Happy Birthday India!!

On the 15th of August, independent India will be all of 59 years old. We have built up a population, which will shortly be the world’s largest. We have created a strong economy that anyone who knows anything tells us is moving fast in the right direction. Our Parliament has gone from the days when one principal party (the Congress) was almost always guaranteed victory to a multitude of parties, each more vociferous than the other. Each party promises to safeguard the interests of some specific group, be it characterized by religion, language or geography. Success can only be guaranteed by hitching our star to someone’s wagon. Thus, caste based politics have come to play a much bigger role than before. We have also fought a few wars against our immediate neighbours. The last was a victory, or so we are told. As a result, we should arm ourselves better, for the inevitable onslaught, which a vengeful foreign administration is sure to launch at some point or the other. And to bolster our defenses, we have that trump card, a nuclear arsenal. Please note, not just a bomb or two, a full-fledged arsenal. But, of course, we need it. Deterrence, you see. Meanwhile, as a highly respected former chief of police put it, another neighbouring country to our east is turning into a ‘demographic bomb’. The situation in West Bengal is remarkably like that faced by all-Americans who are increasingly seeing themselves as shortchanged by their high-ups who find it convenient to employ cheaper foreign labour.

Meanwhile things are happening in New Delhi. The central government, or some parts of it have decided to increase the number of positions reserved for ‘backward communities’ at various academic institutions dramatically. The reduction in the number of ‘general seats’ will be made up for by simply increasing the over all intake. This has lead to a backlash by students, teachers and many others who have a stake. At the point when things appeared to be moving towards something more ominous than mere rumblings, several bombs exploded in commuter trains at Bombay. The final death toll stands at more than 200. If our western neighbour is involved, as it is being suggested, then we should do an Israel on them. But oops, they are also a nuclear power, and should anyone forget issues, at the moment of writing, Israel is facing somewhat unexpected opposition in Lebanon. Not so easy after all. And does anyone else see the connection between wars and internal strife. What better way to sweep internal dissent under the carpet than fight a war? After all, the people in power are hardly the people in the trenches. It is easy to be brave at long distance when the blood being spilt belongs to some poor fellow from some small town in Bihar who didn’t have much of a life anyway, right?

We also have a leftist contingent. This section of our polity does little, but is all the more vocal for it. The two states where it has been in power for a while have been remarkable only in the continuous way they have deprived their own people of jobs by irresponsible trade unionism. The industries have moved to states where the climate is less inimical to investors. Now, it appears they are somewhat lacking in infrastructure and are asking preferred foreign groups to hop in. The Salim group of Indonesia is supposed to build industries in Bengal. Whoever heard of the excellence of Indonesian industry? Not to belittle Indonesia, but what can they do that we do not have the technology and the manpower for? Meanwhile, what will probably happen is that these people will build houses (yes, that seems to be the only form of business which is perpetually expanding) with ‘seed money’ taken from small investors in Bengal and then sell those houses to those same small investors. In short, with hardly any capital, and probably employing local contractors, they will walk away with profits of maybe 5 to 10 thousand crores of rupees. That is about a billion US$.

To conclude, yes the country is moving fast. But in which direction? The people who created this nation, fashionable though it is to criticize them unthinkingly today, built something great. There is too much good in the Indian nation to die out so soon. But our ‘leaders’ are certainly trying hard enough