Is India a global superpower?

Poor sanitation prevents India from being a global superpower

Question: Is India a global superpower?
Position‹2 of 3›: No, India has too many domestic issues to be a global superpower
Argument‹6 of 6: Poor sanitation prevents India from being a global superpower

Parts of India remain underdeveloped, causing issues with sanitation and public health.

The argument

Most of India's advanced medical care is only available in private practices, which is too expensive for most of the population. Since high-quality care is only affordable to the wealthy, most citizens have to settle for unsanitary medical facilities and limited access to clean water and running toilets. Millions of people in India do not have access to clean, running water. Diseases can be spread through dirty water and practicing poor hygiene. Children are especially at risk of becoming ill because it can lead to malnourishment and death. Malnourishment can cause mental and physical stunts in children that will follow them into adulthood. Rural parts of India lack modern innovations that wealthy urban areas have, so many people live in poor sanitation. Since millions of people in India live in unsanitary conditions, they cannot be considered a global superpower.

Premises

[P1]Advanced medical care in India is concentrated in expensive private practices, so most citizens are left with unsanitary facilities and limited access to clean water and working toilets. [P2] Millions live without clean running water, spreading disease and leaving children especially vulnerable to malnourishment that can cause lasting physical and mental stunting into adulthood. [C] Because millions of Indians live in such poor sanitation, India has too many domestic issues to be a global superpower.

Counter-arguments

The wealthiest people in India have access to clean water and modern medical facilities so they have a lower risk of becoming sick through poor sanitation. For years, programs around India have helped millions of citizens improve their personal hygiene, sanitation, and water. The quality of life is rising yearly due to organizations such as The World Health Organization and the United Nations Children' Fund that provide better medical care and sanitation to millions of people in India.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Two different claims are run together. Concentration of advanced medicine in private care concerns health services; access to clean water and working toilets concerns infrastructure, and neither causes the other. The premise also gives no figures at a moment when the relevant one moved substantially, since household sanitation coverage rose steeply across the second half of the 2010s — a change the argument would have to address. [Rejecting P2] The consequences described are well documented and are evidence of a serious domestic problem. What they do not establish is the conclusion's comparative claim, because no threshold is offered: many states with substantial domestic deprivation have exercised great international power, and the historical cases usually cited had considerably worse sanitation than India's today. [Rejecting C] The conclusion also treats a present condition as a permanent constraint. What matters for a claim about future superpower status is the trajectory — how fast access is improving and at what cost — and the premises do not consider it.