India spreads its wings
The English poet T.S. Eliot put it well: ‘For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await a new voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.’ Perhaps this fits Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s performance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he made an impassioned plea for globalization and freer trade across continents and warned against protection as a threat to international peace. He said terrorism was incubated in hot houses enclosed by walls, and in keeping with his previous messages, he cautioned those prone, in practice, to make a dangerous and self-defeating distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ terrorists. All terrorism was evil, an affront to civilized values and a threat to peace and harmony in the human family.
These were not the routine shibboleths to which such gatherings have long been accustomed. It was a vibrant, heart-felt message from a leader who has considerable accomplishments in transforming the economic face of a once protectionist nation. With a happy knack for the appropriate aphorism, he said India was on the road to ‘Reform, Perform and Transform.’
This was no empty slogan. His ringing declaration that India was ready for business surely fell on fertile ground with such a formidable array of business heads from around the world in the audience. They represent global companies that are trailblazers in innovative technologies. These CEOs and Directors and were no patsies to be taken in with the sweet talk of a politician; their success is based on knowledge of the ground and a keen awareness of the possibilities of emergent markets.
India ranks high in this category. It is fast emerging from its pains of labour in economic and structural reform. Demonetization is behind us, and the General Goods and Services Tax (GST), designed to create a seamless national market to replace the previous disparate entities, is now bearing fruit with higher tax revenues.
Emerging from the shadows into the sunlit uplands, India is now the fastest growing among the world’s large economies, according to the data released by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. With a 1.2 billion population, most of them young, and an expanding middle class with significant disposable incomes, India’s future prospects are no longer tied to the bleak, handouts of yore. The Aid India consortiums are history. With the global economy predicted to grow by 3.7 per cent from the previous 2 per cent, global wealth has increased to an estimated $330 trillion. There is thus no shortage of investment funds for India to plumb. Indian business executives present at Davos in strength interacted with their peers from the West and beyond, and were upbeat on their country’s investment potential. They are not starry-eyed optimists, being fully aware of ground impediments at home that need to be removed; they stressed the need for investment road blocks to be removed sooner rather than later.
Understanding the negatives, they perceive India with renewed hope and optimism. India’s time had come. Its journey would hard, the fruits game-changing. Let us remember history: the transformation of an agrarian society to a fully fledged industrialized state has been the most difficult of hurdle to cross. India is in transition on a grand scale.
The message of Republic Day
Republic Day has been a pageant in years past. People in the capital, men, women and children, young and old, throng in their thousands to watch a parade that includes all aspects of the country’s cultural and social diversity and its unfolding strength in the material spheres of national endeavour. With the coming of television the magnificent spectacle reaches every corner of this vast and diverse land, joining its citizens in a shared experience of pride and purpose. The watching millions on the ground and around television sets reveal by their presence their faith in India’s future. This surely is the message of the ever growing numbers of avid watchers of a spectacle that has not lost nothing of its charisma.
A Republic Day ticket in Delhi is a prized possession for the ordinary citizen. Amidst the pressures of daily life, of events that sadden and sicken, the Republic Day experience uplifts, perhaps gives people a tantalizing glimpse of the future that awaits the country.
This year’s display of India’s military might bordered on the awesome. The advanced tanks, battle formations, the array of transport and offensive aircraft, short range missiles including the supersonic BrahMos cruise missiles with their multiple strike capabilities, the naval power of state-of-the frigates, destroyers, electronic warfare systems, the Border Security Forces, with the thrilling skills of their women units and the rest were signals of India’s expanding military reach, now among the world’s top half dozen nations and growing apace.
The guests from ASEAN, who have been pressing for greater Indian participation in maritime security will have noted the significance of the show. There is no bigger guarantee of peace than the capability of its weapons systems, and opt for war as an instrument of last resort should the need arise. Indian strength and resolution in defence of the national interest was demonstrated during the Doklan standoff with China on the tri-junction of Tibet, Bhutan and Sikkim. Despite incendiary threats emanation from Beijing, India’s unflinching resolve carried a message not be ignored.
The new Asia has space for all its players. Trade, investment, roadways, tourism, science and technology cooperation are goals that are best achieved by peaceful means. India as a space power has expressed its willingness to share the fruits of its accomplishments with its immediate neighbours; farther afield it can do likewise with its ASEAN partners. ‘…peace hath her victories/No less renowned than war,’ proclaimed John Milton centuries ago. It is the distilled essence of wisdom.
The cross India bears
Never since Indian Independence in August 1947, has the stock of politicians and politics been so low. Public cynicism has never been higher. It is not the good humoured shrug and twinkle to which one alludes; it to something far more sinister and dangerous: the absence of trust between the people and the political class. Party politics subsume the national interest; reasoned discourse. in earlier times, however passionate, rarely degenerated into personal abuse and vilification.
Fledgling India was weak and under-resourced; harrowing indigence was an accustomed sight in cities and countryside. But parliament functioned as it was designed to do: MPs debated their causes and differences without losing sight of the courtesies and decorous conduct required of the people’s elected tribunes. Parliament in recent times resembles a riotous saloon bar. Mutual respect, like dud notes, has long been out of circulation. The short cut is the preferred option to the long road. Ends and means are rarely aligned. Under present norms ends usually justify the means. India cannot be destroyed by external forces, however malign, its strength and durability can only be undermined from within.
Sharad Pawar, leader of the breakaway National Congress Party, has issued a call for a united opposition to unseat the ruling BJP dispensation, invariably easier said than done. The sticking point will be the loaves and fishes of high office. If the past is anything to go by, that is when the squabbling will begin. Who will lead this motley crew? The coalition that succeeded Indira Gandhi’s fall, was a house divided; it descended into chaos and absurdity under Morarji Desai. A similar interlude with Deva Gowda and I.K.Gujral at the helm, expired from its inner contradictions. There is little chance that the Sharad Pawar’s project will fare any better.
The Rahul Gandhi-led Congress Party, the Samajwadi cabal of Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and the two Communist parties have no coherent economic policies or policies that matter in other critical segments of national life.
That would be workable. What we are likely to see is an auction of populist demands designed to appeal to their respective vote banks. The national interest will be cast into limbo under a Pawar.
The JP, for its part, talks beguilingly of development, but its lunatic fringe spurns the rule of law and freedom of thought and expression. Cow belt lynch mobs and rampant rioting over cinematic freedoms have cast a blight over swathes of northern India. Complacency oils the wheels of disorder and destruction.
