Foreword
Born in 30’s and brought up till 50’s, I am witness of all the bloody upheavals
of pre- and post-Independence of India. But
one of the most baffling questions for me has always been a big WHY?—why a
common British colonial legacy led to apparently contrasting patterns of
political and social development in post independence of India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh? There are valid reasons; but this is out of my agenda of discussion
here.
I had to leave India in 1950’s after my Matric and marriage at 19th
anniversary. What I see today in my recent sojourn of India after 60 years is a
mixed feeling of pain and pleasure—a free and sovereign India with age-old
communal feelings and caste-ridden taboos dotted by the remnants of colonial
India. What I see now in my recent visit from America to India from a distance
of space and time might be somewhat different from those living inside. Things are more distinct and clear if seen
from distance.
Apart from some of my childhood friends, uncles and aunts, the sons and
daughters of my deceased eldest brother, my guardian after my father’s death, remained
in India. We, the four of five brothers left for Pakistan, some in the East and
some in the West within 3-4 years of Independence mainly in search of
subsistence. My brother’s 5-sons and 3-daughters, whom I left then, now I found
them each having their own sons and daughters; even grandsons and
grand-daughters. They were scattered in Delhi, Lucknow, Allahabad, Varanasi,
Moghalsarai, Ara, Patna, Kolkata and Mumbai with their offshoots in adjacent
suburbs. When I travelled from Delhi to Mumbai, visiting six-seven cities and
their suburbs, I took these cities as specimen of Indian cities and settlements.
After all we examine the quality of a
sack of grain by just taking a fistful of it. I used my eye-sight as camera
lens with my mind as data-storage without any influence of personal feelings
and emotions, as far as possible.
A Bird’s Eye View
Before
I go in details, a few words about past India. “What is happening today with the rise of India and China is
not some miraculous novelty — as it is usually depicted in the Western press. At their heights during the 17th century, the
subcontinent's fabled Moghal emperors were rivaled only by their Ming
counterparts in China. For their contemporary regimes in distant Europe, they
were symbols of power and wealth. In Milton's Paradise Lost, for example, the great Moghal cities of Agra and Lahore are
revealed to Adam after his Fall as future wonders of God's creation. By the
17th century, Lahore had grown even larger and richer than Constantinople and,
with its two million inhabitants, dwarfed both London and Paris. Today,
things are slowly returning to historical norms. Last year in 2006, the richest man in the U.K. was for the first
time an ethnic Indian, Lakshmi Mittal, and Britain's largest steel
manufacturer, Corus, has been bought by an Indian company, Tata. Extraordinary
as it is, the rise of India and China is nothing more than a return to the
ancient equilibrium of world trade.”[1]
The era of Indian economic decline had
begun following Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to the East in 1498,
when European colonial traders — first the Portuguese, then the Dutch and
finally the British — slowly wrecked the old trading network and imposed a
Western imperial system of command economics. It was only at the very end of
the 18th century, after the East India Company began to cash in on the Moghal
Empire's riches that Europe had for the first time in history a favorable
balance of trade with Asia.
Today this India,
vast and varied, is marching on its path of Independence with mixed traditions
of social taboos, outdated administrative system of British Raj and the
progressive path of the current age and time.
Leadership and lawmakers are in dilemma how to make the country and
nation unite in spirit and physique with all its diversities. I find almost all
cities and towns are the showcases of old and new landscapes, side by side. The same old and new pattern is followed in
the life of its people; high-rise buildings in big cities overlooking their
slums in neighborhood. When a part of population is following the path of
deep-rooted customs and traditions of religion, caste, and communal
differences, a sizeable number of young generations are on the progressive path
of education in sciences and technologies, engineering and architecture, information
and communication technologies, etc. The old bonds of castes and creed,
religious hatred and discriminations in the predominant Hindu society are although
weakening, but not disappearing. The deep impacts of evolution in science,
commerce, business and banking and the use of information technologies in all
spheres of life, private or public, are definitely competing party after
Congress, considered to be one of the extremist parties of Hindutva, is reinterpreting its religious and cultural philosophy
to make it all inclusive party of India; dreaming, at the same time, a revival
of Ram Raj. Some observers see in the
BJP's Hindu nationalist ideology a dramatic and dangerous shift away from the
values that have fostered India's "unity within diversity." But there
is no need for panic. The closer the BJP has gotten to power in recent years,
the more it has learned that it must moderate or shed its extremist views if it
wants to win the game.
A remarkable trend I found in the temple society of worshippers. Mahavir
Mandir at Patna Railway station is one of the high yielding charity-money in
Bihar. One of its administrators decided and made the Board members agree to
use this money for social welfare.
Mahavir Cancer Hospital has been set up close to the Mandir for free
treatment of cancer patients. After all,
the work of social welfare and charities for poor and indigenous has been one
of the characteristics of Hindu society from time immemorial.
A mixture of rich and poor, cars and carts, men and animals, deafening
sounds of men and materials, rickshaw and
bike pullers, hawkers of all sorts selling and yelling in narrow roads and
lanes, is a common sight in every old city and town. When travelling with my
friends and family in the streets of old Delhi, Lucknow, Varanasi, Patna and
Mumbai, it was unbelievable to see hardly any accidents of any sort in the thick and jam packed traffics
of all sorts. It was a live display of
Gandhiji’s Ahimsa, I thought. The real meaning of Ahimsa dawned upon me on the roads and streets of India as to how
it is applicable in war and peace. I saw
old cities and towns frozen in time. The only change I found in the cities’ and
towns’ faces is their infrastructure.
Population explosion[2]
then and now is impacting every walks of Indian life. Leaving aside the metropolitan cities of
Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, and millions of small towns and
suburbs of big cities, scattered throughout India are lacking in life amenities
like clean water, electric power, healthcare, network of roads and
bridges. Excepting Delhi, Patna and
Mumbai, I found power breaks everywhere and water supply thru. tube-wells in
almost all small cities and towns I visited.
I found families living in sub-standard condition with little improvement
in the past sixty years. Despite its
optimistic economy and growing geopolitical clout, India continues to be home
to more undernourished children than any other country. A countrywide program,
sponsored by Delhi and individual states, of wholesome school lunches can work
fantastic as part of the solution? I found a happy phenomenon in employment and
education. Almost every family has its one or two adult members educated
and employed in multi-national, private, local or state/federal government
services.
Education
Education explosion in free India is one of the most remarkable features
I found everywhere, whether it is village or suburb of a city. Traditional way of education is switching to
a meaningful and practical application in the life of the people. Grade 1-12 is the base education which makes a
student pursue his career in science and commerce, arts and architecture,
electrical, mechanical, electronics and computer science. Education of a
student is more in line of his career in life than it was before. Looks like India has realized that the greatest
resource of a country is its manpower. Harness this manpower and all the
richness of land, sea and mountain will automatically be harnessed.
“Passing 10+2 is crucial, deciding what to do next is more crucial.
Following the mob, joining a degree course, becoming a graduate in science,
arts, commerce or engineering is definitely not a formula for success now. If the objective of studying is to ensure a
rewarding career, then choosing a course that is job oriented is
important. Most employers in India as
across the globe prefer a business management graduate over any other graduate
because a graduate in business management is ready-made for industry and the
employer does not have to spend valuable time and money training the employee.”[3]
Let’s have a glimpse of education explosion in southern India only by
surfing the following websites, taken from Southern Education Review, dt. April
28, 2013. Each site contains a world of information about its programs and
facilities offered. The same phenomenon is true to other parts of India.
www.amrita.edu; www.iba.ac.in; www.vit.ac.in; www.srmuniv.ac.in; www.rgcgroup.org; www.stgeorgecollege.org; www.ewit.edu; www.presidencycollege.ac.in; www.kcgcollege.ac.in; www.gardencitycollege.edu;
www.kcgcollege.ac.in; www.hiet.in; www.orientflights.com; www.nimschennai.com; www.pmu.edu;
www.ametuniv.ac.in; www.gemsbschool.com; www.veltechuniv.edu.in; www.sastra.edu.
Democracy
India is one of the largest democracies today. Jaya Prakash Narayan and few of his
contemporary thinkers asked and still asking, “whether democracy as practiced
in our country is an authentic article or whether there is much in it which
contradicts its spirit and causes grave anxiety.”[4]
With 1.21 Billion people reported in the 2011 provisional census,[5] India is the world's second-most
populous country after China. According to the 2001 census, there are 27 million-plus
cities in India;[6] among them Delhi, Mumbai,
Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmadabad and Jaipur are the most
populous metropolitan areas. The literacy rate in
2011 was 74.04%: Kerala is the
most literate state; Bihar the least.
As far as I see India today is beset by the chronic problems of Communal
and Caste integration; the ugly faces of Crimes and Corruption from top to
bottom. We see little progress in this direction even after 60 years of Independence.
To sustain a democratic system of government in a divisive society of
languages, races, religions, castes and grinding poverty on the one hand and
islands of affluence on the other, is not an easy task. Endeavor to weaken the
divisive forces is frustrated by party politics for winning vote banks on slogans
of divisive factors. The frenzied emotion fanned to demolish the Babri Masjid
in 1992 in Ayodhaya was used to yield political harvest. The caste and communal
considerations play an important part in both selecting candidates as well as
in winning or losing the elections. It is not uncommon that communal
disturbances and caste riots are usually generated on political considerations.
The goal of unity in the midst of diversity has yet to be achieved in a
substantial measure. Lawmakers must think seriously how to curb these evils in
the Indian society. A lukewarm attitude for
the last sixty years will certainly won’t help.
A limit of expenditures in the national election campaigns and a legal
ban on election slogans based on communal, religious, caste and creed will
greatly help in producing a congenial social environment. All kinds of religious display and slogans of
communal hatred in public places[7]
of India violate the secular nature and spirit of the constitution. Constitutional secularism demands that all
kinds of ritual display, whether in mandir, masjid, gurdwara or churches be
restricted within the four-walls of their premises. Lawmakers have vital responsibility
to pull the Indian society, slowly and gradually, to a secular setup in spirit
and color. Otherwise communal hatred and caste-creed animosity will always put
a barrier in India’s march to democracy and progress.
The zigzags of India's
politics are not for everyone. Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore all grew their
economies while keeping politics under a short leash. Today, China, the Asian
giant whose shadow looms largest over India, tightly monitors public opinion
and swiftly quashes dissent. The Chinese leadership vaunts harmony over all
else, and points to the hundreds of millions it lifted out of poverty in just
two decades as a vindication of its development-first policies. A trade-off between
development and democracy can prove damaging. While China's economy soars,
hundreds of millions of migrant workers and rural peasants have been left on
the outside looking in. In India, "growth may have been slow, but over a
period of time it is more certain and sustainable because of its
democracy." There's no arguing that
economic policies and commercial decisions in India rope in a greater number of
stakeholders than in many other places in Asia.
The Bahujan Samaj Party was once a small, rural movement agitating for the rights of untouchables, or Dalits. In May 2007 elections in Uttar Pradesh, on a platform of social justice, it formed a coalition of candidates from across backgrounds of caste and creed and shunted aside the more established Congress Party and the Hindu nationalist BJP. "It was an important affirmation of Indian democracy," says Bhargava. "Through parliamentary elections, through group recognition, people who in other places would remain on the outside get co-opted. They realize that they have a stake in the process, that they have hope." Indian democracy works because it welcomes everyone, identity politics and all, into its big tent.
Between 1975 and 1977, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency rule in order to curb mounting disorder sparked by mass political protests. The press was censored, hundreds were detained, and thousands of rural poor were forcibly sterilized under a campaign orchestrated by Gandhi's son, Sanjay. But what didn't kill Indian democracy made it stronger. Indira Gandhi called elections soon after the Emergency was lifted and irate Indian voters swiftly booted her government out the door.
The Bahujan Samaj Party was once a small, rural movement agitating for the rights of untouchables, or Dalits. In May 2007 elections in Uttar Pradesh, on a platform of social justice, it formed a coalition of candidates from across backgrounds of caste and creed and shunted aside the more established Congress Party and the Hindu nationalist BJP. "It was an important affirmation of Indian democracy," says Bhargava. "Through parliamentary elections, through group recognition, people who in other places would remain on the outside get co-opted. They realize that they have a stake in the process, that they have hope." Indian democracy works because it welcomes everyone, identity politics and all, into its big tent.
Between 1975 and 1977, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency rule in order to curb mounting disorder sparked by mass political protests. The press was censored, hundreds were detained, and thousands of rural poor were forcibly sterilized under a campaign orchestrated by Gandhi's son, Sanjay. But what didn't kill Indian democracy made it stronger. Indira Gandhi called elections soon after the Emergency was lifted and irate Indian voters swiftly booted her government out the door.
Secular
or Religious?
The Constitution declares India to be a
sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic, assuring its citizens of justice, equality,
and liberty, and endeavors to promote fraternity among them.[8] The
strong showing by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which
formed the new government in 1998, stirred fears that India would abandon its
commitment to secularism in public life. Atal Bihari Vajpayee considered the European concept of "secularism"
inappropriate for his interpretation of Indian culture, and places it in
opposition to the BJP's version of Gandhiji's
doctrine of Sarva Dharma
Sambhava, which the BJP considers as a traditionalized Indian form of
secularism. Mahatma Gandhi
described the correct attitude of free India toward religion as 'Sarva Dharma Sambhava', i.e. equal
respect to all religions in the secular setup of Indian Society. Gandhji
advanced the concept of 'Sarva Dharma
Sambhava' to solve the religious and
communal diversity for Indian secularism by toleration and accommodation of all
religions of India, while BJP sees in it a supremacy of Hindu religion and
culture. The Gandhian concept of Indian secularism is more positive because it’s
attitude is strengthened on ethical and religious basis. This distinguishes the
Indian secularism from the American and European Secularism. Needless to say
that the term secularism was coined to make the affairs of government run without
any intervention of religious leaders. India’s demographics with racial, cultural and
social diversities only fit in a secular system of government. BJP’s interpretation of Indian Secularism promoting
the virtual role of religion in politics is, in my opinion, dangerous and
deadly for Indian democracy. India is the birthplace to four world
religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. It also has the largest Muslim population in the world
after Indonesia and Pakistan. Whether India goes for Indian Secularism or
European Secularism, the shape and face of Indian society is not going to
change. Indian society is basically a Hindu society, will remain a Hindu
society, as Europe and America is Christian and Middle East is Muslim. The root of the issue is whether the
religious and cultural interference be applied in the affairs of the state or
not. BJP might win the Lokesabha again and again in future elections on the slogan
of Hindutva but it is destined to
failure in the face of the irreconcilable diversity into the unity of India.
The BJP has to review its course of working with Indian democracy.
It is highly imperative to check the
epidemics of crime and corruption from princes to paupers and from president to
public. The attack on corruption has been led by India's judiciary that has
rooted out graft at the highest levels. In recent years India's Election
Commission has regulated campaign finance practices and forced political
parties to hold more open leadership elections. The corruption issue was
probably the most important reason for the Congress Party's electoral debacle
in 1996, which sent a powerful message to other parties.
The essence of party politics is concentration of power. The essence of democracy is a just
distribution of power, its proper public use and the absence of power
concentration. India has the center, the states and lowers down to Panchayati Raj. The constitutional
politics working during the last 60 years seem that the center is becoming
stronger at the expense of the states.
The question has to be gone into in great depth and with an impartial
approach so that the balance is established between the center and the states.
The sooner local governments and the Panchayati
Raj is stabilized and strengthened up to the village level, the better for
Indian economy and democracy. India cannot afford neglecting rural populations
comprising of 60 percent of electorates spread over millions of small villages
and towns.
Economy
Indian economy is the world's tenth-largest by nominal GDP. Following market-based
economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the fastest-growing major economies; it is considered a newly
industrialized country. However, it continues to face
the challenges of poverty, illiteracy, corruption, malnutrition, inadequate
public healthcare, violence
against women, and terrorism. India is a federal constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary
system consisting of 28
states and 7 union territories. It is a pluralistic, multilingual, and multi-ethnic
society.
India's economic reforms are at a
crossroads. The reform process initiated in 1991 brought far-reaching changes
to India's creaky, largely state-controlled economy in just four years. The
removal of the "license raj" system that stifled domestic businesses
and the reduction of taxes and tariffs, as well as a new openness to foreign
investment, generated rapid growth. India's economy, which had lumbered along
at 3.5 percent growth per year from 1950 to 1980, picked up to 5.5 percent in
the 1980s and averaged 7 percent growth in fiscal years 1995 to 1997.
The Indian agricultural sector,
which accounts for around 15 percent of the country's GDP and employs about 50
percent of its work force, was a constant cause for worry. Strictures such as
tight labor regulations, the inconsistent application of environmental laws,
and arbitrary land-acquisition practices made it difficult for producers to
respond to any changes in demand. Swings in food prices, a heavy burden on
India's poor and farmers, could have thrown the economy into disarray at any
time.
Vital to India's self-image as
an independent nation is its constitution, completed in 1950, which put in
place a secular and democratic republic. In the 60 years since, India has had a
mixed record of successes and failures. It
has remained a democracy with civil liberties, an activist Supreme Court, and a
largely independent press. Economic
liberalization, which was begun in the 1990s, has created a large urban middle
class, transformed India into one of the world's fastest-growing economies, and
increased its geopolitical clout. Yet, India has also been weighed down by
seemingly unyielding poverty, both rural and urban, by religious and caste-related
violence; by Maoist-inspired Naxalite
insurgencies; and by separatism
in Jammu and Kashmir and in
Northeast India. It has unresolved territorial disputes
with China, which escalated into the Sino-Indian
War of 1962; and
with Pakistan, which flared into wars fought in 1947, 1965, 1971,
and 1999. The
India–Pakistan nuclear rivalry came to a head in 1998. India's sustained democratic freedoms
are unique among the world's new nations; however, in spite of its recent
economic successes, freedom from want for its disadvantaged population remains
a goal yet to be achieved.
It is the tenth-largest
economy by market exchange rates, and the third-largest by purchasing
power parity, with
its average annual GDP growth rate of 5.8% over the past two decades, and
reaching 6.1% during 2011–12,[9] India is one of the world's fastest-growing
economies. The
487.6-million worker Indian
labor force is the world's
second-largest as of 2011. The service sector makes
up 55.6% of GDP, the industrial sector 26.3% and the agricultural sector 18.1%.
Averaging an economic growth rate of 7.5%
for several years prior to 2007, India has more than doubled its hourly wage
rates during the first decade of the 21st century. Some 431 million Indians
have left poverty since 1985; India's middle classes are projected to number
around 580 million by 2030.
With 7 of the world's top 15
information technology outsourcing companies are based in India, the country is
viewed as the second-most favorable outsourcing destination after the United
States, as of 2009. India's
consumer market, currently the world's eleventh-largest, is expected to become fifth-largest by 2030. Despite impressive economic growth during
recent decades, India continues to face socio-economic challenges. It contains
the largest concentration of people living below the World Bank's international
poverty line of US$1.25 per day.
True, India, a noisy nation
of over 1.21 billion voices, can't match the hyper-affluence of Singapore or
China's titanic boom, but it shows that hearing those voices is the best
long-term strategy. “But the future of
the world is not just about growth rates. It's about the principle of human
equality," says M.J. Akbar, Chief Editor, India Today. India is neither East nor West as Kipling saw
it, but in its diversity and exuberance a reflection of something universal. It
is, as Akbar concludes, "the first modern nation of the emerging
world." A nation where, more than anything else, democracy rules.
HASAN ISRAR
May 15, 2013
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article (accessed May 15, 2013).
[3] The Times of India: Southern Education Review, April 28, 2013.
[4]
The Vision of Swaraj by Sadiq Ali, Published by Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Patna,
1999.
[5]
Ministry of Home Affairs 2011.
[7]
Government offices, schools and colleges, market places, etc.
[9]
International Monetary Fund 2011, p.2
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