Dr. Arnold J. Toynbee, the famous British Historian said in the 20th century, At the close of this century, the world would be dominated by the West, but that in the 21st century India will conquer her conquerors. –

Well, the arrival of India in the 21st century is not something that is happening for the first time in history. Instead, it is the re-arrival of a resurgnent nation which has been guiding humanity ever since civilization began.

The Previous Epoch

As remembered by the historians, the last time when the Indian civilization was at its peak was when Columbus acidentally discovered America while trying to discover a sea route to India from Europe. When the ottoman turks captured constantinople in 1453 and blocked the land route to India, the entire European economy went mad forcing the european kingdoms to find alternate sea based routes to India. As I keep repeating, it has to be noted that, when the land based trade route to India was blocked by the turks, it was not India that became desperate to find a sea route to Europe, instead it was the Europe that became desperate to find a sea route to India, with the likes of Columbus, Vasco Da Gama all setting out on great sea voyages and this shows the European dependency on India that existed in those days. India due to its rich natural resources had always been self sufficient in those days. Even today, inspite of being home to 1/6 of humanity India grows its own food crops and even exports food, the only major dependency India has today externally is on Petroleum.

And then the downtime of India started with the mughal emperor Jehangir allowing the British to establish the East India Company in India in 1600s. The British who till then were coming to India only as traders, were allowed by Jehangir to settle here and build factories with exclusive trade rights, in exchange for goods and rarities from Europe gifted to the emperor.

In the letter sent to the then British King James I, Jehangir wrote “For confirmation of our love and friendship, I desire your Majesty to command your merchants to bring in their ships of all sorts of rarities and rich goods fit for my palace..”, and by saying so, Jehangir laid the foundation stone for the colonial rule of the British in India, which lasted for centuries after that.

A hundred years after Jehangir allowed the British to settle in India, another little known mughal emperor, Farrukhsiyar gave a 100% exemption for the East India company from having to pay customs duties for their trade! This gave the East India company a commercial advantage over other european companies like Dutch East India Company, French East India Company etc, signalling the arrival of the Britsh rule in India. Throughout history one should remember that, it is the economic advantage that matters, than a military advantage, if one is aiming at a long term rule. Military advantage is always short lived, and contains reactions limited by the military of the defending nations, where as an economic advantage means even the common masses get involved in it there by allowing for a long term impact. We need to look at history not as a mere past, but as lessons from the past.

India Today

Coming back to the India today, the nation is all set to make a big come back, inspite of all its odds. It is a fact that the India today in terms of geography has shrinked compared to the India which existed even in the recent past during the British rule. Thanks to the short sighted visions and personal interests of the political class of the independence period, the partition of India took place, which I view even today as the greatest political blunder of last century with a world wide impact even today. The creation of Pakistan which subsequently led to the creation of Bangladesh put a big question mark on the partition that was based on religious lines, proving that regional pride overrides religious unity. The partition resulted in creating the state of Pakistan which today has become the world terror capital and this menace of terrorism is being combated by the entire world as the greatest threat faced by the civilized society today.

Now before getting into the positives of India making a come back, let us first look at the setbacks and negatives it faces today.

Terrorism and Naxalism

The greatest threats faced by India today are the ideologies which the political establishments in its immediate neighbourhood practice and preach i.e terrorism and maoism (naxalism) . While the terrorist organizations targetting India have their roots, physical and/or moral, in Pakistan and Bangladesh, of course funded by sympathizers in the gulf region, the naxalism and maoism has sympathies from the Chinese communist establishment. The recent political developments in Nepal should be sending alarming bells in India, but our politicians as usual seem to have no real far vision about the nation’s political interests. India at all costs should have prevented maoism from entering into Nepal. Ignoring the developments in Nepal is the same blunder which India committed earlier by allowing Chinese occupation of Tibet, and later allowing Pakistan to become a nuclear weapons state. But give the weak political class in India, it is quite obvious that our politicians cant dare to do much about terrorist or naxal attacks in the country, other than “strongly condemning” it via mere statements.

While all other problems faced by the country can be solved by negotiations and corrective measures, terrorism and naxalism are something that have to be dealt hard, for there is no room for negotiations here, since the supporters of these activities are against the very existence of the current form of social and administrative structure in this country respectively. You cant negotiate with those who are questioning your very existence! Can you?

Strong Democracy

The greatest achievement of this country is that inspite of its vast diversity and a population of 1/6 of entire humanity, the country has continued to remain intact and strong even after six decades since independence. This is basically because of the democratic structure in the country which has allowed people to express their opinions, providing scope for the existence and rise of regional political parties. If not for the existence of regional parties, and their coming to power, many states in India would have followed violent separatist movements. As I said earlier, India is home to the largest muslim community in the world after Indonesia. There are more muslims in India than in Pakistan or Bangladesh, and yet look at the difference. India has not become yet another Iraq or Afghanistan or Paksitan, and the credit for that goes to the muslims of India themselves. Yes, it is true that there have been misguided elements even in India, but given the vastness of the population in India, given the fact that the government has not done anything beyond appeasement and divisive politics, (inspite of the constitution guaranteeing equality for all), it is not very surprising. After all one cannot expect an ideal situation in a realistic world!

Political Thamasha

The constitution of India guarantees equality for all, but the governments that have ruled us have always followed divisive politics, which only results in one section of the society benefiting at the cost of others from it, and there by removing harmony in the society. Government has no business to interfere into the religious life of its citizens, for religion is a personal choice and the policies of the government should in no way affect the citizen’s life based on his/her religion. Instead of providing haj subsidies to the muslims, let the government ensure that every muslim child in this country gets quality primary education. Instead of dividing the society in the name of reservations and quotas, let the government ensure that all backward class children get free quality primary education, and there by ensure that they can compete based on their own merit, and not based on government courtesy.

The government of India can insist IITs in India to provide reservations, but if a backward class student wants to study in MIT in US, can the government get a seat for that student with its quota laws? But if the government has ensured quality primary education to this student, he/she would get a seat even in MIT based on their own merit. If the government ensures that muslims in this country get quality education, and if they get into good jobs, wont they be able to go to Haj with their own money?

By providing subsidies to a section of the society, and reservations to another section of the society, the government only wants to ensure that they are permanently dependent on the government for everything, and by doing so the political parties are only creating and maintaining their votebanks. They are not at all interested in the real development of these sections of the society. And this is the biggest tragedy of democracy in India. The biggest problem faced by India today alongside terrorism and naxalism is its incompetent, corrupt political class whose policies are guided by its votebank politics. A simple calculation of the sum total of all the money spent till to date in Independent India to develop this country would raise a question mark about where has all that money gone?! Ask any common man on the streets of India as to what is their opinion about the politicians in this country, and that would answer it all about the contributions of the political class to the society. If every municipal corporator, every panchayat member, every MLA, every MP, every Minister in the government did their duties properly, India would be a heaven on earth in the next five years.


Booming Economy

What India has achieved today by emerging into a great economic power in the world is not because of its political class, but inspite of its political class. While its true that liberalisation opened the doors for the economic boom in the 1990s, it has to be noted that the politicians did not do a favor by going for liberalization. It is their duty to develop the country and that’s what they did in the fag end moment when the country was about to go bankrupt, and when there was no other go. If the politicians really cared about the development of the country, then the policies encouraging economic growth should have followed immediately after Independence. Remember that China started its economic liberalization twenty years before India did, and the Chinese did it with a vision and intention of developing the country into a superpower, while India started its late liberalization left with no other option. And hence my statement stands that, what India has achieved today is inspite of its political class. The imment talent pool in India, and the world’s largest youth population here, and the initial break given by visionaries and enterpreuners like Ambani, Tatas, Narayan Murthy, Azim Premji, etc is what spiralled India into a path of accelerated economic growth.

Even today over 300 million people in this country live below poverty line, and the government’s achievement if any should have been in this area, which is obviously not visible. So today we have a rich and upper rich class, of course most of whom were once at or below poverty line, and came up in life based on their merit and talent. On the other hand, we have a ultra poor class forming 30% of the country’s population, and its not because that the economic boom is helping only a section of the society, but is because the government has failed in its role to ensure that the benefits of the economic boom reach all sections of the society. Now, instead of overcoming its failure, the government expects the corporate sections of the society to do its job. Instead of controlling inflation by taking adequate economic measures, the prime minister says that the employees in the private sector like IT are highly paid and they should help reduce inflation by going for lower salaries! One of the most senseless statements I have ever heard, especially coming from a economist. Instead of trying to bring other sections of the society to a higher level as private sector employees, the prime minister is suggesting that the higher level society should go down!

Whatever it is, the economic boom is here to stay atleast for the time being in the near future, and will continue as long as the government doesn’t interfere with its polically motivated policies. The job of the government at present is to control inflation to ensure that it does not negate the positives of economic boom.

Food Crisis

A great challenge to be faced by India in the near future is shortage of food. India being predominantly an agriculture based economy, and with a vast population of over a billion people has to be self sufficient in terms of food production to feed its people. Thanks to its great farming community, ever since Independence India has been largely self sufficient in terms of food crops and has always grown crops much beyond its needs.

But today there is an agricultural crisis emerging in the country due to the following reasons:

  • Farmers being trapped under private and government debts
  • Conversion of farm lands into industrial land.
  • Farmers shifting to commercial crops instead of food crops due to the prospects of making more money.
  • Growing crops for bio fuel instead of edible food crops.
  • Reducing land fertility due to over use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, etc

The government should take immediate steps to address these issues by coming out with policies which would ensure that adequate amount of land is always available for agriculture to grow the required food crops and also ensure proper scientific planning to inform farmers about the crops they should be growing so that there is no over production or underproduction of crops.

Summary

To summarize, what India has achieved today is definitely not insignificant. But if at all its political class was honest, visionary and hard working, then what India could have achieved by today is definitely much more than its current accomplishment. And given the great potential and current trend, what India could possibly achieve in the near future is simply amazing, provided we get a sensible political class, which in turn is again provided all the citizens vote and vote sensibly.