At 75, it’s time to redraft our priorities

priorities On Monday, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi climbs up the step on the ramparts of the historic Red Fort to unfurl the national tricolor, India will be ushering itself into the 76th year since its Independence from British colonial rule. That democracy has survived in India is a miracle. Even more serendipitous has been India’s emergence on the world map as a mighty nation; fastest growing economy; largest supplier of qualified, technically skilled workforce; global hub of Information Technology; and, an industrial power to reckon with in the region sprawling between Strait of Malacca to the Suez Canal. Few in its neighbourhood had luck in that measure. India stands tall amid the comity of nations that share much of the afflictions that stand out as sore thumbs.

 India’s diversity was humongous, often allowing soothsayers to repeat Churchillian chimera. It carried all the diversities with great aplomb. We tolerated some, ingratiated others and bought the subservience of yet others. In the bargain, we divided and redivided the linguistic states allowing even the smallest identities to gain acceptance and transform themselves into politically vibrant entities. Elections have been held regularly, albeit there is this complaint that all that democracy means to the last man is the right to exercise his franchise once in five years.

Parties have proliferated. So did the ideologies they propagated. They grew from nearly a dozen on the eve of the first General Elections in 1952, to over a thousand today.

 When age old social differentiations threatened to burst out into the open into new age political hostilities, we applied the balm of reservation to heal the furrows, fissures and fault lines. We oscillated between federalization and centralization. There were states that insisted on having their flags and there are also attempts to unify school syllabi.

 We had leaders descending down from icons of democracy who turned dictators, and even worse, dynasts without batting an eyelid.

Our balance sheet of achievements and missed opportunities on the economic front had also been similarly mixed. We have FCI stores spilling with food grains, but the nation also suffer from the ignominy of being ranked 101 among 116 nations on the World Hunger Index 2021. It took a sudden lockdown to unravel the real picture as migrant labourers without a week’s food provisions were forced to trek vast distances to their home states.

At the 75th anniversary, we need to raise many honest questions in order to rerail our democracy and restore the glory of its former self