There is not an iota of doubt about the creditable growth India has mustered over the past decade or so. From being a closed economy to an economy the world keeps a close track of, is in itself a no small achievement. Though some nerds would still be unaware but most of us would agree to the fact that India has transformed herself from a land of snake charmers into a reservoir of software engineers. Name a field, talk about its corresponding successful people and one will inadvertently find an Indian leading the pack. Be it the league of academicians or litterateurs or scientists or businessmen Indians have proved their mettle in every field and at every level. A proud sense of achievement envelops us and we bask gleefully in this glory.
The merry mood gets a setback when the sights of a hapless Diwali of flood affected people or a grievously injured child after a bomb blast is broadcasted. The sad plight of farmers of Nandigram is inconsequentially discussed at length by the self anointed champions of the poor (read CPI/CPM). Our elected representatives continue to showcase their moral bankruptcy shamelessly in public. After the British Raj, the new young generation Raj trying to play ‘divide and rule’ game has been prophesizing the virtues of regionalism with utmost audacity. It’s when we sit back and delve deeper that we get to witness the sad state of affairs around us. We realize that perhaps we have been parochial in looking at the growth story of India.
Completely acceptable is the point that it takes a mammoth effort to channelize a nation of one billion people towards development. Even much more acceptable is the notion that the painstaking task requires a lot of struggle to weed out the hindrances. But obliviousness of basic tenets for a sustainable development has only undermined the positive effects of a continuously expanding economy. Signing of Nuclear deal does, on paper, sound like a step in the direction of achieving self sufficiency in energy. But think deeper and one will realize how flawed our assumption is. After having allowed corruption, like cricket to run in our veins would not we be silly to expect the same electoral representatives who flashed bundles of green papers to work towards electrification of villages. We continue to spend a sizeable portion of the budget on bolstering the external security but internally we have never been so much insecure as we are now. And unsurprisingly no government is able to fight this out because this requires addressing the basic issues of extremism, prolonged region and religion biasness and continued ignorance of the plight of the lowest strata of the society. We boast of the Indian scientists working at the NASA but we forget that though the US faces at least half a dozen of oceanic storms every year the destruction is far lesser than what an alternate year flood or storm causes in India.
The most ironical aspect of India’s growth story has been that though we are the world’s 2nd fastest growing economy we continue to languish among the bottom five in the Human development Index. But this aspect continues to make us ponder about the scope still left for development.
The merry mood gets a setback when the sights of a hapless Diwali of flood affected people or a grievously injured child after a bomb blast is broadcasted. The sad plight of farmers of Nandigram is inconsequentially discussed at length by the self anointed champions of the poor (read CPI/CPM). Our elected representatives continue to showcase their moral bankruptcy shamelessly in public. After the British Raj, the new young generation Raj trying to play ‘divide and rule’ game has been prophesizing the virtues of regionalism with utmost audacity. It’s when we sit back and delve deeper that we get to witness the sad state of affairs around us. We realize that perhaps we have been parochial in looking at the growth story of India.
Completely acceptable is the point that it takes a mammoth effort to channelize a nation of one billion people towards development. Even much more acceptable is the notion that the painstaking task requires a lot of struggle to weed out the hindrances. But obliviousness of basic tenets for a sustainable development has only undermined the positive effects of a continuously expanding economy. Signing of Nuclear deal does, on paper, sound like a step in the direction of achieving self sufficiency in energy. But think deeper and one will realize how flawed our assumption is. After having allowed corruption, like cricket to run in our veins would not we be silly to expect the same electoral representatives who flashed bundles of green papers to work towards electrification of villages. We continue to spend a sizeable portion of the budget on bolstering the external security but internally we have never been so much insecure as we are now. And unsurprisingly no government is able to fight this out because this requires addressing the basic issues of extremism, prolonged region and religion biasness and continued ignorance of the plight of the lowest strata of the society. We boast of the Indian scientists working at the NASA but we forget that though the US faces at least half a dozen of oceanic storms every year the destruction is far lesser than what an alternate year flood or storm causes in India.
The most ironical aspect of India’s growth story has been that though we are the world’s 2nd fastest growing economy we continue to languish among the bottom five in the Human development Index. But this aspect continues to make us ponder about the scope still left for development.
