Shantanu Thakur
(thakur.santanu@gmail.com)
When the hurly burly is done, when the battle is lost and won” — an out-of-context quote, it might seem at first glance, but those are the lines that come to my mind as I sit down to put my Independence Day thoughts to paper. Seventy-nine years may be a short span in the history of a nation, but for an individual, not quite. The journey is in the last lap.
I and my generation are well into our seventies and can rationally look back over a period of some sixty years of the seventy-nine that the country has traversed. And yet, we have seen and gone through several of the bends and turns the country has taken. The morning of the 15th of August is often the time when most of our contemporaries contemplate what we have seen and experienced. Many of us may not quite be able to focus our thoughts once we enter our eighties; many might not even make it that far; therefore, it’s better to try it while the going is still good.
Countrymen of my generation have seen and lived with three sets of Indians: the pre-independence born, the post-independence born, and the India-on-the-move generation. Looking back on the completion of the seventy-ninth year of Azaadi, a collage takes shape. We have seen the patriotic fervour, the ardent hopes and the dreams of our parents (and sometimes grandparents as well) at the threshold of the ‘Independence’ they had dreamt and fought for. They were like Rushdie’s midnight children, with a rational mix of expectation and apprehension. Having spent their youth in a country under dominion, they had joined the freedom movement and, as independence approached, were optimistic but not carried away about what was to follow. Not all of this generation were necessarily supporters of the Congress Party, but in their heart and soul, they were all freedom fighters. Belonging to different ideological groups, they were yet inspired by the motivational appeal of Gandhiji and were not without faith in the leadership of the first Prime Minister, at least in his vision of India under new temples of growth. Most of that generation, who had avoided a lucrative career under the British government, now took up government jobs with a sense of participation in the process of nation-building. For more than a decade after independence, things they had anticipated were seen to be moving more or less on track. A newborn, economically exploited country was trying to find its feet at least in the basic areas of concern like food, egalitarian growth, education, housing and health under government initiatives. Even his critics did not deny Nehru his vision with emphasis on industrial growth in a socialistic and secular framework. Whether his five-year plans partially succeeded or failed altogether is a matter of debate that is yet to conclude with finality. The embarrassment over the loss of face in the Chinese aggression of the sixties hung around Nehru’s neck till his end, but it would be naive to refuse to see that the country was slowly on the move, arguably maybeat a Hindu rate of growth, but the elephant was at least on its feet. To this extent perhaps, our parents’ generation was more or less content. Patriotism and love for one’s nation are in themselves great binding factors that help to keep petty differences at bay.
By the mid-fifties, most of our generation were born in free India and were the immediate recipients of what the new dispensation had to offer. Avenues of modern education were opening up; the average Indian could now hope to put his children and wards in good institutions. The government sector opened out a large vista for job opportunities. The defence services; the expanding all-India networks of behemoths like the Indian Railways, Post and Telegraphs, and State Electricity Boards; the burgeoning demand for doctors and engineers, etc., took in people in large numbers at various levels. It may not be an exaggeration to say that by the beginning of the seventies, most Indian families had at least one member in some government job or the other. The children and youth were motivated by the values of national integrity, amity, brotherhood and cooperation. We had our fair measure of trust and hope in the system. Things were looking up. But as they say, everything good has to come to an end. By the time we were in colleges in the seventies, ominous portents of corruption, nepotism, and erosion of values in public life raised their ugly heads, and things have hardly got any better ever since. The Emergency threatened the very foundations of democracy, which, fortunately, came to an end soon enough. The JP movement and the coming into power of the first Janata Party government revived the flickering candle of hope, only to peter out into disappointment once again. The liberalisation of the economy in the early nineties helped to open up the economy, but that also needed to be further carried through if one meant to sustain the benefits. And now, a very different scenario faces us with the cloud of the Trump tariffs looming large.
Elected governments came under the spectre of scams; the functioning of elected representatives has been averagely seen as disappointing over the years; the trust deficit between the government and the governed has widened; and fissiparous tendencies have been on the rise. To many of those born in independent India, the days of the freedom struggle were just a narrative; many unconsciously started taking the hard-earned reality of an independent nation for granted. On an analysis, one is tempted to say: the fault, dear Brutus, perhaps lies not in the system but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Many point to a need for structural reforms of all four pillars of our democracy as etched in the constitution. This merits serious consideration where it matters and calls for opinions of experts, but it is difficult to see how the Constitution could have been seen as a catalyst in encouraging unconstitutional, unprincipled behaviour in public life. In every civilisation, there are values which are beyond and above the enforcement of laws – eminent lawyer Nani Palkiwala had called it “obedience to the unenforceable”. As he put it, beyond the sphere of duty which is legally enforceable, there is a vast range of significant behaviour in which the law does not and ought not to intervene. This feeling of obedience to the unenforceable is the opposite of the mischievous interpretation that whatever is technically possible is allowable. Looking at what Palkiwala so articulately pointed out is important if we want to think of the sanctity of the Constitution and the practice of it. People have repeatedly tried to bring in new governments promising transformation through the five-year exercise of franchise. What has been fondly called the dance of democracy has, one would dare say, not been entertaining enough. Many unpleasant things are happening all over. Whose hands are behind all that, who are the conspirators, who’s benefiting from it, etc., are beside the point here; that they are happening is cause enough to upset level-headed citizens born and brought up on values once doing the rounds in this very country. An unhealthy sense of numbness seems to have gripped the public conscience – as if nothing good is going to come out of it all – a pessimism that has to be broken, and only strong, motivating leadership can break that for the country. Indians have not failed their country; whether leaders have risen to expectations is something they themselves should give a hard look at. The need for strong, sensible, capable leadership can never be underplayed. In his book ‘Leadership’, renowned diplomat Henry Kissinger writes, “Leadership is most essential during periods of transition, when values and institutions are losing their relevance, and the outlines of a worthy future are in controversy. In such times, leaders are called upon to think creatively and diagnostically.” Without leadership, institutions drift, and nations court growing irrelevance and, ultimately, disaster.
India at 79 is poised for a leap. There’s enthusiasm and pride seen on every Independence Day. After the Pahalgum tragedy and now the Trump tariffs, the country needs to be united in its firm resolve. Fast-changing geopolitics is making the stage unpredictable, and India has to tread very carefully. The flapping of the tricolour spreads light and stokes optimism. Now is the time to seize the crest of the moment and work meaningfully to strengthen and enable a great nation not only through rhetoric but concrete action. We must continue to care and never give up. This land is, after all, Gulistan Hamara–SaareJahan Se Achcha.