INdIAN dEMOCrACy AT 70, SuCCESS ANd fAIlurE 50:50
This 15 August India will be celebrating the 71st Independence Day. Ask eminent historian Ramachandra Guha to describe the journey since 1947 and he says, “Indian democracy today stands at 50:50 success and failure ratio.” He is happy that India has defied the “western doomsayers”, who had predicted its breakup in several pieces because of its diverse cultures, religious multiplicity and multi-ethnicities. But bureaucracy has become a hostage to the political masters. Recently, Guha was in Jammu to read out “The Report Card of India at 70” while delivering the Balraj Puri lecture. He focused on the progress through four determining factors—political, cultural, religious and economic democracies. Appreciating the progress made on the political front, “from universal franchise to self-assertion” by the weaker sections like the Dalits and women, Guha regretted that “the legislative institutions have developed dysfunctional and the bureaucracy has allowed itself to become a hostage to the political masters”. “India has progressed in the linguistic multiplicity and has rightly discarded one-language disaster,” points out Guha. In his opinion, the imposition of Urdu in Pakistan had resulted in Islamabad losing East Pakistan, where Bengalis wanted to speak their own language. “If a similar thing would have been done in India,” he says, “the nation would have broken into 22 pieces.” Guha also says that nationalism and patriotism have been made “indistinguishable”. Minorities are at the receiving end during riots and now aggressive and violent “cow protectors” have increased their fears.