"Potential" is a dirty word

I get irritated when potential is talked about as if giving credit to the organization, place, city, state or nation. Is Madhya Pradesh great because it has tremendous tourism potential and does it give it any credit? Rightfully it should not. Realization of that immense potential is what should give credit and convey a positive impression.
Why do people say that India has tremendous potential and therefore should be regarded as great? Nobody ever talks about the potential of the United States or Britain. The difference is that while we have carefully preserved our potential, others, mostly the developed world has realized it.
Potential is therefore directly linked to deliverance, inversely proportional to be exact. We have done nothing and therefore we have tons of potential and those from the developed world have delivered and have therefore consumed their potential.
Consuming the potential is therefore what matters.
In tourism, the example of Kerala is worthy of emulation. A state known more for its militant trade unions gradually started first appreciating and then consuming its potential in the tourism sector. The state looked around and then realized that its backwaters, the tradition of ayurveda and the coconut lagoons can attract people and the famous Amitabh Kant took no time in consuming the potential of the state. On the contrary, states like the Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Orissa always took pride in the unlimited tourism potential that they ever had, with the difference that current Govt of Madhya Pradesh decided to do something positive about it. And the state surged forward in all spheres, especially tourism.
Let us all abandon the sense of pride that we Indians have started taking in the word "potential". Let the nation, state, city or organization be judged not by the potential they posess, but by what they have done to eradicate the potential.

A failed state

India is never referred to as a failed state. In fact, the rest of the world generally regards it as a superpower in the making. How follish the rest of the world can be. A free nation for over 60 years still half of whose population survives on less that 50 Rs a day! Is it something to be proud of? We have failed at building roads, generating and transmitting enough electricity or in providing any kind of water to its populace and in almost every other sphere of governance.
Cities that resemble large dustbins, cities that we have failed to even keep clean and villages, the lesser said about them the better. India has emerged as perhaps the world's largest mess, a gigantic mess that only our focussed politicians and nincompoop bureaucracy can be proud of.
Is it not sad that India finds a place at the bottom of almost all global indices, be they refer to the purchasing power, the human development index or the corruption scenario. Perhaps the most corrupt of all nations, where every interaction of those governed with those governing is laced with bribery. Every service of the government is on sale for those who can purchase it.
India has now emerged as a nation that is genuinely not for its citizens. It is liveable only for the rich or for bureaucrats and government servants.
Perhaps we a nation are not fit enough or mature enough for self rule. And therefore India is a failed state.