75years of independence where we were in 1947 and where we are now essay 200 words
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There is a cliched expression about not driving with one’s eyes on the rear-view mirror. But as we celebrate our 75th Independence Day, we should not only look back in anger at what we have not accomplished, but also with wonder at what we have. Contrary to what Winston Churchill is supposed to have said (there is no evidence he actually said it) about rascals, rogues, freebooters, anarchy and internecine warfare, India has survived and prospered—politically, socially and economically. Even if one forgets Winston Churchill, many people read Paul Ehrlich’s neo-Malthusian The Population Bomb (1968) at the time, as they did William and Paul Paddock’s Famine 1975 (1967). People confidently predict the future, though history is replete with examples of supposed “experts” who have gone hopelessly wrong. Decades later, there are still people who would like India to splinter amidst chaos and anarchy, as Ehrlich expected India to do, over food riots and famine.
August 15, 1947, seems like a long time ago. It indeed was. Seven-and-half decades is a long period of time, though it is but a fleeting moment in the history of nations. The world was different then. India was different then. The Indian economy was different then. Minoo Masani (1905-98) is all but forgotten now. In his day, he was an influential thinker, politician and parliamentarian. In 1940, he published a slim book directed at children, titled Our India. It was socialist in tone and had views Minoo Masani would change in his later years. In the preface to this book, he said, “Statistics of Indian life are so scanty and scrappy that reliance on them is bound to endanger one’s conclusions.” Indeed, data and statistics were scanty and scrappy in 1940. Proper statistical systems started to evolve in the 1950s. These days, if one wants official data, one often resorts to Economic Survey. There was nothing quite akin to Economic Survey then, apart from data being non-existent. Even after Independence in 1947, and the enactment of the Constitution in 1950, for more than a decade, there was no Economic Survey in the sense we understand it now. Publishing Economic Survey is not a Constitutional requirement. It is published because of an executive decision and because it has now become established precedence. As the seed of what would eventually become Economic Survey, a “White Paper” started to be included in the Budget papers from 1950-51. If one reads the first White Paper, included in the Budget papers for 1950-51, there is nothing on what is called human development indicators today.