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Scenes of Hollywood’s sci-fi film 2012 (released three years earlier just in case) crowded our rational thinking and replaced it with images of enormous earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, typhoons and tidal waves that would bring a violent end to the world. Charlie Frost, the radio jockey in the movie, vividly described the world when disaster struck: "First, the stock market would go. Then the economy, boom! The dollar, boom! Then pandemonium in the streets — war, genocide, boom, boom, boom! This marks the last day of the United States of America and by tomorrow, all of mankind. And we will be visible from the Milky Way... as a tiny little puff of smoke." As 2012 unfolded, for a while it looked as if the doomsday predictions may come true as we collectively teetered on the edge. We had become, as Arnold Toynbee put it, "defenceless against ourselves." The world economies, including that of India remained deep in recession. The US was experiencing one of its highest unemployment rates and India its lowest growth rates in recent times. The Indian rupee, in Frost's language, had gone boom! Kaput! Dropping to its lowest value compared to the dollar. A bloody civil war in Syria had the world watch helplessly as a dictator unleashed genocide on his own people. The Arab Spring had turned into a bleak winter of discontent with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi symbolising the descent by declaring himself ‘Supremo’, above law and his people. Hurricane Sandy swept across the American East Coast, forcing the world's greatest superpower to its knees in the face of nature's fury. Faced with failing economies of some of its members, the European Union tottered on the precipice. In India, venality prevailed. Mind-boggling figures of public deceit and corruption were thrown at us by that Godfather of audit, the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India. Politicians and governments faced a credibility cliff in everything they did. Murder, mayhem and rape were let loose in different parts, making us hang our heads in shame. It was as if Kalyug, the age of adharma in Indian scriptures, was amidst us, where discord, quarrels and evil had become the disorder of the day. The yearend saw the most heinous crime of them all — a 23-year-old brutally assaulted and raped in a bus and then thrown along with her boyfriend for dead in a busy street of the nation’s Capital. The widespread public anger and anguish spilled out spontaneously onto the roads pricking the national conscience and stirring a somnolent government into some action, albeit belated. There was some silver lining, though, in the year. The spectacular London Olympics embodied all the good in humankind and brought India a record haul of half a dozen medals (no gold though!). Despite misgivings and adversity, the US voted Barack Obama back as President, signalling a new pluralistic America. China made a bumpy leadership transition. In India, Parkash Singh Badal, Narendra Modi and Virbhadra Singh made political history as did Akhilesh Yadav who became the country’s youngest Chief Minister on a wave of youth power in India's most populous state. After sliding to the brink, the UPA government seemed to have rediscovered its mojo and pushed ahead with reforms, shrugging aside a nagging Mamata Banerjee and debilitating policy paralysis. By the time the curtains came down on 2012, as the following articles in our special issue summing up the year indicate, it was apparent that the world and India had survived – though just about. We are not exactly galloping Gangnam style into 2013. But there is hope that the worst is over and of a new dawn. As Victor Hugo put it, "Nations, like stars, are entitled to an eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous." Or as Richard Bach wrote, "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly." May the New Year see you, and all of us, soar to greater heights!
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IN eschatology, the
theological science concerned with the final events in the history of
mankind, 2012 had long since been marked in Mayan mythological
calendars as the planet’s expiration date. Even the day of the
Apocalypse was given: 21 December, 2012. Many had whipped themselves
into a frenzy in anticipation of the "four last things":
death, judgment, heaven and hell.