INDIA AT 66 I still remember my childhood days, when every Independence Day we use to go school to witness unfurling of the Tricolor and various ceremonies associated with it. In those days I enjoyed them more as an excuse to get some sweets and enjoy some dance and drama performance. Now, I spend the Independence Day as any other day doing mundane routine work. However, this year I have decided to write an essay on India and share it with it you partly as a part of my UPSC preparation, partly as urge to share my feeling and partly to revisit the other childhood memory of writing an essay on ‘INDIA’. Today, if we look at where our nation is heading. First answer comes in my mind is of gloom and problems. Every indicator of economy rupees value, unemployment, inflation and economic growth has went wrong. At least 200 districts are in grip of left wing extremism and various kinds of insurgencies in -J and K and North-East are far from over. However, I still visualize these problems as symptoms of much deeper malaises. First problem is about the very definition of India and nationalism. There are people and organizations who shout the loudest that they are true nationalists and anyone who opposes their ideologies are declared traitors by them. However, their basic ideologies are antithetical to ideals and constitution of Indian nation. Here are the vital questions, as an Indian what do we owe allegiance to? We as an Indian are committed to what? What are the parameters to judge if one’s ideologies are nationalist or not? Answer is simple; it is constitution of India and the principles on it is based. According to me, our constitution is the biggest achievement as a nation. No matter how much reforms it needs and no matter how blatantly it is disrespected by its own citizens and government, it is still the book that best sums up ideas and principles of the nation. The mere fact that leaders from all regions and sections of society sat together, discussed on various issues and gave this constitution to us at the time of independence amidst all the turmoil that was going on during those times is unprecedented in any third world country. The principles it is based on such as ‘unity in diversity’ and ‘social, economic and political equality and freedom to all its citizens regardless of one’s religion, race, and gender etc forms core of Indian nation. For many these ideas are same old stories, but this is the very tragedy of our nation that we failed to implement these basic principles. We can trace roots of every problem plaguing our country like naxalism, poverty, hunger, etc to their non implementation. Also we need to realize that diversity is our greatest asset and strength. Christianity came to India before it reached Europe , Islam came to India during the life time of Prophet Muhammad, till few years back we had flourishing Jew communities , we still have a vibrant prosperous but diminishing Parsi community and finally it is the land that gave birth to 4 great religions of the world namely Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Hinduism. Even contemporary Hinduism is a curious mix of Vedic culture, local traditions and Sufi/Bhakti traditions. Though we can be skeptical at monetary value of rupees notes but they are cultural marvel of their own as they have denominations written in 15 languages in different scripts. Recently, a heart breaking news appeared that in last 60 years more than 200 languages has disappeared from India. A language is not just a medium of communication as it contains beliefs, traditions and experiences of people accumulated over large number of generations. Hence, as a nation we should not let this repeat in next 60 years. At the same time we should keep in mind that our respect for our culture should not lead to cultural chauvinism and discrimination and hatred against other sections of society. The next problem our country is facing is the alarming moral erosion in political class across the whole political spectrum. One national party is perceived as shamelessly corrupt and dynastic and the other national party is more interested in building temples and Hindunisation of society, even when more than half of Hindu children are mal nourished and still in many remote parts of India people belonging to so called lower caste are not allowed to enter temples. Also, regional parties are not better. They create and exploit divides in society on every possible ground. Nearly all political parties are converting to family firms and all openly support criminals. For passing important legislations regarding peoples welfare parliament simply not functions but legislation (against the Supreme Court order) to allow criminals to contest election all parties find consensus and pass it without even debate. Finally, the third problem which I find most serious is impatience and tendency in masses (especially youth) to search and immediately brand some people as villains and heroes on every issues and incidents without much investigation. Today youth is rightly free of many prejudices. It can critically examine burning issues and have opinion independent of its previous generation family members. However today youth is seems to be wrong on one place, it wants quick fix solutions to perennial social, political and administrative problems. Whereas the world history tells that the every change in political system is long and painful. One movement, one constitutional amendment or one government change will not change much, as changes are always incremental. We have to use every methods our freedom fighters have used from pray, petitions and persuasion to a series of mass movements and mobilizations. This problem was manifested in recent ‘Anna Hazare movement for Lokpal’. Though I agree with if not all many of their demands but according to me they went wrong in their tactics. The campaigners called themselves Ghandian but ignored his very tactics. Gandhiji had realized that changes are incremental and are achieved through a series of mass movements which are focused on self correction and self sacrifice and is supported through carefully built mass mobilizations. The one month show at Jantar Mnatar demanding a law to be passed by the very people whose existence is threatened by the same law will not achieve anything. On the contrary Ghandiji had started his campaign from a small place like Champaran for plight of marginal indigo farmers for a modest demand of freeing them from the clutches of British merchants. Similar chauvinism one can find in Indo-Pak relations. After repeated brutal killing of our soldiers by Pakistani army the self declared nationalists (mentioned earlier) are crying for war and revenge. They forget that in war we will mourn on 500 or 5000 or 5 lakhs coffins than 5. Also, in this rhetoric we forget the basic question that what are systemic deficiencies in our border management, such that our borders are being regularly penetrated by Pak soldiers. We fail to realize that presently we do not have much leverage in Pakistan so that we can pressurize its army and the non state actors it supports to be in check. This is my thinking (many can’t agree with it), that first thing we need is India-Pak trade. Make them dependent on your electricity and petroleum product and create a powerful class in Pakistan who will emerge as winners due to India- Pak trade so that, we can leverage them to pressurize Pak Government. The time of revenge should be very carefully calibrated and cultivated, kneejerk revenge attempts can lead to greater fiasco. Finally what are the solutions? For most internal problems only solution is governance or rule of law. Investors have to realize that they have to follow all the laws of land including tax laws and environmental laws and they also have to take local communities into confidence by providing them proper relief and rehabilitation and sharing some of the profits with them. The government has to realize that it has to upheld rule of law at any cost by protecting and empowering the weakest of the weak, by providing basic education, skill development, basic health and other essential services of desired quality and finally by giving an accountable and transparent governance. The citizens should also have to learn to abide and respect duties demanded by the constitution. Finally people who have rebelled against the state because of their genuine grievances have to realize the futility of violence and fighting against the might of Indian state. They should shun violence and raise their issues at right forums and become part of democratic processes. Second solution we need is far reaching electoral, judicial and administrative reforms to inject life into our decaying public institutions. 65 years back while framing constitutions our constitution framers had looked into every constitution of the world to find solutions. Same thing is required now. As, my polity teacher has told me that German, French, American and British etc constitutions can again show us the way. French independent and professional bureaucracy can be a good solution to our administrative problems. Similarly our First past the post or Westminister Parliamentary system can be replaced by German like Proportional Representation Parliamentary system so that we can have governments with support of majority of voters unlike present minority state and central governments. Concepts like right to recall, negative voting and inner party democracy call also are very useful in Indian context. Also, some aspects of American federalism such as composition of the Upper house have become relevant for us. However like 65 years ago have to be molded according to Indian realties. Also, moral education to masses is urgently required. Regarding this first we need to delink morality with religious and social norms and link it to universal norms like compassion for all, respect for law of the land and wider human values like empathy, kindness, honesty, work commitment and respect for others rights etc and finally on the ideals on this great nation stand. At last I think we again need a Swadeshi movement which you can also call ‘import substitution and export thrust movement’. However unlike earlier one this should be based on research and development of cutting edge technology, functional integration of all private and public institutions and innovation, skills and entrepreneurship of our young population aimed at producing every range of goods from needle to electronic chips of world class quality at the cheapest possible price. Finally, I liked to end this essay with search of a silver lining and I ended up remembering about my grandmother and her anecdotes. She remained illiterate because nobody in her family thought her education was important. She used to explain us through Puranic stories how different castes have emerged and what is the concept of purity and dirt regarding hierarchy of different castes. She used to tell how poor her family was as they use to celebrate when they had rice in their meal, how zamindars used to take all their harvest. She used to tell she used to cook chicken outside her house as it was considered a Muslim food. Today, her grand daughter is studying in Lady Shriram College . Her grand children realize the futility of those Puranic anecdotes which justify caste system. Her children can enjoy any Indian, American, Chinese cuisines at will and they also know that there is nothing like Hindu food or Muslim food. If we want to gauge the progress we made in last 66 years beyond the mundane stats it is these experiences of common people will depict the progress we have made. These experiences are symbol of a new emerging India confident and ready to take on challenges of the new globalised world. However on the other side of story these stories are not yet universal and our biggest challenge is to make these stories universal.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 19:55:19 +0000
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