journalists.
>> It is really about a kind of
division and a kind of
spreading, you know, the
bigotry.
>> The finance minister of a
southern state will buy a
regional party says Indian
wealth is highly uneven,
aggravated by governments in the
populist northern states where
the bjp is in power.
>> Every measure shows that at
best, we are underperforming the
potential by a few percentage
points, at worst, actually
regressing.
>> He notes south Indian states
have focused on development.
His is the south is seeing
declining populations and high
economic growth -- he says the
south is seeing declining
populations and high economic
growth.
Another result -- millions of
northern, especially lower
skilled workers, have migrated
south.
>> After my education, there
were no jobs in the north.
That's why I had to come here.
>> They feel alienated here,
linguist to clean and culturally
.
>> We want to return.
Here there has been a lot of
change.
Lots of companies have come
here, but what has come to our
home?
Not a thing.
>> There are cases where people
in the eighth grade in India
cannot read or write at a second
grade level.
When you have this generation
that should be able to push you
over the edge into being an
upper middle income country or a
rich country, in fact, if that
generation is not healthy and
not reasonably educated, you are
going to run into trouble.
>> Prime minister Modi has vowed
to bring improvements, and the
be -- a bjp commentator says
under his influence, the outcome
will be good.
>> I think the prime minister is
aware and has made enough
soundings on that basis, and,
yes, it should be a political
priority.
>> But there does not seem to be
any impetus for it.
>> That does not necessarily
mean it should not happen.
There's is a difference between
winning an election and
governing the country.
>> Right now, most analysts see
the prime minister's party
winning the election scheduled
for 2024.
The populist northern states
remain a stronghold for the bjp.
>> And a reminder that this
reporting is a partnership with
the under told stories project
at the university of Minnesota.