THE INDIAN PREDICAMENT

 

Dr. A. PRASANNA KUMAR

 

            “THIS HAS BEEN THE WORST YEAR in independent India’s history” is a refrain heard every year during the last forty-five years – a comment as common as the one repeated every year that this summer has been more severe than before. If it has been so bad, India as a democratic country would not have lasted this long. Since the historic “tryst with destiny” when the midnight hour of August 14, 1947 heralded the birth of a free India, we have been longing for a dawn that seems to be eluding us all the time. As a perceptive writer put it “the revolu­tion of rising expectations has resulted in a revolution of rising frustration.” We are perhaps, the most frustrated people in the world. For a variety of reasons all are frustrated – those in power for not getting more of it and those in opposition for not getting into power: the bureaucrats for not getting what is “due” to them; (One is re­minded of the remark that the famous Austrian Empress “Maria, wept though she kept on eating. She wept not because she was not eating but be­cause her rival Frederick was eating more.”) businessmen for not being able to make enough: youth for not getting jobs and Professors for not becoming Vice-Chancellors. The list is endless. We want pay without work; success without effort and progress without performance. The priest’s di­lemma is relevant in this context. “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody is willing to die.” Utterly wordly in our desires and actions we claim to be morally superior and spiritually advanced.

 

            To the skeptical Western observ­ers India remains an enigma. Right from the year 1947 the Western writer has been prophesying the failure of Indian democracy, if not its fall. After Nehru who? How? What? That question was followed by equally cyni­cal comments about the “functioning anarchy” of Indian democracy. There has been a heavy flow of works, some scholarly and systematic, on the In­dian State and society the study of which never ceases to fascinate the discerning critic and the persevering scholar. India, said a well known writer, neither dies nor succeeds but like the river Ganges endures. Is it a durable democracy bearing an unen­durable burden? As the Rudolphs put it, India is an “overloaded” state with the increase in levels of political mobilization resulting in demands hard to fulfil.

 

            Rajni Kothari too views it simi­larly describing the problem as aroused consciousness versus stag­nant or decaying institutions. State institutions which were to serve as instruments of change and mechanism for modernization have declined. The problems of Indian polity are too complex to be discussed in a brief note here. It is pointed out that poor growth rate and “half-hearted social change” have marred India’s political success. Industry, education and other crucial areas of development have not lived up to our expectations. Even in Jawahar­lal Nehru’s time, when the success of Indian democracy reached its peak, shadows of the coming events were cast. Nehru conceded that the system was unable to meet the demands of the growing population, as he put it. In other countries real full-blooded political democracy came after a good deal of education had spread, because of the economic revolution and all that which had prepared the ground for it, which had added to the resources of the country and thereby made it easier to fulfil the demands made by the people in those countries. In most Asian countries on the other hand, particularly in India, we have taken a huge jump to hundred per cent politi­cal democracy without the wherewithal to supply the demand which a politi­cally conscious electorate makes...”

 

            Planning for development in a country of 330 million people, said Nehru in 1951, was no ordinary task. Yet, the first Prime Minister who was instrumental in developing many insti­tutions, did not bestow much attention on population control. A charge was made against the Planning Commis­sion which Nehru created and headed, that it failed to make reasonably accu­rate estimate of the population growth and grievously erred in its projections for the first twenty-five years.

 

            In just twenty years India’s population soared to over double the number of people and today stands at over 850 million. The second most populous country in the world, threatening to overtake China in the next century. India’s population today con­stitutes over 15 per cent of the total humankind, but with only 1.5 per cent the total world income. Whereas In­dia’s annual economic growth rate has on average not exceeded a mere 3 per cent, India’s annual population growth has been over 2.1 per cent. No less disturbing is the figure relating to per capita G.D.P. which has stood at a mere $ 360 in 1992 as against $ 36,000 of Switzerland, $ 32,600 of Sweden and $ 29,000 of Japan. Small countries in Asia, besides the “Asian Tigers”, have achieved considerable, success on the economic front in the last two decades, leaving India far behind in every area of development.

 

            India’s success in the field of agriculture has been hailed as the “Green Revolution”. Still it is realised that China’s output per hectare is three times higher and that of Philip­pines and Thailand two times more than that of India. That 70 per cent of India’s agricultural labourers continue to face the threat of poverty because of large-scale rural unemployment and underemployment is no ordinary prob­lem facing the Indian polity. The debt burden on the fragile Indian economy does not need any particular mention. Our external debt which rose by $ 50 billions in the 1980 “due to bad fiscal management” has touched $ 80, bil­lions and will cross the 100 billion mark by 2000 AD. One-third of this debt is to be repaid in the next five years and debt servicing adds enormously to India’s agony. India’s share in world trade is as low as 0.5 per cent and it does not require any expertise to estimate the future burden on India’s population. The affluence of some sections of our society cannot mask the growing misery of the multitudes and James Scrlesinger’s line “There are islands of abundance in oceans of misery” applies to India.

 

            Another major problem over­looked by Indian leadership is corrup­tion in public life. “Corruption” wrote someone “is not only tolerated but even regarded as the hallmark of our leadership.” The nexus between cor­ruption and violence has been pro­nounced during the last twenty-five years, a period marked by criminaliza­tion of politics. When violence has escalated into terrorism in many parts of the country; political leadership began to lean heavily on security forces to check it. The treatment justi­fied though it may be, is symptomatic. Police, paramilitary and special task forces have grown in numbers placing additional burden on India’s economy. It is incontestable that no state can abdicate its responsibility of maintain­ing law and order and can afford to keep quiet when its territorial integrity is threatened.‘

 

            Unarguably the designs of some countries in the neighbourhood have been posing a serious threat to India’s security. India has been forced to spend huge amounts on security forces in the Seventies and Eighties. While there can be no let up in our vigil, it has to be borne in mind that diversion of our scarce resources to security concerns is done at the expense of developmental programmes. Our young minds are greatly agitated over rising unemployment and many of them are tempted to join extremist movements and violent agitations. Almost all our public institutions and even the so-called pillars of democracy have been exposed to the charge of corruption.

 

            The relationship between corrup­tion and violence is causal and each feeds on the other. Political leadership has not only failed to curb the growing menace of corruption but even joined hands with corrupt elements at all levels of public life. James Manor observed that “No leader in India can be both honest and powerful.” What is particularly tragic about the Indian situation is that a country that had upheld values of rectitude and prin­cipled conduct in exercising power under the influence of Gandhian leadership began to decline rapidly in the Sixties and Seventies. Nehru thought that Parliamentary democracy was the best system because other forms of government were less accountable and were “likely to lead ultimately to some measure of authoritarianism.” Ironically the same Parliamentary Government has witnessed the worst type of authoritarianism both at the centre and in some states.

 

            Summing up one is not wide of the mark when one points out that the three major problems facing In­dian polity are population, corruption and violence. The three are interrelated and unless attention is focussed primarily on the three, India’s at­tempts to achieve political stability and social and economic progress might be of no avail. One might argue that our priorities are much different now because of the rise of religious fundamentalism and sectarian rival­ries. Caste and religion, are exercising dangerous influence on our society. Blood, it is said, is thicker than water. One might add that “money” is thicker than blood. Money therefore takes the first place in our priorities, followed by caste and religion. We are predatory in our greed and primitive in our instincts. Growth of literacy and spread of education can surely help in overcoming these disturbing trends. But as Nani Palkhivala put it with characteristic sharpness “illiteracy is dangerous, but cultural illiteracy is worse.” Foreseeing all these evils, Mahatma Gandhi sought to mould our value system in such a way that the people of India would live together in peace and goodwill, irrespective of caste, creed and language. As Morris ­Jones observed, Gandhiji used Hindu concepts for modem political purposes and modem concepts for the reinvigo­ration of traditional life. Gandhi and Nehru gave us a framework which alone can help us in overcoming the present crisis. The vision of the great leaders should be translated into is­sues of performance and the burden rests as much on the people as on the leaders chosen by them. Democratic Government implies not only responsible leadership but also an alert and active role by the people at large. It is not enough if they take part in elections and change governments every five years. The people have to reflect on every issue regularly and articulate their views through the many avenues available to them. Fortunately today the network of print and electronic media is vast and readily available to the people and the communication system enables the people also to control those in power, even if such a control is feeble and indirect. The In­dian predicament is not a predicament concerning the Government alone. It concerns every citizen, everyone inter­ested in India’s welfare. If we fail to understand it and act in time, we will be doing grave injustice to ourselves and the posterity. There is no point in blaming an individual or a group for the crisis confronting us. Most of us know that South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hongkong have during the last twenty years achieved amazing progress by means of hard work and discipline. That is a lesson to a big and great country from a few small coun­tries of Asia. As a seer recently ex­horted the people: “Let every one do his/her duty without complaining about others. If each person does his/ her job thoroughly and sincerely, the world will take care of itself.” That is the need of the hour.

 

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