A Miser's Mite

A popular adage says, it is easier to wake up a sleeping person rather than the one who pretends to be asleep. The wake-up call for the Indian subcontinent was sounded sixty years ago, when the leaders of the nascent nation and all those who mattered in the political arena declared her to be a republic, ruled by the people. It is not easy to find how far the nation has truly become republic, taking into consideration the feelings and sentiments of all peoples; for a country like India, with hundreds of cultural traditions, languages, rites, rituals, customs and ethnicities, it is hardly possible to apply a uniform rule for them all.

The largest democracy in the world has much to offer to the world at large, and the world fraternity of nations sees a point in her unique position. It is difficult to find a country in the world, which has so diverse and unique cultural traditions and languages as India. In fact, it is proper to say that India is a federation of nations, just as the United States is. Each of India’s states could be larger in size and population than many of the European countries, and yet poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and underdevelopment plague the nation as a whole.

What has the nation achieved over the sixty years, since it was declared a republic? Has the country realized some of the great dreams and ideals that the freedom-fighters and countless martyrs envisaged in 1950? If the country has not achieved the basic level of satisfaction, what are the causes and what has been done to remedy the blocks and obstacles? There are more questions today than there are answers as one looks at this emerging super-power! No wonder, India had been basking on past glory, the ancient civilization, multiplicity of cultures and religions, and had not concentrated on some of the basic problems existing still today. After the independence in 1947, the nation had given birth to a class of people who made use of ignorance and illiteracy for their benefits, and unfortunately the nation is a pawn in their hands even today.

There have been so many Five-year plans declared and huge amount of money had been pumped to remedy the crying needs of the people. India has the resources, which can even feed the whole world, but a large amount of the Indian resources are locked up in banks outside the country, especially in Swiss banks, and in investments outside the country. We had known only one Mittal (a proud Kolkata Xaverian), who had pitched his tent in Luxembourg, to rule over the largest steel manufacturing unit in the world; but there are many who had been quietly going about in Europe, selling the nation to the highest bidders, in the name of bringing foreign investments and exchange. We may never come to know about them, but it is good for us to know that there is a big hole in our purse.

Abraham Lincoln is famed to have said, ask not what the country has done to you, ask what you have done to the country, and it is time that every literate and conscientious Indian ask himself/herself, what s/he has contributed to the growth of this republic! What we need today is not great leaders, who can show the way; we need public opinion, which can build bridges between the rural and the urban, between the literates and the illiterates, between the poor and the rich, between the haves and the have-nots. It does not cost a lot to become part of a nation-building; it is primarily a matter of attitude, which may lead to realistic action. If every Indian thinks at least on this day for the nation, what s/he has to offer to the nation, India can truly be proud to be a ‘great tradition’.