India rising - Part II

Children at the brink of starvation Orissa

Here is another set of arguments I present to explain why I am feeling what I am feeling. I apologize to those who saw me as an hopelessly unpatriotic pessimist through my last post. I'm neither unpatriotic nor a pessimist. But I see some either a pulp patriotism or a devious motive in these claims. Just when we were talking about India's economic and social prospects, Outlook's recent cover story screams India Smiling. They say this because our economy is poised for a 10 pc growth and sensex touched 10k.

When, during NDA regime, the economy touched 8 pc for the first time and the Sensex was roaring and infrastructure projects were picking up like never before, the goverment unleashed an ad campaign that claimed India Shining. Everybody, especially the intellectuals, Outlook included, ridiculed this campaign by showcasing the hunger deaths, farmer suicides, gujarat pogram and human rights violations. None of these have stopped. Farmers are still hanging themselves, a part of Orissa is still eating mango shells and terrorists are still at large. Suddenly, Outlook realised that all these don't matter and what's important is only your captial markets and the GDP.

I'm not buying either of these stories. To me, India is neither shining nor smiling. A part of India, surely is getting relatively affluent but it is not translating into any sociological evolution. I have already discussed about why I do not consider that affluence translating into any knowledge growth.

What disturbs me is as a society, we are not growing. We are not a disciplined lot. We violate law at will, give and take bribe freely, cheat each other, don't stand in a queue and cross the signal when it's red.

Since our education system is still very primitive, our kids grow lapping up useless piece of knowledge. We do not focus on value-based education and there's no service learning. We are only fed patriotism through those meaningless Manoj Kumar type 'Mere Desh Ki Darti' or a contemporary 'Maa Tuje Salam', which do not instill any real pride for your nation. We are quite casual at ridiculing our countrymen, politicians or sportsmen as if they belong to a different society.

Rural women protesting the dam at the banks of Narmada

We violate human rights, uproot millions of faceless people and pollute our rivers. Our holy river, Ganges is declared absolutely unfit for even bathing and washing clothes. The river is facing enormous environmental onslaught on both religious and non-religious grounds for years and nothing is being done about it. The other big river Narmada is being destroyed in the name of development now. We produce and consume plastic as if there is no tomorrow and there is absolutely no control or monitoring agency for this. The Pollution Control Boards of our states are yet another government agencies that are quite pathetic and they can't even put together an awareness camp in a village without squabbling or bribery.

The focus given to IT in itself is a death knell on many rural economies. All the governments have a clear sign hanging outside their doors. 'Our Priority Goes To The Cities'. People are leaving their villages in hoards and moving towards cities. The cities have neither the space nor infrastructure to face this exodus. The cliche that the rich get richer and poor get poorer is becoming an everyday reality with rural areas going further backward every passing week. Those who doubt that, I request you to visit places such as Bellary, Hospet and Gulbarga. These are the districts in Karnataka, whose capital is touted to be India's Silicon Valley. These districts don't even have a covered town bus stand. Even India's Silicon Valley is choking and gasping for air while the politicians squabble and blame each other for the failure of the official machinery.

We are still spending significantly on our army, most part of which gets eaten up on the sidelines. Despite the CBMs (Confidence Building Measures), our neighbours are still hostile as Pakistan still holds up a piece of our land sends terrorists to India as if kids go on a higher education. China still has considerable portion of Arunachal Pradesh, and refugees pour in from Bangaladesh and settle in Assam and West Bengal. The Congress party tries various means to bring them into our voters list, so that they can get the minority votes and win in Assam. Supreme Court is strugglling hard to spoil their party.

Every second day, one or more of our politicians seem to get caught on video taking a bribe or sexually harassing some tribal woman. At least they get caught. But the beaureacracy neither gets caught or pushed around so openly by the media. The members of parliament and assembly are being traded openly in public and we are only too happy to watch as if they are a soap.

Our universities are not research institutions but mere administrative blocks dishing out coloured, sealed papers. We've got one IIT and we are too happy to notice that the number of IITs are way too low for a 200 million youth looking for a meagre life.

With our art stolen by the elite, the mainstream potboilers have caught our imagination and we are too busy dancing to the tunes of either Govinda or SRK's tunes, depending on which part of the country we are from.

This, I do not think is any sign of us rising. I'm again sorry if I sounded quite pessimistic and negative in these paragraphs. All these listed here are our own problems and a perfect tally happens only when you list both income and expenses. Here, the expense scale seem to weigh quite heavily on our back. And I would be quite happy even if we speak about these issues at the same enthusiasm and energy as we discuss Sensex figures and BPO dollar inflows.

That, would be a positive step towards rising.