National Unity as the Engine of Progress

In the modern imagination, China and India often appear side by side—two populous ancient civilizations with booming economies, rich histories, and vast potential. Yet their trajectories over the past century diverge sharply. China has surged ahead, transforming itself into the world’s factory, a global infrastructure builder, and a formidable technological power. India, while making notable strides, continues to grapple with poverty, infrastructural gaps, and sluggish social mobility.

This essay argues that China’s success and India’s lag are best explained by differences in national cohesion—China’s success was built on a unified language, standardized systems, a meritocratic tradition, and a radically egalitarian social structure. India, by contrast, remains fragmented across language, caste, and infrastructure, limiting its ability to act and grow as a single nation.

Standardization: China’s Foundation of Unity

China’s national unification began early, under Qin Shi Huang in the third century BCE. While his reign was marked by brutality, his legacy of standardization changed history. He imposed a single script for written communication, a uniform system of weights and measures, and standardized road widths and axle lengths. These decisions laid the groundwork for bureaucratic control, commercial consistency, and national cohesion that has endured for millennia.

China’s Dialect Groups and Unified Writing System

Major Dialect Group	Region (General)	Writing System
Mandarin	North, Southwest, Northeast	Standard Written Chinese (Hanzi)
Wu	Shanghai, Zhejiang, Southern Jiangsu	Standard Written Chinese (Hanzi)
Yue (Cantonese)	Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau	Standard Written Chinese (Hanzi)
Min	Fujian, Eastern Guangdong, Taiwan	Standard Written Chinese (Hanzi)
Xiang	Hunan	Standard Written Chinese (Hanzi)
Hakka	Southern China (e.g., Guangdong, Fujian)	Standard Written Chinese (Hanzi)
Gan	Jiangxi	Standard Written Chinese (Hanzi)

India, by contrast, recognizes 22 official languages and uses multiple scripts. Hindi, while dominant, faces resistance, especially in southern states like Tamil Nadu. English, too, is prominent in law and higher education, creating linguistic elites. This multilingual reality complicates administration, education, and national identity in ways China has avoided.

India’s Language Diversity and Status

Aspect	Details
Total Languages/Dialects	Over 19,500 (2011 Census); ~447 distinct languages. Hindi is most spoken (43.6% as first/second language).
Official Languages	22 listed in the Eighth Schedule (e.g., Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, etc.)
Additional Official Use	English widely used in government, legal, and education; ~30 regional languages used at state level.
Use in Governance/Education	Regional languages dominate state-level governance and schooling; Hindi and English are link languages.
Challenges	Diversity complicates unity; unequal access to higher education/exams due to language disparities.

India’s Railroad Gauge Types

Gauge Type	Width	Details
Broad Gauge	1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in)	96.59% of network (66,820 km); dominant for major routes.
Metre Gauge	1,000 mm (3 ft 3⅜ in)	1.68% (1,159 km); being converted under Project Unigauge.
Narrow Gauge	762 mm & 610 mm	1.74% (1,202 km); used for heritage/mountain lines.
Standard Gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8½ in)	Used for metros and high-speed rail; not part of national grid.

Meritocracy and the Elimination of Hereditary Hierarchy

By the Song Dynasty, China’s imperial civil service exam displaced aristocratic rule with merit-based advancement. India never developed such a unifying system. While it boasts rich intellectual traditions, it retained decentralized polities governed by hereditary elites and caste hierarchies. The caste system, rooted in Vedic traditions, continues to dictate social mobility and access to power.

A tale from an Indian market vividly illustrates this stratified society. A foreign visitor, noticing crabs in a vendor’s basket frantically trying to escape, alerts the vendor. The vendor calmly replies, “Don’t worry! If one is escaping, the others will pull him back down.” This metaphor captures the dynamics of India’s caste and class system, where collective pressures—rooted in tradition or hierarchy—stifle individual advancement. In contrast, China’s egalitarian trajectory removed such barriers, enabling collective progress.

The Crucial Role of Egalitarianism in China’s Rise

1. A Proto-Modern Society by the 11th Century

By the 11th century, China had already shed the rigid aristocratic classes of the ancient world. Serfdom disappeared, and the population became largely tax-paying and mobile. Any remaining stratification was due to wealth, not race or birth—resulting in a society that functioned remarkably like a modern nation-state.

2. Socialist Flattening and the Classless Society (1949–1978)

The second transformation came under Mao Zedong. Socialist reforms—land redistribution, collectivization, elimination of titles, and universal education—flattened what remained of wealth- and birth-based hierarchies. By 1978, China had become a truly classless society, unified by a common language and a shared ideological foundation.

China’s global rise was fueled by the unleashing of human potential in a society where no one was “born to rule.”

India, by contrast, retained its caste-based inequalities even after independence. Though legally abolished, caste continues to affect social access, political identity, and economic opportunity.

Educational and Civil Service Cohesion

China’s nationwide education and exam system ensures merit-based advancement and bureaucratic uniformity. India’s education, in contrast, is fragmented, with regional languages, syllabi, and varying standards across states. The Indian Administrative Service remains respected but disproportionately drawn from select linguistic and regional groups, weakening national integration.

Why India Will Not Become the Next China

There is no denying India’s achievements—its democratic resilience, cultural richness, and entrepreneurial energy. But these are not substitutes for unity. As long as India retains fragmented linguistic policies, social hierarchies, and inconsistent infrastructure, it cannot emulate the scale or speed of China’s development. Unity enables efficiency; fragmentation breeds friction.

China is not without problems—demographic decline, and geopolitical tensions are real concerns. But these challenges confront a state with strong national capacity, a meritocratic core, and a population that sees itself as one people, born equal. India, for all its strengths, lacks the same collective identity and institutional coherence.

To become the next China, India would have to undergo a radical transformation—becoming a society where birth does not determine fate, where language unites rather than divides, and where infrastructure is standardized for national—not regional—interests. But most of all, it would need to become an egalitarian society, one in which every child, regardless of caste or creed, has a real shot at becoming the next engineer, scientist, or entrepreneur..

Until that happens, China and India will remain on fundamentally different paths—not because of who they are today, but because of what they became centuries ago.