India with great diversity of language, culture, religion has been plagued with a curse of suppression and hindrance from expression of its innate potential. For the country to realize its innate potential, the conscious of the people and the direction they expend their energies is important and will determine the fate of the nation. For a nation under a foreign occupation that fate can take another detour of a century with many pitfalls, missed opportunities and unnecessary sufferings to realize its dreams. I would like to elaborate on the curses that have befallen India.
Under the British rule
For more than a century , the British exploited India for its resources. They sparsely invested in education and built almost no infra structure and they did everything to sap the creativity of the people. They laid railroads for their convenience of transport and moving raw materials in and out of the country. They used India as a master uses a slave. Due to this gross negligence of the people, India suffered several famines under the British rule. Such horrors were committed by the Western civilization in the East with nonchalance is unfortunate. The most one can get educated was to be a clerk under the British officers. They used unjust taxes, laws to hinder any prosperity for the population. India slowly was dragged into such slumber that the spiritual ideal of the religion were lost and superficial rituals and caste system took hold of the outer consciousness of the population. These practices divided people further with the discrimination of the higher castes towards the lower castes and a whole lot of superstition. There were often spiritual leaders in India who tried to eliminate this ritualistic and outer superstitions of the religion and brought religious harmony and a culture of plurality in several regions of India. There were spiritual leaders like Chaitanya, Guru Nanak and many more who showed that inner spiritual ideals were more important than the outer superstitions and divisiveness.
After Independence
One would think after the independence the country would unshackle from its long slumber and find its true national spirit and express its inner potential but to build a nation the citizens should be in a position to unveil their creativity. Citizens have to move forward and overcome their past national inabilities. How can they when the country was left with severe poverty, poor infrastructure, economy and education? How can the cultural uniqueness flower in such a dearth of human resources?
The burden was left for the national leaders to bring this nation from sickness of an immobile body to first stand on its own feet and heel the deep wounds left by the foreign occupation. Nehru became the first Prime Minister of the country. The country was plagued by the curse of religious conflict between Hindus and Muslims. The religious harmony that brought many religions to India was instead replaced by hatred and politics of separation of the country into two independent nations made the country even weaker. Nehru was a secular leader and he did everything possible for the Muslims of India to live in harmony with the Hindus. India was declared a secular country with freedom to practice any religion. Extremism, hatred and fundamentalism have not left and given a chance sprouted out of religious skirmishes. Also Pakistan declared itself as a Islamic State and one can observe from the present day national life that it has done worse and harbored extremism and fundamentalism that the whole world now deplores and has become a threat to the world security.
Even in democratic India, pluralism, acceptance and freedom have been endangered by religious extremist groups both from Hindu and also the Muslims. If British rule can be called for the first curse, this extremism and fundamentalism is the second curse of India.
Nehru was heavily impressed with the soviet model of socialism of the economy and implemented it in independent India. This I call the third curse of the country. The country was always short of wealth to build creditable institutions of education and proper health care for its citizens. Instead a lot of effort was put in building dams and encouraging agriculture since most of the population was dependent on agriculture. Other sectors of the economy were neglected and the state own all the sectors. It was almost impossible for the private sector to establish any profitable business under the corrupt and permit Raj of the state. The government could not raise enough tax revenue since most of the State enterprises were losing money and the private sector was heavily taxed which discouraged investment. Another three decades were lost due to the failure of socialism. All these years Congress was having its unilateral monopoly in politics but later other regional parties and a strong opposition BJP whose roots come from another hindu extremist group RSS came into existence.
There are no longer spiritual leaders or national leaders of the stature of Rabindranath tagore, Ambedkar, Gandhi and Vivekananda who encouraged plurality in national life and religious harmony. We see more and more extremism from the Hindu right wing BJP party which appropriates Hindu spiritual leaders like Vivekananda to capture Hindu vote. The politics are manufactured to arouse religious hatred and divisiveness and it has become a normal practice on the way to be elected. The fourth curse is that the spiritual and national leaders of the country who should be opposing such divisive politics using religious hatred as leverage are no more active in national life. The spiritual leaders have taken an oath not to involve with national life and are busy pursuing salvation in their respective ashrams. The spiritual ideals of especially Hinduism forbid such quietude on the face of perverse and iniquitous use of religion in politics. We need spiritual leaders who spread the message of spiritual unity and also who have the courage to stand up to those ideals in public life.
Economic Liberalization
The economic restrictions were lifted off in 1991, when the State was almost bankrupt after implementing socialist policies for four decades; all this time the basic services were not provided to the population. The state was poor, there were no profitable enterprises and there was not enough tax revenue to spend on services for the citizens and coupled with corruption, India was doing horrible in terms of poverty, hunger, education and disease. India has the worst child birth, mortality and education. Caste system was still playing a huge negative role in dividing the people. The culture of condescension, superstition and rituals have replaced the spiritual ideals of plurality, acceptance and oneness. Other countries in South Asia have implemented economic reforms earlier than India and have prospered and brought basic service like education and health to all of their citizens.
Now after another two decades of economic boom with the liberalization of India, still the ruling governments have neglected the basic services and the population has tripled. The population was 250 million at the time of Independence and now it is more than a billion people. This is another consequence of not initiating reforms and investment in education and health sector. The economic liberalization has benefited the middle class but the poor are still waiting for the boons of economic development to trickle down to them. In terms of sanitation and health the country is one of the worst in the world and a new survey says that more than quarter of the population does not have enough toilets for defecation. As a result, filth and dirt overhand the slums of every city. The poor mostly lower castes are left to themselves with some affirmative action benefits given to them. People are resentfulness and anger is brewing with the corruption at every level of state governance. One cannot get any service done without a bribe to government officers.
This I call the fifth curse for the country where basic services like education and health have been neglected and corruption has infested every department of the state mercenary. Also the ideals of the great leaders who fought and suffered for the independence of the country are forgotten by the youth of the country. Extremist politicians have used every reason to exploit the vulnerable and uneducated population for vote capture. Also for a well functioning democratic India, the government has to invest in institution building for preventing corruption in private and public sector. The judiciary has to deliver justice faster.
Conclusion
Mother India is still waiting for the people of this country to realize the spiritual ideals of this great nation. To be a country of acceptance, plurality and oneness. However, this may take a longer time for the citizens to understand the value of spirituality and why it may be more important in the future of the country. Economic progress is a must for any country to deliver the basic services but at the same time, the stock markets cannot be the barometers for the health of the country. This commercialization and competition of life can take a toll on the social values and spirit of fraternity among individuals. One often forgets the social service as selfishness and productivity become the core aim of the society.
When the government delivers the basic services to the poor and invests in the human development, education and health and when people realize that the future of this nation depends on cooperation and not competition that this nation will seek redemption from past curses.Of course the private sector needs to be competitive to be creative but we also need a public sector that delivers safety net, health and education.
We should not let the light rising in the horizon to recede once again because of our ignorance and self interest and fall into the pit of self interest. Huge challenges lay ahead and we need great and selfless leaders to take this country to a safer shore. Leaders who understand that life is to be celebrated and India is best when its diversity and ideals of spiritual oneness coexist.
Jai Hind.
