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December 04, 2008
Are we one nation yet?
India became independent at the stroke of midnight hour on 15th August, 1947. It has since gone on to become the world's biggest democracy and the fastest growing economy. The biggest strength of India is the diversity in people, culture, tradition and religion. While the rest of the world never gave India a chance, somehow, the people of India believed in it. And today we are the intellectual capital of the world. While the rest of the world is getting 'old', almost 55% of India is still young and will remain so for the next decade.
As we sit here a week after 26/11--the most gruesome day in modern and free India, a lot of questions keep coming up in my mind. Am I angry? Yes! But more than angry, I am saddened by the state of affairs, by the shear midhandling of the situation in Mumbai, about how there were intelligence failures, about how the NSG/Marcos commando teams had to fight with no night-vision goggles, no thermal imaging or any advanced equipment, about how the political parties played their funny little games, about how everyone seemed to pass the buck and about how the media showed no maturity.
Are we one nation yet? Unfortunately, the biggest strength of India is also its weakness. There is strength in numbers we say, but we never stand together. Religion, caste, and poverty still separates us. And if this was not enough, even people from different regions choose to separate themselves. Almost all of my previous posts have been on the achievements of India, me being proud of them and celebrating them as a true citizen. But one could be proud and still question the right from wrong, the good from the bad. Six years living outside India has taught me so many things and I can say that I have the insight now to actually look at India closely and see the things that are going wrong. Some people may choose to call me an escapist and that living outside India, how can I really understand its problems. In my view, you can only find out what's wrong when you sit on the outside and observe.
But before I point out what is really wrong, it is important to know why we are what we are. For a long time, Indians have lived as slaves. And it has only been 61 years since we became free. It hasn't even been two generations since that happened. The attitude of taking things for granted, for not retaliating when someone hurts you, for creating a world around you that involves a million safety nets, is a reflection of the fact that we have still not come out totally from the slave era. We are still scared of what the world will think about us. I am not saying that retaliation by force is the solution. Use tough diplomacy! But this is an art and we still need to learn it. Indians are not good managers and this shows even at the highest levels of governance.
From 1947 till about 1991, India was a socialist nation. The markets were closed to FDI, the public sector was losing out to privatization from within, our foreign reserves were depleted and India was dying economically. At this point things had started to deteriorate. The civil servants had created such a thick net of bureaucracy and license raj, that in order to survive, you had to resort to corruption. The state machinery was failing and people were becoming lazy. The babus at the offices were paid so poorly that they could not afford a decent living for their families. So, they had no choice, but to become a part of the system. When India opened its gates to the free market trade (although partially), suddenly the middle class found avenues to make quick money. But they were faced with the same problems of bureaucracy in order to get anything done. The government employees found themselves stuck with their jobs on one hand (sometimes due to lack of good primary education, other times due to monetary difficulties) and saw the rest of the country rolling in money (so to speak). This did not sit well with them and they started wielding their power at the offices and bribery became rampant. This situation exists even today and hence corruption has become a part of the social fabric since then. In fact, honesty is the exception, not the rule anymore!
This attitude has also caused the political system to be a complete failure. With a million parties dividing the votes amongst themselves, we have really given ourselves too much choice. The politicians are not answerable to anyone. To earn our votes, they would go to any extent, even resort to goondaism. Even at the national level, the politicians are mere puppets at the hands of the bureaucratic civil servants (reminds me of Yes Minister). This was very much the case even last week during the handling of the Mumbai attacks. With the NSG,Marcos,RAF,state police etc. all present there, who was really incharge? Was there one governing body that took control of the situation? There was noone from the government side who could stand up like a leader. Neither from the state, nor from the centre. Why was the media allowed 24/7 access to the sites? Why was the information about the covert operations being shown on national television? Why has only Vilasrao Deshmukh resigned? Why haven't the people at RAW, Intelligence bureau at Delhi, state intelligence, coast guard, navy etc. resigned? Why have we not demanded resignations from these people? Why is it that these people are just passing the buck and trying to find scapegoats for the massive damage that has been done? Has anyone even stepped forward to offer any solutions?
A lot has been going wrong. A lot is going wrong. How do we correct it? I offer two very simple and commensensical solutions.
Firstly, the attitude needs to change. We have to start believing like a nation, start feeling like a nation. Not like a mumbaikar, not like a delhiite, not like a hyderabadi or a keralite or a south Indian or a north Indian, but like an Indian. We have different identities, I agree, but our primary identity has and always will be our nationality-Indian. This change in attitude will go a long way. Suddenly you will find people standing united for everything. There will be more recruits to the armed forces, police, intelligence services, which have been suffering off-late with severe morale issues. This change in attitude will go a long way in doing good.
Secondly, as a responsible citizen, we have a right to vote. We need to exercise it with due diligence. Use the power of voting to set right our political system. Once the politicians see the public standing as one, asking questions and demanding results, they will have to change. You have to make them realize that they work 'for' you and are responsible for their actions. This will make them more accountable and in turn they will finally exercise their executive powers to reform the civil services and other departments that have been plagued with corruption. As responsible citizens and as one nation, we can rid ourselves of a lot of things by this one simple choice to vote.
In summary, a lot can be done by just two simple things-changing the attitude to think like one nation and vote baby vote!
I prescribe a very simple task for everyone out there that they need to do everyday. This would take like 30 secs everyday in the morning to do and infact would help burn some calories ! As soon as you get up and just before brushing your teeth, look at yourself in the mirror and say these 4 words 10 times, with feeling- 'I am an Indian'. And once you get accustomed to do this everyday, start repeating it whenever you feel angry at something, someone, whenever you feel like blaming others for your problems, whenever you blame the government for bad governance, whenever you see these dastardly acts of violence on the street, on tv. Trust me, it will make a difference. Try it out..it won't cost you a dime. It might help our country though!
uthishta bharatha !!
Posted by Anuj at December 4, 2008 03:57 PM