Ebullient Libran

Ok, here is me digressing a bit from my current writing topic of MBA applications. The change in topic is due to an important milestone attained by my beloved country, India.

India celebrated its 60th year of independence and a lot of hype and hoopla has been created around this event. Though, the achievement of having survived for 60 years for a country of India's diversity is humongous in every which way one sees, the idea of going overboard over a simple number is ridiculous. I feel that India has a lot more to achieve and is a long way away from a semblance of the ideal state-the Utopian state.

There are a few reasons as to why I don't like to brag about the "minimal" achievements India has had up to this point since 15 Aug 1947.

Firstly, India instead of being considered a soft power could have been called a hard/strong power, at this point in time had there been a different setup at the helm when the free Indian state was first created. I'm always forced to think what would have been the future of India if Sardar Patel were made India's first premier instead of Jawaharlal Nehru. Sardar Patel, with his rock steady stance brought in sweeping changes to India when it was caught in a whirlpool of dissent just after independence. Hyderabad, Goa and many other princely and colonial states had declared that they would not become part of the Indian nation just after the British left. These states had to be brought into the Indian fold one way or the other. A job only a man of Sardar Patel's calibre could execute. Sardar sent the Indian Army to subdue the dissidents and make their fiefdoms part of the Indian nation. If, I'm to believe the narrations of my elders, the actions of Sardar Patel sent messages across to all who had remotely fancied capitalizing on the mess that was India at the time of Independence. If a simple action of sending a mighty army against a weak princely state could send such message, then imagine what kind of message people would have received had Sardar been made the Premier and let to take some more critical and sweeping actions- vibes of which would have been felt even today!

Secondly, I'm dismayed to the core when I hear certain facts about how India and its leaders of the past took senseless decisions such as going to the United Nations to resolve disputes with Pakistan. When Pakistan created trouble for the first time in 1947 over the region of Jammu and Kashmir, India instead of putting Pakistan in its rightful place through military means, went to the UN for help. How stupid was Nehru? What was he thinking? Similarly, post the Indo-Pak 1971 war, the Indian leadership thought it wise to stop the Indian defense forces from proceeding further into Pak-Occupied-Kashmir and hence liberating it from the tyranny of Pakistani rule. What was Indira Gandhi thinking? Was she so naive to forget the pains associated with the 1947 incursion of Pakistani forces and irregulars? I guess she was just following in the footsteps of her megalomaniac father.
Such incompetent decisions from our so-called-leaders have led to the death of innocent Indian citizens and martyrdom to many brave Indian soldiers over the course of the past six decades. Not only have we lost our loved ones, but also had to pay heavily in misdirected funds and policies, which would have otherwise helped India, become a more prosperous country. Was Nehru a visionary as he was and is thought to be? Was he as competent as Sardar Patel was in resolving disputes the way they actually should have been? The jury is out there and I'm very clear on where the jury should go unless it too is as incompetent as Nehru was.

Thirdly, I cringe in anger when I realize that India now has 800 million people in some form of distress or deprivation. Anger because the leaders of the past failed to realize that they had an obligation towards to the future population of India. The governments between the years 1940 to 1970 failed to see the ticking population time bomb. There were no policies on controlling the population. Were the leaders blind to the fact that a policy on family planning could have brought in a sense of stability to the country when it was cash and resource poor? Did those leaders have puny of a brain to realize that a controlled population would have meant a more prosperous country of the future?
Detractors of my point here might suggest that the so-called lack of foresight on the part of our past leaders has directly or indirectly helped us now in getting business in billions of dollars and thus helping alleviate the pain and suffering of suppressed citizens. But, I say, what’s the point in boasting about our newfound prosperity when in fact the prosperity should have been achieved a couple of decades back? What’s the point when many people died a painful death when they deserved better? What’s the point in boasting about minimalist prosperity when the greater chunk of the Indian state is under the dread of farmers' suicide, militancy, hunger, exploitation, etc?

posted by Akhilesh @ 2:15 AM