India's Yin and Yang 60 years After Independence

Any bets on how many pictures zeemax is going to post here? Lets get ready to see lots of dead, crippled and poor people.

Siege before celebrations
GOWHAR BHAT

Srinagar, Aug 14: On the eve of I-Day Celebrations, the Srinagar city has been turned into a garrison. The entire area of the Bakshi Stadiumthe main venue for the August 15 function— has been put under siege. CRPF troopers have placed the barricades and barbed wires at the various outlets of the area.
Armored vehicles have been put on almost all roads across the city. The pedestrians as well as commuters are also being frisked and their identity cards checked at several places near the venue. The commuters are bought down from the buses and subjected to frisking and identification parades.
Like previous years, on August 14, very less traffic plied on the roads and shopkeepers closed their shops very early. The fear Psychosis
Almost every vehicle going in an out of the Bakshi Stadium Road is thoroughly frisked. Many people try to avoid going through the area by taking alternate routes. “It is better to avoid this route to avoid going through the frisking and search operations,� Shabir Ahmad, a commuter said.
The buses and other vehicles are not being allowed to wait on the roadsides. “They (troopers) beat drivers for parking their vehicles near the passenger stops,� a shopkeeper near L D hospital said.
The shopkeepers and traders in the area complain of a slump in their business due to the intense search operations. “Very few people prefer coming to this area as they feel scared,� Abdul Aziz, a garment shop owner said.
Locals in the Haft Chinar area said that the troopers frequently patrol the area and search every person passing through in the area especially during the night hours. “These days people in our locality prefer to stay indoors to avoid the trouble of frisking,� Ghulam Hassan, 65, said.
The city roads Tuesday wore a deserted look as very few people came out of their homes. Schools, colleges and other government offices witnessed a slim attendance. The people were seen rushing towards their homes early. “There is frisking after every 100 meters in the city, I don t want to put myself into trouble so it is better to leave early,� Sakib a student of Amar Singh college said.

Aiasee azadi aur kahan

It was good to watch ppl like Dr.Farooq Abdullah on GEO TV - using words like 'app loog' for India and Pakistan - and actually for the first time seperating himself and Pakistani Kashmiris from India and Pakistan.

H'Birthday India .

#2 Posted by aslam644 on August 14, 2007 1:00:31 pm

HAHA...you're having to use white phosphorus against school girls in your capital and you're talking about security?

Is the Indian army using artillery and helicopter gunships in Srinagar like your army is doing?

Is the US bombing Indian civilians on Indian soil?

A fairly balanced appraisal.

India is seen today as a rising power full of promise, but the promise may or may not be fulfilled depending upon how it responds to many of the myriad problems facing it. Some of them:

1. The increasingly yawning gap between the rising India and the stagnant India. The 'stagnant' India will keep punishing the "rising" one at the polls as it did with the Narsimha Rao govt. in 97, Vajpayee govt. in 2004 and Chandrababu Naidu govt. in Andhra Pradesh. Because this India is in a majority and knows how to grab political power, even when it is being denied a share in economic power.

2. The education system must change so that sarkari schools are no longer a joke, but provide a first rate education to the masses, so that they can compete with those that go to private schools. Providing quota in private schools will merely cater to the privileged among the deprived instead of tackling the problem.

3. Undertake some massive infrastructure projects to generate employment while improving physical infrastructure at the same time.

4. Deal with the impending environment disasters, esp. deforestation, scarcity of water, etc.

5. Deal with the crippling govt. debt. As of now, almost the entire govt. budget is devoted to paying off existing debt, salaries, defense etc. with virtually nothing left for development and a good part of this budget comes from the govt. borrowing from its own banks. Some state govts. already are having problems meeting their staff salaries, and facing virtual bankruptcies.

If India does not address these and similar other problems, it will go the way of the "promise" of the Latin American countries which, too, in the past have shown phenomenal growth at times.

Happy birthday, India!

arjuna
indian army is guilty of far more serious crimes than that they've killed hundreds of unarmed civilian men,women protesters, they have indulged in gang rapes.

Dost Sahib:

"1. The increasingly yawning gap between the rising India and the stagnant India. The 'stagnant' India will keep punishing the "rising" one..... ..... and knows how to grab political power, even when it is being denied a share in economic power. "

Stagnant India is not being denied share. By the very name you have used to qualify them, indicates inertia is them. The dynamics between Rising one and Stagnant one will create motive force, however much the stagnant india drags itsellf.

"2. The education system must change..."

This so true. The initiatives should be started, including faith based - schools in masjid's and temples in the off time, to spread education to all. Sarkari school can continue, the way they are, even though they are jokes but the serve an important purpose. Extremely low cost education. Students do come out and reach IITs and other pinnacle. Last year there was a very beautiful article in Business Week about one such Sarkari school student to reaching into IIT - his dream from a sarkari school in remote Bihar. Even though no one in his family had ever been to a school before him.

Basic education should allow students to dream to be something, and education them in basic tools. I have seen the wonderful work single teacher schools (Ekal Vidyalaya) have done in remote villages. All for $1 a day.

the problem in india is that there are too many chiefs and not enough indians ( no pun intended)

Re: # 2
Aslam, you are absolutely correct. Where else can kashmiris stand up and raise slogans in support of Pakistan or its teams, where else can they kill Sikhs and Pundits and get away scot free, where else can they drop hand grenades into crowds of innocent people and blame it on the Indiam occupation army, where else the separatist leaders demand and get special priveleges from the Indian goverment

Aise Azadi aur kahan

Mr. Thakur,

This opening sentence put me off:

'India will turn 60 on Wednesday.'

It's transfer of power from British that's 60 years old, else India much older than u think. Dont quibble abt borders of ancient India and the present India...

for all of Nehru and his generation's role in the partition fiasco (I believe there should have been a peaceful, complete exchange of populations), I am grateful that he was the first prime minister of India. His Socialist policies might have suffocated India for a few decades, but they ensured that the feudal classes were completely removed from the ambit of power. Land was distributed to India's poor almost immediately after independence. India can be proud of that achievement. Nehru commanded respect in India and in the outside world and his leadership provided a time buffer for India to develop her institutions and self-confidence (though badly shaken during the 62 war with China). He was instrumental in recognizing the importance of an opposition in the parliament and I think this is one of the most significant if not the significant reason that Indian democracy was able to survive while her neighbors fell victim to the army baton. The capacity to listen to criticism without resorting to acrimony (more or less) is a hallmark of parliamentary democracy and we have to thank Pandit Nehru for inculcating that among Indian politicians.

Happy 60th birthday India (this whole thing is silly when in reality you've more ancient than most nations in the world). May you prosper and may the teeming suffering millions of Indian souls have a share in your prosperity soon.

Jai Hind.

#11

Kabuliwala:

Good to hear from you. Nehru's period had been very crucial. India would have sold its soul to get the necessary capital. Those were not outsourcing days. Instead it was all about divide and conquer. Japan, Germany, Korea and Taiwan all were competing for the capital. No one would have given it to India for its development at its terms.

anil#7:

"Stagnant India is not being denied share."

And what would you call its proper share, anil?

I believe that nearly 60% of Indians depend upon agriculture for their livelihood and their condition is pitiable in most states. Hyderabad is flourishing but the farmers are committing suicide in Andhra and naxalites are active in Telangana again. Mumbai and Pune are flourishing but farmers in Maharashtra are starving. Indian farmer is perhaps the lowest cost producer in the world despite his productivity being a fraction of his Amerian counterpart; rice sells at a fraction of international price, so does milk, fruits and dairy products. Why? The price the farmer gets for his produce cannot support his family or even pay his debts. No govt. can allow food prices to go higher because that would surely result in a defeat at elections, and there are elections at some level somewhere in India every year. The elite workers - the unionised workers, especially in the public sector are powerful enough that govts. keep increasing their wages even when they are practically bankrupt. And the farmers cannot sell their produce in the international market because the infrastructure for doing that is not there, nor can their produce be processed because the agricultural processing industry is primitive.

As long as India's prosperity does not reach its rural masses, the progress will remain hollow. The surplus rural humanity will continue to spill over into the slums of the metros or to the army of naxalites.

So, while I celebrate India's economic reforms and would like the liberalisation to be even more vigorous, one cannot depend upon the private sector to ensure a better distribution of the growing pie, the private corporations work for their shareholders (and that too only if they are honest) and not for the general voters whose needs have to be looked after by the politician and, if he doesn't do that, the poor will pick up the gun and join the growing army of revolutionaries.

Incidentally, I saw this interesting letter by an Indian in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn.



Happy birthday, my dear, big India


WE ARE the tenth largest economy worldwide, but 25 per cent, i.e. 250 million Indians, subsist below the poverty line. We spend 4.8 per cent of GDP on health, 4.1 per cent on education. But we spend eight per cent of budget on defence, for not having made peace with neighbours.

Transnational select directors/chairmen, from India, but we cannot identify a prime minister who is not a Nehru-Gandhi family loyalist. We swear by non - violence but religious groups indulge in shameful rioting every few years. We are a global economy, but pay the president and prime minister, pathetic salaries of $1,250 a month.

We foster entrepreneurship, yet New Delhi is a bizarre maze of licences, controls. Leaders of integrity like Buddha, Mahavir and Gandhiji were born here. But a sheet of paper does not move, in the corridors of power, without financial lubrication. We had a woman prime minister for years, now a woman president, but we kill thousands of baby girls a day, before birth!

We send our troops to embattled countries, under UN umbrellas to save lives, but 100,000 farmers committed suicide in a few years, due to financial insolvency. Our president lives in a palace of 300 bedrooms, but about 40 to 50 million Indians sleep in the streets or fields every day.

We have talked of metamorphosing Mumbai into a Shanghai for a decade, but the annual monsoons transform the city into a stinking pond. We are IT service providers to the world, via BOP, but 39 per cent of Indians cannot read and write.

We are a nuclear power, but have power cuts in the capital; countless villages have yet to get electricity. We have the Ganges, Godhavri pouring tones of fresh waters into the oceans, but 14 per cent of Indians do not have access to clean processed drinking water. We hail the joint family tradition, but Mother Theresa had to coach us to care for the elderly and sick.

We have amongst the best “intelligence agencies� worldwide, but liquor is stolen from the plane of the prime minister, when he travels. We are readying Indian astronauts to go to space, moon, but cannot clean the gutters that the British built for Bombay city 100 years ago.

We play international hosts to refugees from countries like Bangladesh, but then let them fester on footpaths. Our doctors are famed across the world, but at home we have half a doctor (0.6) per 1,000 people, and one hospital bed (0.9) per 1,000 people. Our engineers build the world, atomic power projects in Brazil, but we cannot build a water taxi system to cover our massive coastline to relieve road congestion.

We have massive unemployment; hence we can hire the same people to rally for an ideology today, and the opposite ideology tomorrow, for a tea, snack and $1. Our entrepreneurs buy airlines across the world, but we do not have enough metros, trains, buses in our cities. Our marriages are arrangements, not partnerships. If the bride is not educated, the bridegroom harangues her for dowry; if the bride is educated, she blackmails the bridegroom with threats of alimony.

We bid for the Asian, Olympic Games, but do not have enough playgrounds for our schoolchildren.

We love big, wide international cars, but the width of most of our main trunk roads has remained unchanged at two or three lanes, for the last 60 years. We build flamboyant malls and towers, but about 250 million Indian do not have latrines attached to their homes. NRIs’ are one of the largest contributors to foreign exchange in the country, but they do not vote overseas, in the elections.

We pretend to shun worldly recognitions, but continue to be a fiercely jealous people. Sachin and Sania mesmerise us, but we do not set international training centres to nurture future world - class players. We are fickle, Amitabh has a small, private wedding for his son, he is snooty; he has an ostentatious wedding, he is wasting money!

We worship the cow, but let her stray all over our streets, uncared. We care for animals, but let thousands of sick, menacing dogs loaf in towns. Our rich donate millions to build new temples, but ignore the hungry, forlorn beggars standing outside these places of worship. Happy birthday, my big India!

RAJENDRA K. ANEJA
Dubai, UAE

I guess india has been "free" for 60 years but slumbering as a nation for at least 1000 years. Good news is there is a lot of "potential".

Re: # 13 dost_mittar

while in school we read about how the Great Depression was partially alleviated by the massive New Deal construction projects throughout the US such as the Tennessee Valley Project, Schools, etc. May be therein lies the answer to India's problems. Launch a massive construction program to strengthen India's infrastructure while at the same time providing jobs and income for India's starving millions. The school buildings and public museums built can act as harbingers of future prosperity and cultural awareness. I personally know Govt. officials who complain that money keeps rotting in treasury for lack of proper implementation of projects. I do not think that money is a problem. India has always had money or recourse to it. It is the proper use of it that has become the obstacle. I think this is where India's democracy has failed and stunts India's growth. A more authoritarian regime like China wouldn't face this. But I still think I'd stick with India's democracy if given a choice.

Happy Indian independence day to you.

Re: # 12 anil

interesting that you mention Korea and Taiwan among countries scrambling for Western capital after the war. A superficial look at their cultures seems to indicate an extreme infatuation with the West. Indians too love lots of things about the West but have not made wholesale cultural changes like Koreans and Taiwanese have. The most important change I observe is that Christianity has gained an incredible hold over the peoples of these two countries. In Korea, new Christian converts have even physically assaulted practicing Buddhists and vandalized their temples. How much of this is directly related to America's influence in these two countries after the war would be a question for interesting debate. Japan somehow has managed to hold onto its ancient culture more successfully I feel.

Nehru by insulating India from the voluptuous embrace of the West in our initial years of freedom might have done more to preserve India's soul, like you said, than we all realize. It is a pity his descendants do not have his sagacity or his intellect. He is definitely in my top 5 list of greatest world leaders along with Alexander, Genghis Khan, Lincoln and the Muslim prophet Muhammad in no particular order.