The two great movements nurtured by Mahatma Gandhi won resounding electoral victories this spring, proving the durability of a political philosophy rooted in dignity, self-reliance, pluralism, diversity, and inclusion. While there was little surprise in the overwhelming mandate South Africans handed to the African National Congress, the startling ascendance of the Indian National Congress and its allies defied opinion polls. Indians forsook decades of minority parliaments for majority government.

This is great news for Alberta, a province uniquely suited to ride the “Indian Express” to the top of the global economy. Measured by purchasing power, India is already the world’s fourth-largest economy (behind the U.S., China, and Japan), and is poised for a strong recovery from its current “recession” growth rate of 7 per cent per annum.

The advent of political stability makes India an even more formidable world force. In Manmohan Singh’s first five years as prime minister, economic reforms were impeded by the communist parties in the coalition government. But now Singh, the first Indian PM in 50 years to win back-to-back five-year mandates, has a majority in Congress, and will have the chance to act on his party’s belief that “economic growth and social justice are two sides of the same coin and must always go hand-in-hand.”

Singh unleashed India’s economy as finance minister in 1991, finally breaking the grip of the policies established by the post-independence leadership. As a last cruel joke of Empire, India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, ascribed to the arcane, utopian ideology of Fabian socialism while studying at Cambridge in the 1930s. It aimed to create social justice through incremental measures rather than revolutionary means, much like the socialism preached in Canada by Tommy Douglas and M.J. Coldwell. Accordingly, Nehru set up a centrally planned economy and picked a handful of “winners” from among India’s established industrial families, thus enabling a private-sector monopoly in some areas and rigid state control in all others. Competition, enterprise, and innovation occurred only at the micro level, where India’s poor made the most of meagre resources with greater efficiency and productivity than those institutions sanctioned by the state. (Even today, the Mumbai slums shown in the film Slumdog Millionaire produce a billion-dollar economy inside those scrap-yard hovels and tin-shed factories.)

By dismantling a maze of bureaucratic controls developed over decades of state-planned economics, Singh provided ample room for his country’s innate entrepreneurial talents to flourish. Even while hobbled by its communist allies, India, under Singh, continued to build a robust economic foundation, opening up its oil and gas industry to foreign participation. Some Alberta firms responded, particularly as it became clear that offshore natural gas, and onshore oil, could help India meet its energy needs from domestic sources. Now, the discovery and development of heavy oil in the Rajasthan desert opens a new chapter in India’s energy growth and another horizon of opportunity for Alberta.

India’s Prime Minister Knows Alberta

With a clear political mandate, Singh can now take India closer to global economic dominance. As per the country’s pragmatic division of responsibilities, the machinations of partisan politics are handled with considerable aplomb by Sonia Gandhi, president and party leader of the Indian National Congress. Her flair for navigating intrigue enables the prime minister to deal with the challenges of policymaking and governance. In practical terms, Singh’s second term opens the door even wider for Alberta’s participation in several key areas: clean coal technology, carbon capture, near-zero-emission power plants, wastewater management, heavy oil production, and natural gas production. It will also bring skilled migration from India to Alberta, helping to fulfill the province’s labour needs.

As the Alberta government’s international policy continues to evolve (guided in part by the strategic advice provided to the province by my firm, Cambridge Strategy Inc.), a robust “India strategy” should be front and centre. The province does not need a branding campaign to establish it in the consciousness of India’s senior leadership – the oil sands alone have placed Alberta not just on India’s map, but the world’s. Despite the relatively high associated production costs, Indians with power, influence, and capital know that the oil sands offer the promise of stable, long-term oil supply.

Alberta is especially well known to Prime Minister Singh, who received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Alberta in 1997, principally for his leading role in opening up the Indian economy. Singh counts Edmontonians among his friends, and Edmonton has been well served by “ambassadors” who have pursued interests in India: Jim Edwards, who led Economic Development Edmonton and the University of Alberta’s Board of Governors following his federal political career, even learned to pronounce Hindi with a native speaker’s intonation; Alberta cabinet minister Gene Zwozdesky, similarly gifted in pronouncing Indian names and phrases, declares a visceral connection with the people of Punjab.

During Singh’s first term as prime minister, India’s public-sector energy firms won approval to invest more than $2 billion in the Alberta oil sands, but have yet to consummate a deal. But the two regions’ shared plans are moving ahead. The now-privatized ICICI Bank (formerly the state-owned Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India) recently opened a Calgary branch and is looking to expand its commercial portfolio, and serious Indians have already seen the scenery featured in the province’s marketing campaign. They all know about Alberta’s potential. Now, it’s time to nail down opportunities.