For too long, this country has used Western metrices and benchmarks which have compromised Mahatma Gandhi's vision of swadeshi
August 15, 1947, was the fulfillment of a dream. The country’s woes could be laid at the door of colonialists. Highly resonating phrases on the ‘tryst with destiny’ were lyrically pronounced about that midnight when the world sleeps and when India awakes to freedom.
What changed post-1947 was the formal expropriation of the surplus of Indian productivity to foreign lands under the British Crown. A Constitution was, in the course of time, framed; a democratic process put in place; and a governance pattern institutionalised in a fairly uniform manner. We got several things right and some not so right. The actual, credible, balance sheet is still in the making. Among the many remarkable things that happened in the immediate post-independence era was the operational marginalisation of many of the Mahatma’s wishes.
Gradually, the white masters were replaced largely by brown masters of the same genre. Several thinkers of the Independent liberal Party, including Fenner Brockway of the UK, had warned of such an eventuality. What followed is too well known to need recount.
In the name of change, a Soviet model was put in place and the Planning Commission created as the instrument of the Union Government’s will. The impact of such interventions is yet to be evaluated.
Irrespective of the evaluation, the Indian dream was still anchored to some mythical space abroad — presumably somewhere in the geography of the UK/US/Europe or even Japan. There was little, if any space, for patterns or models that were Indian in nature. The Indian dream about career was fashioned abroad and the high watermark of social evolution remained ‘london-return’. As time passed, these archetypes were strengthened, and respectability became a synonym for foreign association and, success, a matter of foreign acceptability.
The dream of the average Indian mother, gradually, became that of acquiring a son- or daughter-in-law with an NRI status, or at least a foreign residence permit. For a while, India became a land which had only three categories of people: Those who had migrated; those who wished to migrate and those who did not have any idea about migration.
Bright young persons were queuing up outside the embassies of prosperous Western countries for visas. Gradually the dream of swadeshi was sacrificed to at the altar of the argument ‘there is no need to reinvent the wheel’. The economy in the heydays of the Planning Commission was always forecast for takeoff ‘after 15 years’. The number of 15 years never reduced. Only the forecast ceased.
By the early 1990s, the foreign exchange reserves reached such a level of credibility that, literally, the Union Government had to transfer its gold to British vaults. Contemporary history, with its usual twists and turns, brought a Narsimha Rao on the scene who, while heading a minority Government, still bit the bullet. Historical processes were reversed.
IG Patel, invited to lead this transformation, preferred to migrate to the directorship of the london School of Economics. Mr Manmohan Singh experienced his second windfall and became the Union Minister for Finance. The political fortunes of Rao prevented him from getting full credit for the economic renaissance. But one thing remained constant: The preeminence of Western centres of learning.
The Jagdish Bhagwatis of the West toured India exhorting and extolling the virtues of a free market economy. The flash in the pan lasted for a while and the ‘India shining’ slogan eventually gave way to the chant of ‘India emerging as an economic superpower’.
The intellectual habits of six decades, emboldened by the ineptitude of the administrative processes, metamorphosed to more contemporary patterns of transference of assets abroad.
Scams, one bigger than the other grew under the stewardship and leadership of ‘a very honest person’. It is said that the national psyche of a people stirred to a point of despondency can strike back with incredible vigour. The 16th lok Sabha may prove symbolic of the vigour.
The need of the hour is an Indian standard for the economy, in education and industry and much else. For this, everyone will need to pitch in. This is a national endeavour. The identifiable indicators will include the emergence of an Indian currency that is respected as an international currency of exchange; an Indian passport that is treated with the respect it deserves, making Indians proud of India.