What ‘we’ must learn from the West

I’ve spent a little more than a quarter of a year in the West. It’s not a very long time, though I believe, it's still long enough to notice the stark differences that exists between India and the other developed nations. It’s almost impossilbe to discuss all of them, which they are quite a lot in number. Rather I would like to mention the things that are quite striking and that which have created a deep impact on me and up to some extent moulded my present day ideologies.

Before I delve into the differences, I would like to confess that I’m a lover of my country and as any other patriotic citizen I have an utmost respect for my nation’s sovereignty and the constituitional framework it’s built upon.

To begin with let’s start with India’s higher education. Today, India has more engineers than any other country in the world. While we are still big in numbers, the quality of these engineers are far from satisfactory. Let’s try and analyse the problem.

Post independence, the economic condition of our population had declined cosiderably. Most of the money floated around the rich landlords or the industrialists and businessmen who themseleves found it diffiuclt to transact in such a weak economy. Development was slow and the common man struggled to keep up with the soaring prices. Setting up of new firms and upgradation of the existing ones was a challenge as the labourers were mostly unskilled and lacked elementary education. For years our development crawled at a snail speed. We needed some radical change.

We’ve all heard Nehru’s infamous speech delivered on the eve of our independence in New Delhi, the capital of our newly replenished and independent India. No wonder Pandit was eagerly waiting for this moment since a long time. Strong were his words and crisp was his voice, powerful enough to rekindle the fire and flint in the listeners' hearts’ a sense of hope and renewed promise to retrieve the nation’s long lost pride and stature. With this began the humongous task of rebuilding a nation from it’s ruins; exploited over several years of colonisation.

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Building anything from scratch is never easy especially when you’ve been asigned the task of building an entire nation which has been under a foreign rule for over 200 years. As a prime colony, the British had left no brick unturned to exploit India of her land and it's precious resources. There was much impetus on our fledging leaders to ensure that progress was aimed at the right direction now that they had been given this fresh responsibility of governing a newly freed nation overnight . Many of them had an active role to play in the freedom struggle but none had any prior experiences.

There is something charismatic about Nehru’s persona that draws people towards him. His idealogies were unique and much ahead of his times. As a patron of modern and liberal thinking, Nehru was at the forefront of a new bard of poets who would pen down ideas that would make way for a sustainalbe and a flourishing India. Their dream; to wipe away the scars from her face and bring back the lost smile.

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INTERMISSION

Nehru is one of the most controversial figures in the Indian history and that’s primarily due to his role in it. As with any great personality there’s a fair share of supporters and critics. There’s always been a rift between the dichotomies. Those who subscribe to his views still follow the Nehruvian idealogy and implement it today while those on the other side often question his stature and believe his decisions to be irrational and naive on several occasions eg. in the Indo-Sino War. One can never know what the man's true intentions were; wether they were honest and pure or selfish and maligned. That being said I believe it’s unfair to defame such an important personality based on accounts of a couple of incidents. As one of my friends rightly put it, as a minister one has a thousand of things to think about and often it’s difficult to satisfy everyone’s needs and wishes. There is only so much that a minister can do in the stipulated time given to him, to deliver his promises while making sure no one is offended or dissatisfied. Considering the position he holds, it may quite often happen that even his little decisions can greatly affect the masses. Now imagine yourself as a P.M., you’re dealing with challenges which are far more grave and the national scenario, much more complex. Being at the epicentre of the government every step you take shall have its’ repercussions.
Critics often cite the Indo-Sino War, where some say that the Chinese forces were allowed to enter into the Indian Borders and the Indian army had to sheepishly withdraw failing to receive orders for combat. Firstly such an event never occured. Most of these accounts from where people draw their information are forged and their authencity questionable. The British had left the northern borders unmarked as they left the subcontinent making the Indo-Sino border quite controversial. Some say it was a malicious intent to create discord between the two developing nations in subsequent years while others believe the region along the Himalayas was so tough and that it seemed to be

To be continued...