Communal cracks widening
THIS is a day of celebration, but also of reflection. The Tricolour fluttering in the August breeze uplifts us, but our feet must remain firmly on the ground.
When the freedom struggle peaked in the 1940s, nothing could be taken for granted. Nazism and Japanese imperialism stalked the world and came perilously close to victory. Imperial Britain, with its back to the wall, used all its cunning to divide and weaken the struggle through the Muslim League and certain Hindutva ‘social’ movements.
Though the British (and their allies) won World War II, they could not sustain their power in the subcontinent. However, they did not relent. As late as May 1947, they were set to devolve power to several ‘Indias’ rather than the two that got freedom in August 1947. Kashmir is another story still playing itself out today.
The British left a seriously wounded country. Exacerbated fault-lines of religion, caste, ethnic identity and poverty partitioned the country, leaving a million dead and millions homeless. This was the time when the literacy rate was just 12 per cent and the life expectancy 32 years.
The task before Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and other founding fathers was to first heal the wounds and then move on with development. In this, they were eminently successful, testified by the first General Election in 1951-52, conducted in accordance with universal franchise, and the social peace that prevailed during the Nehru era in the 1950s and early 1960s. Many expected India to go under. Yet, in the first stage, the republic was given a political shape and the foundations of India we see today were also laid. The achievements since then have been solid, though not spectacular.
India made a lot of progress with the help of its large population and the resilience and resourcefulness of its people rather than the governments.
And sometimes, things look rosier when an issue is framed in a particular way. India’s economy is the fifth largest in the world today. But its annual per capita income ($2,601) places it at the 139th spot among 192 nations. As for literacy, going from 12 per cent in 1947 to 74 per cent today may look impressive, but we are ranked 125th among 159 countries.
Curiously, western countries see India as the ‘Great White Hope’ against China. In 1910, it was white boxer James Jeffries whom fellow whites hoped would defeat black champion Jack Johnson, but in vain.
It is seriously doubtful whether New Delhi wants to play that role. To the credit of the Narendra Modi government, it is deftly making the most of the current geopolitical situation to advance India’s foreign policy interests, even though it involves a degree of theatre, as in the G20 Summit.
But India’s destiny is unfolding, not on the globe but right here, and our future is very much in our own hands today. What we choose to do with it is another matter. Here there are issues — less-than-adequate economic growth, persistently high unemployment, especially among women, hopeless policy prescriptions and a tendency to shoot the messenger rather than deal with the information. There is a pattern of incompetence, grandstanding and eventification, rather than real achievement.
The government has done well in its social welfare schemes and in digitising the economic system, but there is little to show for the numerous high-profile schemes — Skill India, Startup India, Swachh Bharat, Smart Cities, Make in India and so on. Defence reform and modernisation remain a chaotic mess. As politician Subramanian Swamy points out, there is no coherently thought-out economic policy. The government wants to be all-powerful, but what it wants to do with all that power is not clear.
So, there is currently a trend in government circles to
(a) describe data that shows India in a bad light as methodologically questionable and/or (b) to dismiss negative reports on India as the outcome of a western conspiracy and (c) refuse to come up with its own data.
Another is to dress up routine developments. A case in point is the railways, where a two dozen or so new-design trains are being celebrated as a technological marvel, whereas in reality, there is little change in its overall functioning, or for that matter the average speed of the trains.
The biggest cause for concern is the political shift allowing the fault-lines of religion to widen. In the past year, to add to the already painful divide splitting the Hindu and Muslim communities, we are now witnessing a rift between Christian tribes of Manipur and the Hindu Meitei majority.
Communal riots are not unknown in India. Anyone who has witnessed the 1984 Sikh pogrom knows that the lassitude of the police is not unusual. But where 1984 shocked the system into remedial measures, including a major political outreach in Punjab, there is no effort being made to politically tackle either the Manipur crisis, or the larger and more dangerous rift between India and its largest minority — the Muslims.
When Amrit Kaal peaks in 2047, India is expected to have a population of 1.6 billion, of which 300 million will be Muslims, the largest Muslim population in any nation worldwide. Can India really construct a modern industrial society by repressing and marginalising its largest minority?
In 1985, former Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram told this writer with a twinkle in his eye as to how hollow was Rajiv Gandhi’s boast of taking India into the 21st century. “Ikeesvi sadi to apney aap aa jayegi (the 21st century will arrive on its own),” he said. So will 2047 arrive, but how sweet the Amrit will be is the question.
