essay on India tomorrow
Answers
Answer:
Sixty five years had rolled over since India got her Independence! Yet, where do we Indians stand in the global arena? This essay reflects the pale image of reality.
“We have saved Gandhiji for over 30 years although he staged many protests against us. But it is a disgrace that you people (Indians) could not save him for more than 3 months!” pointed out Winston Churchill after Mahatma was assassinated on the 30th January, 1948, three and half months after Freedom!
First, the partition of Pakistan from India triggered of the Ghetto disturbances. It raged on for many days. But Mahatma’s ‘Fast unto death,” brought the communal clashes to a grinding halt. What followed thereafter was a total disgrace: assassination of Mahatma!
India’s economy at that time was in jeopardy. Unemployment problem, oppression of women, child marriage, poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, starvation, lack of medical facilities – while all these posed the problem, there was this natural calamity, flood, fire, drought, lack of water – all these haunted the innocent people, then.
United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) report appeared before said, that 10,000 children in India die due to malnutrition and lack of medical aid. How shameful! More observation reveals that there are 360 million people live below poverty line (BPL) and 360 million are illiterate! And what is more glaring is that, there exist about 300,000 child prostitutes, mostly in Northern and Western parts of India and that India had been branded as the ‘Sex tourism destination!’
To find a solution for all these, Five Year Plan was implemented in 1951. It surged the nation at snail’s pace. Since then, many Five Year Plans were made. Population increased steadily. More government and private sectors emerged. Transport, communication, irrigation, electricity for every nook and cranny, tractors for tilling and so many advancements were made.
Meanwhile, the war with China in 1962 crippled our growth. When it started to limping, two more wars with Pakistan in 1965 & 1971, once again dented Indian economy. More political parties were floated.
But thanks to the father of green revolution, M S Swaminathan who made miracle in food processing and India attained self-sufficiency. So did Dr. Varghese Kurien, founder of white revolution in milk production. (These two achievements were made by individual Indians and not politicians!)
Today India has improved dramatically and drastically. Nuclear energy, IT, 5 Star hospitals and hotels, more MNCs doing business here, ISRO, defence, equal rights for women, quota system for underprivileged, stressing total integration, TV, mobile phones, computer, internet, metro rail, aviation, education loans, more schools and colleges, thus the improvement is immense.
Tomorrow what will India be? Will it grow into a superpower or remain stagnant? Will the government come forward with a good proposal for all problems? What India would be tomorrow depends on what India government is going to do today!
Explanation:
From one of the poorest countries in the world with a highly regulated business regime, we seem to be freeing ourselves from the shackles and become a forward looking, growth oriented economy. Poverty is decreasing but, but at a speed that is far insufficient. We need to bring depth to our reforms process so that it seeps to the poor man in terms of education, jobs, and an increase in per capita income, etc.
Some of the things which we have make us a great country - a vibrant democracy, flexibility, religious tolerance, youthful demography (versus some other countries that are baby boomers), and a great desire to succeed. What we still lack is the combined vision on several fronts including infrastructure, anti-corruption drive, and competitive positioning. Be it water, electricity, roads, ports, or airports we need several times improvement over what we have. Corruption is absolutely undesirable but it is everywhere in the world. What we need to follow is the Singapore Model that has ‘zero tolerance’ for corruption so that it is no longer institutionalized and the country gains some respect in global markets. On the competitive positioning, I personally find that India is much more expensive in everything except labor at the quality parity and we need to work hard to change this situation.
One of the ways to expand job opportunities to the poorest is the growth of sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, and fisheries. Unfortunately we have not done so well in this area, compared to countries like China. Without the infrastructure basics like roads and ports, even if you have world-class manufacturing or farming, it is not going to be possible to have the goods reach at the right time at the right place. Global markets are too tough and there is no scope for error. But the growth rate of infrastructure in India is still dismal.
I remember the days when the telecom minister used to take pride in the fact that India had the lowest density of phones because it was not possible to provide phones to crores of people and waiting lists used to be years long. After privatizing, India became one of the fastest growing markets and it has created hundreds of thousands of jobs, lots of wealth, as well as opportunities in ancillary industries. We should ask the same minister, how is it possible now to give a phone connection to anyone who wants it in just 2 hours instead of years of begging with telecom department? Same thing holds good for electricity, water, roads, airports, and ports as there is a desire to pay for quality and there is huge need for the same. But the regulatory regime still slows everything down in spite of the ‘so called reforms’.
I have been to over 40 countries and one of the important worries I have is that India is getting too expensive for comparable quality of goods, to the exception of labor. I can find an equivalent hotel in London or Tokyo cheaper than it is in Delhi or Bangalore, and so on. The cost of a lunch in a hygienic restaurant here exceeds that of a lunch in a similar restaurant in the developed world. Cost of hiring a car (obviously with a driver as you can’t drive yourself due to the poor infrastructure conditions) can be much higher than that in the U.S. In the competitive countries’ ranking we continue to be in the bottom ten, being less competitive from cost-productivity stand point. Our government and businesses need to take cognizance of the same and work on it to change the situation.
Anywhere in the world, Indians stand out as exceptional people with their intelligence and work ethics. We just need to work on some of the things at our end to make India one of the most competitive and powerful forces in the world. Eradicating poverty to a considerable extent and removing the stigma of ‘corruption’ are important.
I believe that our increasing middle class population and its spending power could be a boon to the country rather than a curse if the Government truly provides good governance and improves some of the things that I just talked about.
In spite of having lived outside of India for 12 years, I take a lot of pride in being an Indian and my pride continues to increase every moment.