PRABHAKAR TIMBLE
As the curtain comes down on 2019, India enters the 70th year of planned development which got initiated with the establishment of the Planning Commission in 1950. The first forty years was our rendezvous with licensing, controls, high tax rates and a commanding position for the public sector. Though we adopted the mixed economy model, the tilt was towards a ‘socialistic pattern’. The Indian economy got pegged to an annual low growth rate of 3.5 per cent referred to as the Hindu rate of growth. 1991 marks the departure wherein it was a retreat by the State coinciding with economic liberalization. This marks the era of decontrols, globalization, economic reforms and the movement towards low tax rates. Many hold that the first phase is the ‘wasted years’ of state regimentation in the economic sphere which killed the growth prospects of the nation and created an economy of shortages. Protection through tariff walls and licensing provided a premium to inefficiency, high costs and gave a monopolistic power to the few large industrial houses. At the same time, we need to understand that without the public sector India would not have the base of primary health, heavy industry, infrastructure and education as the private sector would dare not enter non-profit sectors. The situation is different today.
Growth through liberalization and prosperity through competition coupled with the disinvestment by the government in economic activity is the scene today. With the establishment of the NITI Aayog, the Planning Commission stands dismantled. The collapse of the UPA-2 government and the installation of the NDA rule with a rousing mandate to the BJP created greater hopes and fuelled the aspirations of the people in the context of development (vikas).
Post-2014 saw a rain of policies, schemes and initiatives which the Prime Minister described as “paheli baar” i.e. something happening in India for the first time and as never before. As we close 2019, the economy stands derailed and the political focus seems to be on arousing nationalist emotions and magnifying the picture of the nation in danger. The economic agenda has taken a back seat with communal politics occupying the space and a regressive social agenda to appease the ‘Hindutva’ forces (not the Hindus) seems to gather moss. Nothing can be more shameful and retrograde than the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) giving legitimacy to a course “Bhoot Vidya” to teach doctors for treating people possessed by ghosts. The latest issue of the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens (CAA-NRC) has spread tremors in all the states of India.
Despite the above, the aggregate result of the 70 years of development has shaped the India of today. Let me identify a dozen gains which have engineered the shifts from 1950 to date. We have moved from a Monsoon Bharat to Irrigated India. Though irrigation network has brought stability to agriculture, there are still areas which continue to be rain-fed. India is not completely free from being a land of floods and droughts. The shift from Starvation Bharat to Green and White India is clearly discernible. Planned development has ushered the revolutions in wheat, rice and dairy farming. At the same time, under-nutrition and malnutrition continue to remain challenges for the future. We have successfully shaped Colonial Bharat to India of Laws with the constitution as the archway of a liberal and just society. It is the rule of law which has empowered the people against onslaughts by brute majoritarian rule.
The independent Bharat we inherited was an ocean of social, economic and political inequalities. This got reflected in denial of access to opportunities of education, employment and individual empowerment to large sections of India’s population. Today, we are on the road from an Unjust Bharat to a quest for Just India. Knowing the diversity of India in terms of regions, religions, castes, languages, cultures and lifestyles, we broke the chains of Exclusive Bharat and adopted the track of Inclusive India. Protective discrimination and special treatment to SC/ST/OBC and women are the major enablers of inclusion. A secular constitution with safeguards for religious and linguistic minorities has been the harbinger of this qualitative change.
Political reforms in the form of power to grassroots democratic bodies, decentralization of administrative power, transparency laws and public accountability enactments transformed Opaque Bharat to Transparent India. The harnessing of communications technology and the knit-up public infrastructure has seen Unconnected Bharat turning out to be Connected India.
The society of the 1950s was largely fatalistic in outlook and orientation. Today, we see the emergence of Aspirational India. Alongside, the Bharat of Faith is fading out for India of Science. Educational and economic empowerment has motivated the new generation towards a life of logic, reason and scientific temper. There are vested interests who continue to take pride in outdated traditions, beliefs and blind faith but the tribe of those discarding such obsolete lifestyle is also increasing.
The unwelcome sign is the swing from an Ethical Bharat to Corrupt India with political and bureaucratic corruption eating into the vitals of democracy and development. The magnitude is indeed very high and the roots are entrenched irrespective of political parties and ideology. The other area of genuine concern is of the probability of communal polarisation in public life. The threat looms but the solace could be in the fact that unity in diversity is India’s DNA.
