A birthday is an occasion to reflect and ponder. Nowhere has nation building been an easy task: more so in India, with its immense diversities of culture, ethnicities, faiths and tongues. Shaping democratic governance and the rule of law has posed daunting challenges which no country in modern history under a single seat of authority has ever faced and survived. Yugoslavia, once India’s partner, has disappeared from the map; Egypt, another partner, is in shambles.
India has fought the odds and done so with a considerable measure of success. Its birth, from the stroke of the midnight hour of 15 August 1947 was celebrated amidst the blood and gore of Partition. The world viewed the event with fascination, awe and despair, most doubting that this unique experiment in constitutional government could, or would, succeed. But succeed it did. India’s founding fathers were blessed with vision, moral integrity of a high order, and a practical sense of what was possible at any given time. The early years of Independence were fraught. Within weeks of its existence, India faced an existential threat, when Kashmir was aflame as the invaders from across the border poured in pillaging and raping, determined to wrest control in a primordial bid to build a kingdom based on scriptural tenets. The invading was stopped, turned back and expelled, much to the surprise and astonishment of the invaders and their foreign jihadi handlers. The fledging Indian Army had passed its first major test with endurance, skill and adeptness. Months later, a second challenge was mounted in Hyderabad, a thousand miles to the south. That, too, was successfully withstood.
India confounded the odds and stood tall as it looked the world in the eye. It was a period of seed-time and remedy. The first general election was held and a democratically elected government voted into office. There was little industry to speak of, agriculture was primitive , grinding poverty the norm and science and technology non-existent. An industrial platform was constructed, largely with Soviet help, the United States having refused aid without strings attached. Under the stewardship of Homi Bhabha and generous financial government support as an act of faith, and the establishment of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) on the model of America’s MIT in the United States, with American help and guidance began, in time, to produce scientists and engineers of world-class quality. The Green Revolution was an breakthrough in food grains, as was the Milk revolution pioneered in Gujarat by Dr Verghese Kurien, for the dairy industry. These are in full bloom today and have changed (and are changing with greater momentum) the face of contemporary India. It is an exporter of dairy produce, it is a space power and a nuclear weapon state with missile delivery systems.
The negative features in the report card are fractious politics, the descending levels of crudity and intolerance in the public sphere, and the pervasive corruption, not to speak of obscurantism and caste oppression practiced against the weaker sections of society.
Compounding these domestic challenges are the serious external threats facing the country. The threat posed by Pakistan commenced in 1947 and is ongoing. Conceived in the womb of the Subcontinent , Pakistan was blinded at birth by a twisted ideology of consuming hatred of ‘Hindu’ India, one that, down the years, has brooked no denial. It is the sole, indivisible feature of the country’s national dentity. The jihadi terrorism it has incubated is now the monster turned against its creator, as the massive bombing of a school in Peshawar last year and, more recently, the bombing of a hospital in Quetta illustrate only too well. The country’s traditional patron, the United States of America is losing patience with Pakistan’s continuous jihadi funding and export; the Gulf Arab states and Iran have come to despise it as an unpredictable player, while the Afghanistan government positively loathes its counterpart in Islamabad. Carpetbaggers, bounty-hunters, thrusting generals and discredited mafia politicians have laid the country low. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Subcontinent’s Count Dracula, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, its Mussolini, who promised a 1,000-yer war with India, only to lose it in a fortnight and forfeit his life at the a hangman’s rope, symbolize Pakistan’s continuing torment. The anti-Indian malevolence of its alignment with its all-weather friend, China, offers no relief. Beijing’s bombastic pretensions cannot camouflage its own domestic problems, all partially hidden by a flimsy bamboo curtain. India’s neighborhood is among the most volatile in the world. That said, India is likely to survive its present travails as it has done those of the past.
Modi, Jayalalitha, in video conference with Putin
Prime Minister Modi, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithha and, arguably, the world’s most formidable politician, Russian President Vladimir Putin engaged in a conversation via video link across Moscow, New Delhi and Chennai respectively. The occasion was the formal commissioning of the first reactor in the Kudankulam nuclear power complex on the outskirts of Chennai, built with advanced Russian technology. A second reactor is expected to go on stream at the end of this month and supply a further 1000MW of electricity to the southern Indian grid, adding to the 1,000MW already in operation. Work on the construction of the third and fourth reactors is scheduled to start next February. Tamil Nadu with its allotted share of 560 MW from each reactor is the largest beneficiary of the project. President Putin said: ‘We have big plans with our Indian friends in the nuclear area. We expect that a general framework agreement and the credit report for the construction of the third stage of the nuclear power plant for the fifth and sixth reactors will be signed by the end of the year,’ presumably when he visits New Delhi for the annual Indo-Russian summit. Mr Putin said Russia would be financing, through a loan, 85 per cent of the construction of the third phase of the Kudakulam project.
Mr Modi said: ‘I have always deeply valued our friendship with Russia and it is fitting that we jointly dedicate the first unit of the Kudankulam plant. We are determined to pursue an ambitious agenda of nuclear power generation.’
Jayalalitha described the nuclear power plant complex as a ‘tribute’ to India-Russia friendship.
Russian engineers at Kudankulam praised Indian colleagues for their expertise in the construction and the running of the reactors. Valery Limarenko, President of Atomstroyexport Group of Companies, the engineering and construction division of the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, Rosatom, said the state-of-the-art safety systems were functioning exceptionally well and had surprised its design expectations. Chairman and Managing Director of India’s Nuclear Power Corporation, S.K. Sharma, declared: ‘A single unit generates 1,000MWe power, which is higher than the capacity of any other reactor now functioning in the country.’
Meanwhile India’s negotiations with the US Westinghouse company, for the construction of nuclear power plants remain stalled.
Kolkata wetlands saviour honoured
Ecologist Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, whose pioneering work on the East Kolkata Wetlands and its innovative use in treating the city’s wastewater, received global recognition with the prestigious Lac Hoffman Award, which he will collect next month at a ceremony in Honolulu, Hawaii. Ghosh’s work began with the identifying the uniqueness and opportunities of ecosystems. He named the wetlands, mapped it and calculated the value it was adding to the economy of a metropolis. He spent 10 years trying to impress global arbitrators of the critical importance of the Kolkata wetlands for the future welfare and development of the city. Eventually, he convinced his audience in 2002 and the wetlands declared a protected site. Ghosh was then chief environmental officer in West Bengal. He has come a long way and is today one of the trustees of the World Wide Fund for Nature.
To him belongs the last word. ‘Kolkata is the cheapest metropolis as the produce grown in its fringe – fish, rice and vegetables – is available at nominal transport cost. It is actually an ecologically subsidized city and it is so by the East Kolkata Wetlands that subsidizes it.’
This is an amazing story of how a bureaucrat - rarely the target of praise as a species, from a population frequently subjected to unnecessary harassment by uncaring officials out to make fast buck – achieved so much through unceasing toil and commitment to a noble cause.
