The India of today is an amalgamation of the efforts and ideas of primarily the Indian people and the leadership of both the Congress of Nehru and Indira Gandhi as well as the BJP of Vajpayee-Advani and Narendra Modi. One is incomplete without the other.
The rebirth of the ancient civilization of Bharata in 1947 after almost a millennium of bondage was tumultuous, tragic and violent. The land itself was cleaved into two and with that vivisection came immeasurable pain, heartbreak and suffering; millions were forced to flee their homes, millions were butchered and it triggered what is arguably the largest mass migration in human history.
Doomsday prophets and naysayers had a field day ridiculing the idea of India as a nation. Sir Winston Churchill, the former Prime Minister of Britain had argued vehemently in British Parliament against giving India freedom. He is supposed to have once remarked: “Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles.”
The precise syntax of this oft repeated derogatory quote has been contested for its validity; no definite proof is forthcoming. Nevertheless, those words aptly capture the gist of Churchill’s views on Independent India: India would implode without the British.
On another occasion he stated that “the abandonment of our responsibilities in India would be followed by a hideous blood-bath… How can you suppose that the thousand-year gulf which yawns between Moslem and Hindu will be bridged in 14 months? The Indian parties and political classes do not represent the Indian masses. No arrangement can be made about all the great common services. All will be the preparation for the ensuing Civil War. In handing over the government of India to the so-called political classes you are handing over to men of straw of whom in a few years, no trace will remain” (Complete Speeches VII 7525-26).”
But India did survive and continues to inch its way steadily up the ladder of global hierarchy.
Britain added to India’s birthing woes by creating two nations out of one; two diametrically opposite polities that were antagonistic to each other. On one side was India the bearer of an ancient civilization which embraced democracy, secularism and non-violence to be its guiding tenets. Pakistan, on the other hand, an upstart entity, which the Muslim League wangled from the British by invoking religion unapologetically, proclaimed itself as an Islamic state to the detriment of its non-Muslim minorities.
Indians have always balked at any comparison with Pakistan. But a fleeting comparison is sometimes necessary for us to realize what we could have become and what we have not. Over the last 75 years, Pakistan has deteriorated to reflect everything that could go wrong with a nation. Religious fanaticism is the norm, minorities are second class citizens, terrorism is rampant and the army remains the permanent power behind the face of a fake democracy.
On the contrary, India has remained steadfast in its commitment to democracy and secularism. There was a brief period in the 1970s when we lost our democracy. But the people of India valiantly fought back, regained their precious right to freedom and sent out a clear message to our political leaders: we will not allow anyone to toy with our democracy.
Trials and tribulations, both internal and external, have been many over the years but we have overcome them with single-minded determination and come out stronger for the same.
The Congress under Jawaharlal Nehru gave India a degree of stability in the period after Independence. However, it was not perfect and driven by controversial ideologies. Nehruvian secularism that India vigorously pursued in its early years to the extent of opposing even the rebuilding of the Somnath Temple, though well-intentioned, was a flawed ideology; a belief that erasure or suppressing India’s Hindu identity would ensure the success of secularism, not understanding that it is Hindu dharma that fortifies India’s pluralism and will continue to do so.
That erroneous thought process spawned other inequities: the nonchalance of the government to the ethnic cleansing of Hindus from Kashmir, resistance to the simple act of building a Ram Temple, the Shah Bano verdict, to name a few. Minority appeasement became the norm, leading to a further corruption of an already compromised moral compass that had become perverted over the last millennium by dubious dominant alien values.
The moral compass of India had to be reset to affect an ethical course correction and usher in a truly egalitarian India. The rise of the BJP set right this imbalance. Despite the hyperbolic dubbing of India under Modi as “a Hindu Pakistan”, we are anything but that. Assertion of Hindu rights is not a zero-sum game that deprives others of their privileges. Minorities in India attend the same schools and colleges, have the same ration cards, have access to the same impartial electronic college selection exams, can build and pray in their own mosques and churches. The illusion of false discrimination disseminated by some is a dangerous and irresponsible illusion that will prove detrimental to minorities themselves in the long run—minorities must prevent themselves from falling into that trap. A healthy respect for pluralism remains the bedrock of our society even today and something to be proud of.
The completion of 75 years of Independence is a notable achievement. For a moment we need to cast aside our differences, mute our political rhetoric and come together as Indians to celebrate this landmark event. For the India of today is an amalgamation of the efforts and ideas of primarily the Indian people and the leadership of both the Congress of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi as well as the BJP of Atal Bihari Vajpayee-L.K. Advani and Narendra Modi. One is incomplete without the other.
At 75 years we stand at an inflexion point in the history of modern India. A few battles may have been won but the larger war is still undecided and wide open.
Despite India’s democracy being downgraded by Western watchdog institutions like V-Dem, which employ questionable methodology (I have dealt with this in detail in the past), India remains the largest and arguably also the most open democracy in the world where every political or ideological variation can have a voice, unlike the strait-jacketed democracies of the US or UK that have space for two or three streams of thought at most. But this unrestricted freedom comes with additional challenges. Significant fissiparous tendencies still persist in the guise of an obscurant pseudo-liberalism that would rather create chaos and confusion than allow a nationalist government to succeed. Additionally, a subliminal residual fanatic medievalism still runs through a section of its inhabitants who are determined to alter the identity of India by demographic alteration or by violence, as the recent incident of public beheading indicates.
The Congress Party in its current avatar is a spent force with no integrity or ideological zest. In its desperation, frustration and sense of entitlement it has not only lost sight of its founding goals but as well the patriotic zeal of Nehru and Indira Gandhi. It needs to reinvent itself under a more enlightened leadership.
In the absence of a formidable opposition, the BJP as the pole political party of our times needs to demonstrate more responsibility, more accountability, more dedication and more prudence. Unilaterally it must elevate the standard of political discourse and functioning and carry the nation singlehandedly to its ultimate destination.
A stern and sage political will complemented by political stability is necessary to outlast these negativist forces and crucial to the success and idea of India as a democratic pluralistic and prosperous society.
Today we are economically more viable, militarily stronger and politically more relevant in the world than we were 75 years ago. We possess the infrastructure in terms of education, health and industry to reach our aspirational goals.
But whether we succeed or not depends on our will and determination. Our “tryst with destiny” is not yet complete.
These words of Jawaharlal Nehru verbalized a year after Independence are relevant even today and must constantly reverberate in our minds to make us strive to reach greater heights: “We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for anyone of us till we redeem our pledge in full till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are the citizens of a great country, on the verge of bold advance and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations… And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service.” (Jawaharlal Nehru. Independence and After. A Collection of Speeches. John Day Company. 1950.)