Towards Centenary: India’s Amrit Kaal challenge

By: M.R. Lalu
One more Independence Day passed with great patriotic fervour and gaiety. India at 75 is at the crossroads of a quest for development emanating from every inch of its landscape while its own sneaky conflicts frustrate its efforts to bring about greater changes. But the quest to become a developed country by 2047 attaches great meaning to the dream that we have been consciously nurturing for long. The Prime Minister’s call to transform India into a developed nation in the next 25 years was a lift-off moment and of course one with great vigour and thrust. He seemed to have captured the gist of India as he set this goal for its citizens. What remains to be done is to inject into the limbs and veins of the country the idea of a developed nation. But the challenges ahead are harder and essentially hold indomitable barriers and the efficiency we need to garner to dispel them needs to come from within. India’s true potential to keep pace with developed countries needs to be seen with complete earnestness. Despite its being trapped and enmeshed in its own conflicts as a nation, India has consistently been representing a world view purely cognizant of its ability to gain stability and its intent to bring peace across the planet through multiple ideological interventions is surely gaining global recognition. The Covid-19 pandemic spilled its wrath on humanity and millions writhed and choked and died and the global powers remained perplexed devoid of solutions, but India took the plunge and brought solace to a large number of people irrespective of geopolitical complexities.
75th Independence Day was also an occasion to introspect on the journey that an independent India has taken. Breaking the shackles of colonialism, it was not easy for an infant nation to take a leap with unsteady steps. Bringing 562 princely states into one casket of national unity, the leaders had sailed the newborn nation through the most tremulous situations. From the ramparts of the Red Fort, the Prime Minister was candid when he eulogised the nation that we are and while setting goals for the next 25 years he was more vocal on the aspirational sentiments of the populace and the road to development for him, was a collective endeavour that every Indian should embrace. While being assertive on the potentiality of India, Modi honestly expressed his view as to how an aspirational society accelerates the momentum of development and the governments, to him, are often on the sword’s edge as public expectations soar high. The new awakening of an aspirational society backed by altruism and patriotic belongingness would surely bring gigantic changes and the country is all set to capture the opportunity of the moment. The more the women folk are brought to the mainstream with equal opportunities as enjoyed by the men, the more and faster will India’s ascend as a country with significant power be.
Modi’s direct attack against corruption from the Red Fort was a clear indication on what his government’s action against the culprits in future could be. This needs to be seen with caution and the panic that it could create. The Congress and its leaders thronged into the streets against the government’s action on the top brass of the party dynasty. The investigative agencies would further gain power to sneak into the bunkers of the corrupt. More skulls would be pulled out from the graves and the convulsion across the political spectrum in India is an indication, a clear message to those who stage-manage the crass cacophony in the parliament and the streets. India’s journey from the subjugation imposed by the invasion, shaking its shade of slavery forever, was a strenuous struggle and the juncture that we are today is an outcome of the fire into which the country had thrown itself wholeheartedly. The diversity that we have been watering has also brought an indelible imprint of cohesion and a cultural assimilation that we have been strengthened by was one of the most significant factors behind India’s unity as a free nation. The role that we have today to play on a global stage is more significant than ever before. The Prime Minister has been successful in encapsulating the idea that India represented from the days of antiquity to the present.
Though India’s baby steps towards progress have been unsteady, its national energy has been unparalleled and stable pushing an infant nation from the clutches of cultural devaluation and denigration. Shaking the impact of the colonial influence was not that easy. Surprisingly, even today we could not successfully emancipate India from the colonial blow. The policies forcefully disseminated by Lord Macaulay have definitely chiselled a genus of Indians who represent the white-man’s wisdom and are unapologetically argumentative on its efficacy even today. We can find them everywhere among the academics, the media fraternity, the politicians, the judiciary, and the intellectuals and also among social critics. India as of today is a complex democracy. On one side its aspirational worldview is gaining momentum and on the other we are pulled by the pinching realities of illiteracy, inequality, corruption and the contradictions and conflicts of religious hypocrisy. The question that often penetrates into the collective psyche of Indians is that; how long shall we live a life of contradictions? Does this country still have the energy to defend its inner conflicts? As an aspirational India marches towards its centenary, Himalayan challenges await us. Measures taken to address the anomalies in recent years cannot be brushed aside, but the pace that we need to gather before we would be able to put the country on the pedestal of development needs to be accelerated.
Seventy Five years of glorious journey brought moments of pride but it was filled with moments of conflict and defeats too. The wars India won against Pakistan are stories of valour for the upcoming generations. But the defeat at the hands of China equally gave us a subject to ponder. While Chernobyl, Hiroshima and Nagasaki evoked emotions of restraint, we did not hesitate to shield the country with nuclear arms. Emergency’s darkness thickened upon the country and its wrath unforgivably pressed it hard in jails and detentions. India’s tenacity was herculean that we could successfully navigate the country against a regime in its quest for relentless power and political immunity. We were not hesitant to shed tears at the brutal assassinations of our Prime Ministers but never failed to learn from them, we continued to strengthen our security apparatus. India witnessed agitations fuelled by democratic aspirations against the ruling regimes but was consciously holding the ethos of democracy and the values enshrined in the constitution. Riots small and big have occasionally brought blot on independent India’s history and the scars engraved by the rage of mob fury obviously went deeper. A regime change in India since 2014 was a result of an aspirational shift by the Indian voters from a system of institutionalised corruption. All sectors of social life in the country received indomitable challenges but considerable moves in the direction of reforms followed. India, towards its centenary is an aspirational India and its quest is to accomplish big things and the Amrit Kaal will be a period of an aspirational India’s rise to greater global significance.
(The author is Freelance Journalist/Social Worker)