India of My dreams

IMAGINE THEINDIA THAT CAN BE

“If we were to look over the whole world to find the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow- in some parts a very paradise on earth – I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered over the greatest problems of life and has found solutions of some of them which will deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant-I should point to India” (emphasis mine)

These are not the lines from promotional brochures of the Indian tourism department, but these gems emerged from the renowned German scholar Max Mueller, in his lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge, England as far back as in 1882 .

I am starting with this quote to demonstrate that India has the inherent potential and it is only that some doses of optimism, dynamism, determination and grit are required, for realizing the dreams of making India a world super power.

The seeding of my dreams took place during my first trip to Japan in 1970s for industrial training in one of their manufacturing units. During my three months stay there, I got an opportunity to visit their cities as well as towns and villages in the interior regions. What I saw there was totally amazing and in total contrast to the conditions existing in India, whether relating to industry and infrastructure, living standards, literacy, facilities for healthcare, employment and income disparities. All this put me to lot of introspection and I started dreaming about similar conditions in India. But I was not alone, there were hundreds of thousands of other people in various fields nurturing the dreams and implementing them in the field of industry, energy, banking, healthcare, space and other areas.

The result is that the dreams of these dynamic people brought a sea change in our development. India has become a global hub for IT, there have been global acquisitions by Tatas, Mittals and others, exports are touching new heights, foreign exchange reserves are swelling up, India has achieved the status of nuclear power, we have bagged two world cups in cricket and world chess championship and achieved multifaceted success in other areas.

However the dreams are never static, rather they are dynamic and they keep on getting more enlarged over larger canvasses with the passage of time. So now there are a new set of dreams, as enumerated below, for which I am inspired by the words of eminent French writer and Nobel Laureate, Romain Rolland, “If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found home from the very earliest days, when man began the dream of existence, it is India”(emphasis mine)


Freedom from want
In 1940s, Roosevelt the then President of USA advocated the concept of Freedom from Want (one of the four freedoms enunciated by him) as a fundamental right of the citizens. Considering the accelerated economic prosperity achieved by USA in the intervening period, the results of promoting such a concept are self evident. However, Indian masses continue to be burdened with poverty . According to the planning Commission reports, the percentage of population below poverty line in 2004 is estimated to be 27.8% and the average decline in poverty between the periods 1993 to 1994 is estimated to be just 0.74% per year. The absolute no. of poor is now estimated to be 300 million as of 2004-2005.

According to the theories of economic development, no country with significant poverty levels can achieve optimum development due to the “vicious circle of poverty”. So it is not only from the point of view of alleviating the sufferings of millions of our people, but also from the angle of achieving the full potential of development that we need to probe deeper into this malaise. The entire Indian political system, the legislature and the judiciary have to make an indepth introspection of the philosophy of law, the dichotomies of realism-formalism and positivism-naturalism and churn out a solution to ameliorate the plight of millions of Indians whose wants are yet to be fulfilled, even after over six decades of freedom. As in the words of Samuel Johnson, one the best known British literary figures, “ A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose”. Obviously we can not continue to be in a ‘bad state’ and we have to dig out a way to reach the end of the tunnel

Eradication of Suicide epidemic amongst farmers
This is linked to the “Freedom from Want”, but needs to be addressed separately, because it is a problem of gigantic and serious proportions. Our news papers are full of reports about the continuing suicides by our farmers, who are working hard through all the seasons and harsh weather conditions, and providing the daily bread to us. They are the victims of inexorable logic of events- poverty caused by increasing debts, the rising costs of production, vagaries of weather and declining revenues.

It is reported that during the famine of Bengal in the 1940s, lakhs of people died but the British Government allowed them to die without providing any relief. But now, when have been free for the last 60 years, the farmers are committing suicides and we are turning a blind eye to this tragic phenomenon . We have to critically analyze the factors, be it the seed monopolies, crop failures, trade policies of WTO resulting in fall in crop prices, the role of the middlemen, high interest rates and low support prices, which have driven over 25,000 farmers to suicide in the last few years. Add to this the number of families which have been devastated, and the neighborhoods which got depressed and demoralized. If this trend continues, our farmer community will gradually become extinct. But this is not a situation beyond redemption, provided everyone concerned introspects and a well thought out plan with remedial measures is implemented., starting at lease with giving moratorium on loan repayments in deserving cases.

Justice for the common man
The present Indian legal system, is inadequate and needs a lot of introspection. Consider the problems being faced by the common man seeking justice, due to inordinate delays, high costs and limited reach to the judicial forums. This is aggravated by the fact that there is long pendency of cases in the courts. The figures are stunning. Pending cases in supreme court are around 40,000; in High Courts around 4 million and in district courts 25 million.

In this connection, I am tempted to quote from our scriptures, Manu Smriti and Kautilya’s Arthashastra:

Manu Smriti:

Chapter VIII, Para 12: “But where justice, wounded by injustice, approaches and the judges do not extract the dart, there (they also) are wounded (by that dart of injustice).”
Chapter VIII, Para 15: “Justice, being violated, destroys; justice, being preserved, preserves: therefore justice must not be violated, lest violated justice destroy us.”

Kautilya’s Arthashastra

Book III, Chapter I: Concerning Law: "As the duty of a king (and the administrators of justice) consists in protecting his subjects with justice, its observance leads him to heaven.”

However, there is no denying that there is always a room for improvement and the judiciary and the entire legal fraternity has to rise to the aspirations of the common man and generate a judicial environment where mass public would be always comforted by a feeling that there is an institution to provide justice to him

Literacy for all
In my opinion, literacy is of paramount importance, as it is the only means by which the masses can strengthen the democracy and contribute positively to its growth. Their education and enlightenment, will enable them to identify genuine parliamentarians and legislators for the governance of the country, and they will not just not be guided by the slogans and propaganda, or the financial allurements by the various political parties.

The government has targeted that by 2010, there will be a 100% enrolment of children in the age group of 6-10 years. But enrolment itself is not sufficient. There have to be concerted efforts from Government, voluntary organizations and other agencies to ensure that all the children receive education at least up to the secondary level.

Global standards and scale of manufacturing and service sectors
Yes, we are now on the global map. India produced 34 million tonnes of crude oil during 2006-07 making India the 22nd largest producer in the world. RIL's oil refinery Jamnagar (Gujarat ) makes us proud with its 34 million tones per annum capacity with the global ranking of fifth largest. We are currently the fifth largest steel producer in the world. We have also done exceptionally well in IT, telecommunications, banking and several other sectors.

Nevertheless, we can not rest on the proverbial laurels. Now is the stage when we have to think of much bigger scales of operation. China and several other countries are much ahead of us and they are operating at much higher levels and scales. We have to come up to the levels of Nippon Steel and JFE , Japan and POSCO, Korea in the field of steel. We have to target for oil refining plants to be of the sizes of Amuay and Cordon plant in Venezuala or that of SK corporation in South Korea. In Banking we should be at least amongst top 10 in the world, the position which has already been achieved by China. Just a few examples, but they demonstrate the kind of goals we should have in mind.

In short, we have to envision India where the industrial, Infrastructure, Infotech, telecommunications Banking and other critical sectors are operating at scales and with the standards at which the other developed economies are operating

Healthcare for All
It is a highly critical area as the physical health of people will determine the health of the nation. but in spite of several measures taken so far, the picture is gloomy. As per the “Approach to the 11th Five year plan” India has the highest infant mortality rate (60 per 1000 live births) as compared to China, Srilanka and Vietnam. The maternity mortality rate is also higher as compared to these countries. Also “Accessibility remains a major issue…….and women and children continue to die en route to hospitals” It is also reported elsewhere that, 5 lakh people die of Tuberculosis and Diarrhoea and Malaria continue to be large killers. The HIV/AIDs scenario is equally bad.

For improvements in the healthcare, particularly the rural health care, a more integrated approach is required encompassing public health, sanitation and potable water. Prof. Amartya Sen, the renowned economist and Nobel Laureate has also emphasized the importance of providing drinking water, healthcare and sanitation facilities as a part of poverty reduction programmes
The Government, NGOs and other village level agencies can work out a comprehensive programme which can include mobile clinics, tele-diagnostics and tele-medicine systems, increased number of primary healthcare centers and the like.

Eradication of unemployment
We have to surmount the colossal problems of unemployment and analyse the factors including economic and technological aspects, closing down of sick industries, strikes and lockouts, the fallacies of the education system making them suitable only for certain types of jobs, enhancing the avenues for rural employment and increasing the opportunities for self employment . Admittedly the problems are aggravated by the increasing population because of which there is an increment of about 5 million people to the people aspiring for employment. But we have to give it a serious thought to find out the solution

Achievement of Gender equality and women empowerment
Admittedly there has been a noticeable focus on the development and empowerment of women as well as gender equality in the last few decades, which has resulted in better employment opportunities, social standing and equal rights for women. But the benefits of these are mostly limited to the urban areas. It has not percolated to any significant levels in rural areas where the women continue to suffer from suppression, economic dependence, denial of rights and domestic violence. The remedial measures have to be taken at the village and district levels

Preservation of Environment

We have to arrest the environmental degradation which is assuming enormous proportions, in several areas including water and air pollution, biological diversity, pesticides in agriculture, forest cover depletion and greenhouse emissions. We need to be aware of and alarmed over the global warming, not only in the deliberations of various committee, but at the level of each and every citizen. We have to evolve counter measures for the preservation of environment from the basic levels

Excellence in sports
I envision several gold medals in Olympics and trophies in international sporting events, and not be just satisfied with a couple of world cups. It has to happen on a wider scale in athletics, hockey, football and other sports. We have to catch them young, provide them facilities and nurture them from the grass root level so that their dreams start young as in the case of our cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar. India has to produce not ten, not hundred but thousands of world class sportsmen, who will be standing on the No. 1 positions on the victory podiums in the international events amidst dins of applause from the spectators and not be just in the "also ran" or "also played" rankings.

For achieving this vision, there has to be paradigm shift in our thinking, our planning and technology. We should just not be elated by certain statistical figures of a particular year’s growth over that of the last year. We have to raise our benchmarks, the levels, and the yardsticks. These ideas have to get permeated to the very fabric of our daily lives and may be, find a place in even our New Year Resolutions. We don’t have to just look up to the authorities, but each one of us has to contribute in our respective field or professions.

I am quite optimistic that we have the potential to realize these dreams and I am reminded of a beautiful poetic rendering of such optimism by the renowned lyricist, Saahir Ludhianvi in the film Phir subah hogi:

Woh Subah kabhi to aayegi , Woh Subah kabhi to aayegi
In Kaali sadiyon ke sar se, jab raat ka aanchal dhalkega
Jab Dukh ke baadal pighalenge, jab sach ka saagar chhalkega Jab Ambar Jhoom ke naachega, jab dharti nagme gaayegi
Woh Subah kabhi to aayegi, Woh Subah kabhi to aayegi

Without any poetic pretensions I have attempted an English translation of the underlying theme of these lyrics:

I aspire for the (glorious) morning, I aspire for the (glorious) morning
When the veil will be lifted from murky nights
of the centuries of (enslaving) dark periods
When scary clouds (of miseries) will disappear
and oceans of truth (and justice) will appear
When (our) skies will gyrate with joyous dances
and the earth will vibrate with ecstatic melodies
I aspire for the (glorious) morning, I aspire for the (glorious) morning

Let these be not my dreams alone but dreams of all of us and let us work towards ushering in the “glorious morning” for a vibrant India. Together.