Progressing towards ‘Viksit Bharat@47’ with head held high

George Orwell, author of the legendary book 1984, once famously said “At 50, you get the face you deserve.”

After the recent celebration of the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ the time would appear to have come to think about what Mother India or Bharat Mata, now 75, will see, as she takes a dekko at herself in the looking glass. Most likely, the reflected visage will be one that, by and large, reflects contentment with probably a hint of moisture in the eye and a frown on her face; Happy to notice so many feathers in her cap, but a wee bit disappointed at the things that remain undone, while being concerned about how some of the emerging challenges need to be tackled.

As one compares the accomplishments against the failures, - or stay put - quite a few items will appear on the credit side of the balance sheet.

The journey began with addressing the immediate post – Independence challenges and the introduction of the Five-Year Plan in 1951, focusing on agriculture growth.

To begin with, democracy, the form of governance that our farsighted elders opted for, soon after the formation of the republic, has come of age, having not only survived, but flourished.

Voltaire once famously declared that “When the press is free and the people are literate, democracy is safe.” With the literacy rate in India having propelled from 12 per cent in 1947 to 75 per cent in 2024, and the fact that the media, be it the printed or the electronic variety, can be said to be reasonably free reassures one that democracy is safe, secure, and in an unassailable position.

The next item would be how freedom was achieved through a movement that rode on the principle of ‘ahimsa’; India standing alone, in the history of the world, from the USA long ago to Sudan recently, to have done that. The rainbow of revolutions in the agriculture sector would be the next with green for food grains, thanks to Dr M.S. Swaminathan, white in milk, thanks to Dr V Kurien, yellow in oil seeds, thanks to Dr M V Rao, as also blue in fisheries, all, together, contributing to the country’s transition, from the ignominy of a ‘ship-to-mouth’ status in the 1960s, to the satisfaction of becoming a food secure nation at least at the global, if not the grassroots, level.

The exemplary way constitutional and statutory institutions like the Supreme Court, the Election Commission (ECI) and the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) have acquitted themselves would figure prominently on the credit side.

The apex court has to its credit, the extraordinary feat of having, literally, amended the Constitution, through its celebrated verdict in the Golaknath and Keshavanand Bharathi cases, in which it declared the part of the Constitution dealing with fundamental rights as being outside the purview of Parliament’s Legislative jurisdiction. In many other instances, it stepped in to provide relief and opportunities to many sections of society such as transgender persons and children of live-in parents, apart from intervening and prodding the executive into action, in areas such as the conduct of free and fair elections or anti-pollution measures.

The Election Commission has repeatedly performed the gigantic task of conducting free, fair and impartial elections regularly and ensuring that the voice of the people asserted itself loudly and clearly, enabling the polity to emerge cleaner and brighter, after each election.

The UPSC has also had an enviable and formidable record for its efficient, fair, and transparent systems of selection.

Not that attempts have not been made by successive governments to make inroads into the autonomy and independence of these institutions. But it must be conceded that the bodies have managed to preserve the status and position accorded to them in the Constitution and the laws.

The item to figure next would be the mindboggling achievement of the country, in ridding itself of several social evils like child-marriage and untouchability, the practice of sati, the feudal system of zamindari, which all have become things of the past, literally at the press of the button of freedom, on 15 August 1947 when Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister rose in Parliament to deliver the ‘tryst with destiny’ speech.

Overnight, on that historic occasion, the people of India were also presented with the gift of universal franchise, including votes for women, a dispensation for which people from countries like the USA and the UK had to fight for years.

The period immediately following independence also brought with it some internally inconsistent phenomena being encouraged such as flourishing and active trade union movements on the one hand and capitalistic fee private enterprise on the other. The Tatas, Birlas and Goenkas of yesteryear and Adnanis and Ambanis of the present times, have pursued the path of growth and development through industrialisation; just as firebrand trade union leaders championing the cause of the working class, such as George Fernandes and Sitaram Yechury had a free hand to pursue their pro left agenda. It is, indeed, a tribute to the robustness of the polity that, till today, the two phenomena coexist with little harm being caused to the progress of the nation.

The situation at that time was somewhat akin to the phase-transition associated with ice becoming water, upon being exposed to the atmosphere, or water becoming steam, when boiled. To transit from one state of stability to the higher one, a system invariably needs to go through a period of chaos. Like buttermilk having to be churned to produce butter, was what happened. A person on a fast-unto-death is usually offered a glass of lime juice, rather than a seven-course meal which the digestive system can hardly face, after the ordeal has just been through. It was as though more had been bitten off than could be chewed, chewed more than could be swallowed and swallowed more than the ability to digest would permit. Unsurprisingly, a period of indigestion followed, which, thankfully, was only a transient condition.

The next achievement, gratifyingly welcome, would be the manner in which the country faced, and overcame, the challenge of the advent of the global forces of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation; the second watershed in young India’s early history, the first one having been the movement that led to freedom. Thanks to the wisdom, and maturity, shown by the leadership at the national level, the country, while literally tottering at the brink of disaster, not only recovered her balance, but emerged unscathed by the crisis. Realisation dawned, upon those that mattered, that the original Nehruvian dream of ‘growth with justice’ would have to yield to a new paradigm of ‘growth and justice’.

External assistance enabled the ushering in of an era of free enterprise, following the dismantling of the license and permit raj. Growth and development were free to happen, unencumbered by the imperative of the parallel need to ensure fairness and justice. Care was taken to ensure that the impact of that phase was compensated through measures such as the creation of safety nets, and a slew of development programmes, meant for the welfare of the underprivileged and other neglected sections of society like children, women, the aged, the physically/mentally challenged, as well as those negatively impacted by the growth process, the industrial workers, for instance.

Another policy step that followed was that of exit policies whereby the central government decided to exit from and allow the entry of the private sector into some crucial sectors, such as steel, power, telecommunication and communications. And, as a measure of securing public interest, it introduced the system of self-regulation through regulators meant for those sectors.

Later, the international financial meltdown was another challenge, which the country surmounted with determination, robustness and imaginative foresight.

The way institutions like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) contributed to that effort and earned global laurels. In fact, the chairman of the Federal Bank of the USA went to the extent of observing that, had that country been fortunate enough to have had similar leadership as in India, the worldwide meltdown might not have happened at all!

(The writer was formerly Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh)