A little more than 65 years ago, on 26 November
1949, we, the people of India, adopted, enacted and gave unto ourselves our
Constitution, laying down, thereby, our solemn resolve to constitute our
motherland into a sovereign socialist Democratic Republic and the secure to all
its citizens Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. While elaborating the
forms of these fundamentals of our Republic we left little out of view, perhaps
as a wishful flourish of the principles on which we fought the struggle for
independence ; or perhaps because we were too sure that the monolithic
structure of our ancient culture will be fit to support the multifaceted
edifice.
Today, when the third generation of free Indians is
about to hand over the reins of the country to a fourth, the cardinal question
whether, and to what degree, we have realized our ambitious goals continues to
remain unanswered. It is my considered belief that we are not leaving much hope
for the next generation. Social, economic and political justice has been hogged
by the privileged few. Liberty of thought, expression, faith and worship, which
was supposed to widen the spiritual and intellectual horizons of the human
soul, has become the most handy instrument of exploitation of human
personality. Equality of status and opportunity is buried under the garbage
heap of dishonesty and corruption. And fraternity, assuring the dignity of the
individual and the integrity of the nation, has become a commercial exhibition
reserved only for the Republic Day.
We have perhaps yet to realize that our over-ripe
culture is in an advanced state of decay.
What is good in it is no longer alive and has been overtaken by the
destructive element of international trade winds. The mental frame that we
adopted from our erstwhile rulers to sustain us through the teething times has
developed grievous metal fatigue. We are the cross-roads and have to choose the
straight and narrow path if we are to achieve our ambitions.
If a statement of truth gets a man dubbed a cynic,
call me so. I am not a cynic. I am not an escapist either. Nor do I deny the
astronomical leaps taken by the country, particularly in comparison with those
who gained freedom at the same time in history as India. We were at a
starvation corner in 1947. Today we are not only self-sufficient in food but
are among its exporters. And the fact that this green revolution was achieved
by a totally uneducated peasantry and in a god forsaken underdeveloped
hinterland is a miracle to be seen and believed. We had a wretched skeleton of
an industrial base, mainly composed of agro-products, and a small number of
textile mills, coalfields and ore mines. Today we are the eight largest industrialized
nation of the world, manufacturing or at least assembling almost everything
from a safety pin to a supersonic aircraft. From a nation which perforce, under
an alien and self-seeking rule, produced only office clerks, we have now become
a nation whose prowess as the third largest bank of techno-economic manpower is
unquestioned. All this cannot be denied.
But the dignity of the individual, the inner
strength of human character, and the courage to accept and do only that which a
man in his conscience believes to be correct, that self-respecting mettle which
is nurtured only by true education and persistent exercise, and “maketh a
nation great and strong” in the true sense is as deplorable today in the age of
the supersonic aircraft as it was in the age of the bullock cart.
The Indian of my dreams is not an India of high-tech
economic advancement. It is a vision which perhaps died with the freedom
fighters – “where the mind is without fear and head is held high’’ – it is that
haven of freedom into which we still have to lead our ancient nation. The
dignity of the individual which is at the heart of the cosmic concept of
fraternity and national pride inalienable to my dream of a strong and free
India. Justice, liberty, equality and fraternity- the hallmarks of a living
democracy- are elusive ideals unless the individual gets his due.
A democracy is one in which the rule of law
prevails. People are ruled by consent enshrined in the laws made by their
chosen representatives, and have a right to dissent and challenge that which is
illegal and underhand. Coercion of any kind, mental economic, political or
intellectual, is a form of violence and should find no place in any democracy.
Form a statistical point of view we have the largest number of laws covering
and uncovering almost every aspect of human life. But the inside out of Indian
democracy today is that law is obeyed more in circumvention and defiance than
in effect.
A democracy is one in which the true choice of the
people gets reflected in the public representative. We have yet to make a
beginning in that direction. Elections in India continue to yield to the manipulative
tactics of the privileged few whether privileged by sheer dint of being in
power at the sacred time of the poll or being privileged to be able to
commandeer enough financial resources to influence and purchase the people’s
choice. A third category of the privileged professional who are swarming the
holy precincts of our legislatures are the musclemen who first worked for those
who began to depend on them to browbeat the voters and then preferred to
displace their erstwhile masters. Absence of purity in our election process is
at the root of corruption in India.
I dream of an India in which the voter shall be able
to assert his true choice will be free and aware enough to indentify the
appropriate man for the helm of affairs. Public awareness is the key to a
vibrant and living democracy- awareness
of what ails the nation, what are our ills and what remedies are best under the
prevailing environment, awareness of what are the rights and obligation of the
citizens and what a faithful exercise of
these rights will contribute towards the general good and well-being of
all.
And this awareness which has always been the proud
possession of the vibrant Indian psyche has played second fiddle all through
our recent post-Independence period. Our system of education is still limited
in its approach. “Education”, said Hazlitt “is that which remains in us after
we have forgotten what we learnt in books.” Educations in India is still only
bookish and merely career-oriented. It does not train fully grown, aware and self-
assured young men and women to swim confidently in the tumultuous ocean of the
competitive and conflict- ridden society. Women who constitute half the mass of
people are still by and large deprived.
The India of my dreams, though technologically keeping
pace with the world and economically sound and self-sustaining, will be only an
Indian of clay and mud if the foundations are not built on human character and
honesty sustained by education which nurtures the human personality in its true
sense.
