Amidst the backdrop that India has set to become the most populous nation of the world surpassing China’s population, reportedly, a recent ‘racist’ cartoon was published by German magazine ‘Der Spiegel’ to depict the demographic change that has irked Indians.
The cartoon shows an overloaded train with people sitting atop it holding a tricolor while a Chinese bullet train is seen behind on another track probably showing China with technological advancement and India with old-age infra.
This is a blatant display of their ignorance or pretentious act of being oblivious of India’s development in these recent years, especially in the railway sector in the given context. Indian railway is approximately 85 per cent completely electrified. Several Indian states have already achieved the target of 100 per cent electrification in their respective broad gauge networks.
The audacity of the so-called developed world is laughable. India has firmly kept forth its demand at forums like COP26 without playing the victim card that it is the developed world who needs to take the initiative to provide the developing world with committed climate financing and technological transfer to combat the climate change issue. Has the ‘First world’ forthcoming cooperated on this? Developed world’s big talks and small actions have clearly exposed their hypocrisy.
Germany has accepted to become a puppet of China and promotes Chinese propaganda which is essentially anti-India. Europe’s increasing insecurity of declining influence in the world structure today is bringing the worst out of them.
The cartoon has not gone well with Indians and several prominent leaders criticised the ‘racist’ depiction. Senior Adviser, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Kanchan Gupta said, “Hi Germany, this is outrageously racist. @derspiegel caricaturing India in this manner has no resemblance to reality. Purpose is to show #India down and suck up to #China. This is as bad if not worse than the racist cartoon in @nytimes lampooning India’s successful Mars mission.”
Reacting to the cartoon, National Vice President BJP Baijayant Jay Panda said, “In German, the name of influential magazine Der Spiegel means The Mirror. But going by this derogatory, racist cartoon, it should change its name to Rassistischer Troll. & considering Germany’s difficult history involving racism & the holocaust, Germans everywhere should force this race baiting publication to hold a mirror to its conscience.”
Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics & Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, “Dear Cartoonist at @derspiegel. Notwithstanding your attempt at mocking India, it’s not smart to bet against India under PM @narendramodi ji. In a few years India’s economy will be bigger than germany’s.”
The United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) ‘State of World Population Report’ for 2023 said that India’s population by mid-year is estimated at 1.4286 billion, against 1.4257 billion for China. So by the mid of 2023, India’s population will be 2.9 million more than China.
According to a new UNFPA report, 25 percent of India’s population is in the age group of 0-14 years, 18 per cent in the 10 to 19 age group, 26 per cent in the age bracket of 10 to 24 years, 68 per cent in 15 to 64 years’ age group, and 7 per cent above 65 years. Estimates by different agencies have suggested that India’s population is expected to keep rising for nearly three decades before it peaks at 165 crores and then start declining.
