India
: The Unnatural Nation
“The first and the most essential thing to learn
about India is that there is not, or never was an India, or even any country
of India possessing, according to any
European ideas, any sort of unity, physical, social, political or religious.”
Sir John Stretchy(1888)
The scholar from Cambridge, who also happened to be
a member of Governor General’s Council(1888), thought that the difference
between the countries of Europe are much smaller than between the ‘countries’
of India. Scotland is more like Spain than Bengal is like Punjab. He, along
with some other historians, political analysts and top army officials of
British India confidently predicted that India, the unnatural nation would not
survive even a single decade. But, amidst vast differences of race, religion,
caste, creed, class and language and against the backdrop of the largest mass
migration and communal violence resulting from the unfortunate partition of
Bengal and Punjab(not exactly India) , India did survive. Frequent attacks by
its neighbouring countries, a dangerous fascist regime in ‘70s, poor
governance, clouds of corruption, inequality and poverty....... and India still
survived.
The midnight of 14-15 August,1947, when the Union
Jack began its final journey down the flagstaff of Viceroy’s House, New Delhi,
heralded the approaching end of the Age of Imperialism. A new world was coming
into being that night, the world that would go with us across the threshold of
the new millennium, a world of awakening continent of people of new and often
conflicting dreams and aspirations. India, with all her diversity, emerged as
the symbol of this new and enthusiastic world.
India’s independence was(is) a process, rather than
an instance. The midnight of 14-15 August,1947 only marked the halfway of this
process. A process that has not yet been completed even after 67 years it saw
the halfway mark.
People blame Nehru(and to some extent Gandhi) For
allowing India to be divided. But, they tend to forget that Nehru and Patel
laid the ‘Idea of India’. They brought more than 500 princely states and
thousands of groups with separate cultural identities under the umbrella of
that idea. Over the years, India saw governments being formed and fall, a
rather slow economic growth, corrupt political system, encroaching poverty,
riots and violence, internal conflicts. Still, the idea of India grew stronger
and stronger.
67 years down the line, the experiment called India
might be counted as a success, a moderate success. Poverty prevails in
some(admittedly broad) pockets, yet one can now be certain that India will not
go the way of Sub-Saharan Africa and witness widespread famine. Separatism
movements are active here and there, but there is no longer any fear that India
will follow former USSR and break up into a dozen parts. The powers of the
State are sometimes grossly abused, but no one thinks that India will emulate
neighbouring Pakistan, where the chief of army staff is generally also the head
of the government. I simply believe that so long as the Constitution is not
amended beyond recognition, so long as elections are held regularly and fairly
and the ethos of secularism broadly prevails, so long as citizens can speak and
write in the language of their choice, so long as there is an integrated market
and a moderately efficient civil service and army and – lest I forget – so long
as Hindi films are watched and their songs are sung, India will survive.
The modern India is an ocean of dreams and
opportunities. The modern India demands better infrastructure, economic growth
and a corruption free stable democracy. Here comes the concept of ‘ Ram-Rajya’, the model of perfect State,
which in fact was the dream of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation. While the construction of perfect state is
almost impossible, the efforts to construct one is what India needs today.
India needs to complete the process of independence asap and for this mammoth task India needs
politically conscious citizens, who know that candle light marches are for
Enlightment and Enlightment should be followed by Action, that they must be the
change they want to see in India.
HAPPY
INDEPENDENCE DAY.
