Sunday, August  13, 2000		Lead Article

"NOTHING ever changes in this blessed country," laments the chronic pessimist. "The British Raj was far better," he goes on, "everything was so cheap. We used to get a kilo of wheat for five paisas. There was no corruption, no demonstrations, no shortages, and above all, there was strict discipline."

Such words are often heard, especially from old timers. But is there any truth in this statement? Aren’t these people romanticising the past a bit too much?

There can hardly be any disagreement over the fact that India has come a long way since Independence. Now whether we have changed for the better or for the worse is certainly a matter of opinion or perspective. Perhaps, this is not the moment for being judgmental or sanctimonious; this is truly a moment of reckoning, if there ever was one. In a word, there have been recognisable paradigm shifts at virtually all levels of interaction and activity. And perhaps, the only way of talking about these changes is by going into the labyrinths of the contemporary history of our diverse country.

We started off with a dream in our eyes, a song on our lips and an unbridled patriotism in our hearts. 1950s and 60s were decades of hope and aspiration. The task of nation-building required zeal and a collective conscience. Saathi Haath Barahna embodied the spirit of togetherness. The 1962 war with China and later 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan sought to stoke the ebbing fires of patriotism. Much before the nation could find its voice, the Emergency had already started the process of gagging it. The democratic experiment entered a crucial stage when a rickety Opposition took over the reins of the government and the Congress tasted its first ever defeat at the hustings at the Centre after Independence. The ASIAD in 1982 and the advent of colour television coupled with a sudden boom in construction had begun to whet the appetites of the long-suppressed middle classes. Having survived the assassination of two Prime Ministers, the nation slowly lurched forward to give shape to economic reforms in the 90s. It was no longer possible to carry the burden of socialism, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 80s. Though American capitalism had been treated as pariah by the nation until then, it now began to emerge as the new, more acceptable creed. Rapid urbanisation, loss of kinship culture and the crumbling yet-to-stabilise institutions inevitably led to the emergence of I-Me-Myself credo. In this heady process of change, individual empowerment somehow managed to steal a march over the arduous process of nation-building.

Nehruvian socialism shaped the destiny of the country for the first two decades after Independence. State control, stringent regulations and the licence raj were bound to throttle growth. The dream began to sour despite slogans of Garibi Hatao and the 20-point programme. With three Prime Ministers from a single dynasty, the institutions were not built up as assiduously as personalities were. Thanks to the better seeds, the higher yields and the Green and White Revolutions, the shortages are now a thing of the past. The generation of today cannot even visualise a scenario where people either had to queue up for food or lump black-marketing or hoarding. As a consequence of liberalisation, it’s a burgeoning consumer market, with consumer as its uncrowned king. On him lies the onus of exercising multiple options, while the producers and sellers not only vie for his attention but are willing to give their right arm, too. This journey from scarcity to plenty has been a chequered one, and certainly doesn’t offer many parallels in the recent world history.

In less than fifty years, India has grown from a food importing country to a food exporting one. Yes, there have been famines, like the recent one in Gujarat and Rajasthan, but despite its bureaucratic lethargy, the government has been quick to respond to such natural calamities. At least, we have not allowed a repeat of the infamous famine of Bengal of 1905 in which millions lost their lives.

While our farmers were sweating it out in the fields, the younger generation, no longer in a mood to go through the circuitous path of development, has taken a short-cut to the information age and today, India is fast emerging as one of the world leaders in the IT sector. Considering that about a decade ago, the computers were hardly ever seen anywhere in India, this is certainly no mean achievement. Bangalore has shown the way by providing the infrastructure and now Hyderabad (Cyberabad) and Mohali are well on their way to join the blue-chip revolution, proving that all we need is to master the art of the impossible. Interestingly, the so-called backward Uttar Pardesh is the second largest software producer in the country, after Bangalore.

Apart from the IT industry, we have taken long strides in the field of textiles, leather goods, machinery, arms and explosives et al. And now the situation is that we don’t just meet our domestic demand but also compete fairly confidently in a highly competitive world market. The boom in IT industry has brought about a paradigm shift in job preferences too, from the white-collared jobs to the blue-chip ones.

Even after the collapse of the Raj, the image that continued to dominate the minds and perceptions of the Westerners was that of India as a land of snake charmers, fortune-tellers, elephants, bejewelled maharajahs and the rope-trick performers. In the past one-decade alone, no less than five young Indian beauties have charmed their way into the heart of the world by winning the crown in the Miss World and Miss Universe pageants. For those who don’t set premium by the beauty contests, the laurels romped home by the Indian writers in English as well as those of Indian origin based in other parts of the world should be a matter of both pride and satisfaction. While Arundhati Roy was the first India-based writer to have won the Booker Prize, Jhumpa Lahiri has another first to her credit, as she is perhaps the only American of Indian origin to have won the prestigious Pulitzer. Regardless of which part of the globe they live in, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Amitava Ghosh and Shashi Tharoor continue to hold the national flag aloft. Rakesh Sharma and Kalpana Sharma were the first Indians to have been launched into space. And the list of those who have made their impact in other fields such as engineering, medicine, technology or fashion reads somewhat like a global who’s who.

During the independence struggle, it was the Congress that called the shots and it was but natural for most Indians to join this party. Thanks to the lofty traditions of selfless service and sacrifice laid by the leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, C. Rajagopalchari and others, the Congress continued to exercise a strong hold over the imagination of the people close to three decades after Independence. In the pre-independent India and even after a decade or so of Independence, our leaders were undoubtedly men of eminence and erudition, statesmen of repute, whose dedication to their cause was phenomenal, never suspect. The khadi-clad politician who was once a harbinger of hope and freedom has now been reduced to a safaidposh, self-seeking server, and a tainted symbol of nepotism or corruption. And the neta (who’s a sitting duck for many a spoof anyway) has slowly graduated into a broker, middleman, and thanks to scams and scandals, a wheeler-dealer as well. Yet the political culture has shown a remarkable degree of resilience as a two-party system, a hallmark of a healthy democracy, is now finally appeared to have become a reality. Although some people seem worried about regional parties gaining hold of the political mainstream and dictating terms, coalition politics seems to have worked out its own logic rather well. It’s really a tribute to Indian democracy that despite all failings, of people, characters and circumstances, it has not only managed to survive for so long but continues to inspire faith in the hearts of millions of Indians even today.

The changing icons

Nothing defines a nation more than the icons, be it in cinema, sports, politics or elsewhere. Signposts of time and barometers of popular consciousness and perception, icons are constantly created and destroyed, showing the way shifts in priorities of a nation evolve and crystallise. The bespectacled Leftist of the 60s with a khadi kurta, kohlapuri chappals and a jhola has long since given way to the Levis-clad, cell-phone wielding, savvy capitalist as the popular icon of our times. In the era of black and white, it was either masterji who taught village children or the doctor who left personal comforts to fight an epidemic. Now in the age of Eastman colour, it’s fast forward to the foreign-returned industrialist with a bevy of beautiful cars or a jet-set yuppie, hopping from one lucrative job to another. First political leaders were looked upon as men and women worthy of emulation, gradually, they were replaced by the cine-stars, sports-stars and now the fashion-stars. Newer stars seem to shine across the Indian skies every few decades or so. Nowhere do the shifting sands of time become more tellingly visible in our contemporary history than in the constantly shifting ground beneath the stars.

(Source: India Development Report, 1999, National Crime Record Bureau, 1998).