India celebrated the 60th
Anniversary of its Independence from British rule this week. India at 60
stands poised to enter the top league of global players by virtue of its
remarkable sustained rates of economic growth and its other potential
power attributes that still have not been tapped by its political class.
At such a solemn moment in India�s history thoughts naturally go out to
ascertain as to where credit must be given for India�s stupendous rise
and the progress it has made so far. In this direction some contextual
points need to be made before I begin my political reflections. Some of
the contextual points that I would like to make are as follows:
1. India�s
phenomenal economic growth and progress has been made possible due
to the vision, determination and perseverance of India�s
industrialists, entrepreneurs, businessmen and business
professionals. They achieved it despite poor governance and archaic
economic policies of its political class.
2. The Congress
Party cannot claim it either because for most of its fifty years of its
rule it was dominated by its ruling political dynasty who took great
pride in being committed to socialistic pattern of economy and its
allied economic philosophy of state control and outsized but
unproductive public sector enterprises.
3. It took a
non-dynastic Congress Coalition Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao to give
a total U-turn to India�s economic and foreign policies and put India on
the fast track to progress. It was Narasimha Rao who made India unbound
from the Congress Party�s outdated policies and pushed India into a
surge towards its quest for greatness.
Thereafter the political
dispensations that have followed including the Congress could not
politically afford to lose the impetus provided by Narasimha Rao. Those
who maintain that it is Dr Manmohan Singh who is the architect of
India�s economic liberalization are wrong. The courage of conviction to
do so and the vision was provided by Prime Minister Rao. Dr Singh like a
good bureaucrat, that he was, translated Rao�s policies into action.
Politically, India at 60
presents a bleak landscape when one surveys the political scene and the
actors that dominate the scene. While the rest of India is on a high to
transform India with a marked streak of nationalism, India�s political
class is moving in a reverse gear and at cross-purposes with the mood
prevalent in India. Now for the political reflections on India at 60.
India today has no political statesmen or political leaders who qualify
for or command public respect or affection. India no longer has the
likes of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose or Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel or Dr
Rajendra Prasad. They were towering personalities who outshone Nehru
too. It is a different question that Mahatma Gandhi�s personal likeness
for Nehru made him nominate Nehru as his political heir. The �nomination
principle� set in motion lasts till now. India at 60 presents a �power
troika� at the apex of a President, a Congress President and a Prime
Minister who in no way are distinguished or have the political substance
to lead India to great power status. India at 60 moves on despite them.
The second political reflection that hits the mind is the abysmal depths
to whish India�s political class has fallen into in terms of moral
turpitude and political corruption. Nothing exemplified it more than
that on the 60th Independence Day India came to learn that in the
infamous Bofors case the Italian businessman Quatrochhi who was arrested
in Argentina for extradition to India was allowed to go scot-free as
India�s Law Minister from the Congress Party, is reported to have signed
orders not to appeal.
It was the second time
that the Law Minister had officially interfered in this infamous case
favoring the absconder; earlier he had allowed the defreezing of his
accounts in London. Who is being protected? Who is seriously interested
that Quatrocchi should not reach India for questioning?
Political debates in India whether inside the Parliament or outside are
no longer civilized. The violence that is on display in the Parliament
and the Legislatures is reflective of the type of criminalized polity
that has entered India�s mainstream polity. They reach there because
India�s middle class has not politically empowered itself and that
permits the electoral distortion that is creating havoc on the political
fabric of India.
Politics in India today is not an avenue for those who wish to transform
India towards greatness. Politics has been converted into family
concerns for perpetuation of personal power and physical and financial
security. It has become a hereditary profession on the argument by
politicians that if a doctor�s son can become a doctor what is wrong
with a politician�s son becoming a politician? What is forgotten is that
doctors and other professionals take four to five years to qualify
whereas politician�s progeny become politicians overnight.
In the panel discussions and interviews that were conducted live by
prominent Indian TV shows one thing that emerged abundantly clear was
that the young generation of India rejects secularism as projected and
patronized by India�s political class and so also OBC reservations.
Young Indians maintained that for centuries Hindus and Muslims had
stayed alongside each other with mutual tolerance till 1947 and even
thereafter. What therefore was the need for Indian politicians to invent
secularism in free India. It was only a political invention to garner
minority vote-banks.
The political class in India today seems to live in a state of denial.
They would like to believe that whatever India is today is because of
their genius because the coterie of sycophants that they surround
themselves with make them believe so. If only they knew what the new
India and the young India feels about them? There is nothing but
contempt for them.
One could endlessly continue this litany against India�s political class
because there is so much wrong with them. What is their future in the
Indian scheme of things where they are out of step with an India which
is embracing modernity and economic transformation?
By current indications the political class in India is unlikely to
transform itself as it is too busy in amassing fortunes by corrupt means
and totally engrossed in their political chicanery. The India that is on
the move has no time for their policies of casteism and minority
appeasement. While they rigidly stick on to their fixations, India�s
politicians would make one thing certain and that is that they will
increasingly render themselves �irrelevant� and �redundant� in resurgent
India�s calculus for India�s transformation.
August 19,
2007
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