Resurgent India, 1947 to 2020
Incipient nationalist movements are gradually gathering steam to reverse impacts of past setbacks.
India that is Bharat is an idea since time immemorial. It is much beyond mundane aspects; it’s a spiritual idea that seeks to realise knowledge—the ultimate truth. Bharat was the repository of all knowledge. Bharat gave the world the powerful concept of Dharma. Dharma means that which holds us together. In this strife-torn world, this universal concept can provide permanent peace and brotherhood among the peoples of the world.
NATIONALIST SPIRIT
We Hindus don’t believe in Revolution—for Revolution means a violent break from the past. It is a Western concept. We believe in Evolution. Evolution means cycles of rebirth—from lower truth to the higher truth. Our great nation has been striving to be reborn for more than a thousand years.
However, something was wanting in us which impeded India’s resurgence. According to Sri Aurobindo, those were Bhakti and Shakti. He identified these two aspects as the most important requirements for India’s resurgence. He says: “Bhakti is the leaping flame, Shakti is the fuel. If the fuel is scanty, how long can the fire endure?...india’s soul must become, as it was in the old times, like the surges, vast, puissant, calm or turbulent at will, an ocean of action or of force.”
Sri Aurobindo further explains our concept of the nation. “For, what is a nation? What is our mothercountry? It is not a piece of earth, nor a figure of speech, nor a fiction of the mind. It is a mighty Shakti, composed of the Shaktis of all the millions of units that make up the nation, just as Bhawani Mahisha Mardini sprang into being from the Shakti of all the millions of gods assembled in one mass of force and welded into unity. The Shakti we call India, Bhawani Bharati, is the living unity of the Shaktis” of 130 crore people. Drawing from these ideas, Deendayal-ji formulated the political ideology of Ekatma Manavavad (Integral Humanism).
The period of 1947 to 2020 is just a blip in the vast landscape of our history. Yet, it is an important period, since for the first time in our history after Shivaji’s glorious period, the incipient nationalist movements of this country are gradually gathering steam to reverse the impacts of the setbacks suffered in the past, which saw waves of conquests and slavery that weakened the enshrined cultural concepts which our civilisation upheld.
The effort for Resurgence of the idea of Bharat that is India was enshrined in political movement spearheaded by leaders like Gandhiji and Tilak for the liberation of the nation from British rule. For these nationalists, independence and resurgence were two sides of the same coin. Tilak wanted to build a nation that drew its strength from its inner spiritual resources and Hindu ideals. He says: “During the Vedic times India was a self-contained country. It was united as a great nation. That unity has disappeared bringing on us great degradation and it becomes the duty of the leaders to revive that union.” Hence, for the nationalists, the roadmap for the resurgence was clear and unambiguous. Swadeshi for them was much more than a political slogan aimed at achieving social, economic, cultural and spiritual resurgence.
However, unfortunately this period saw a major departure from the ideals that fuelled the fire of freedom movement. Our post-independence leaders deluded us into believing that some imported ideas would solve all our social, economic and political problems. Moreover, efforts were made to graft these ideas—socialism, secularism, communalism, liberalism and globalization, to name a few—into the national psyche, causing disastrous outcomes.
SOCIALISM
Kautilya’s Arthsastra acknowledges and emphasises the need of “labh”, profit for sustenance of a business enterprise. Profit, according to Indian Dharmasastras, is a legitimate return for taking risk in business. That means “higher the risk, higher the profit” was an accepted norm.
It is often said that India was the brightest jewel in the British crown. But when they left, it was one of the poorest in the world. For a nation whose economy was devastated by the British imperialists—india’s share of world income shrank from 22.6% in 1700 to 3.8% in 1952—their exit would have provided an opportunity to turn the clock back.
Although Britain left behind a de-industrialised India, with its people reeling under abject poverty and economic hopelessness, our rulers could have used it as an opportunity to build a formidable nation. On the other hand, Jawaharlal Nehru adopted the socialist model of economic governance, ignoring the advice of stalwarts like Sardar Patel and C. Rajagopalachari. Nehru once told India’s eminent industrialist J.R.D. Tata: “Jeh, profit is a dirty word.” Nehru was influenced by the Marxist view of profit as exploitation. During the socialist period between 1950 and 1990, successive governments delegitimized profit and brought dozens of industries under price control. Thus, socialist policies destroyed India’s industry. Prof. Donald R Davis, Jr says “Licence Raj” was an aberration to the generally liberal ethos of Indian history.
On the socialist pattern, India set up the Planning Commission in 1950 to oversee the entire range of planning, including resource allocation, implementation and appraisal of five-year plans. Many economists warned that the second five-year plan’s dependence on deficit financing to promote “heavy industrialisation” was inviting trouble. A year after the plan period began India faced an external payments crisis.
The Second Five-year Plan and the Industrial Policy Resolution 1956 paved the way for the development of the public sector and ushered in the licence Raj. This triggered growth of corruption in the country.
Nehru’s policy focusing on industrialization had adversely affected the agriculture sector. The agriculture outlay was nearly halved to 14% in the Second Plan. As a result, food shortages worsened, and inflation spiked. The government had no other option but to Import of food grains. This depleted precious foreign exchange reserves.
Nehru’s policies dealt a major blow to India’s economic growth. In 1962, taking advantage of India’s economic weaknesses and military unpreparedness, China attacked India. However, after the demise of Nehru, there was a rethinking in the Congress. After becoming Prime Minister in 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri made a departure from Centralised planning and price controls. He renewed focus on agriculture, accepted a larger role for private enterprise and foreign investment, and trimmed the erstwhile Planning Commission’s role. He successfully led India during the war with Pakistan.
India launched the Green Revolution to ensure food security. Following the success of the Green Revolution, Shastri turned his attention to the dairy sector, particularly the cooperative movement in Gujarat’s Anand, led by Verghese Kurien. He helped Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Ltd expand its work, ushering in the White Revolution. In the years that followed, the government’s Operation Flood led to a rapid increase in milk production. Self-sufficiency in the dairy sector was achieved entirely through the cooperative movement, which has spread to more than 12 million dairy farmers across the country. Decades later, Amul, the brand started by cooperative farmers in Anand, remains a market leader.
However, that departure was short-lived. Indira Gandhi, who succeeded Shastri, aggressively pursued the socialist model of economic governance. She nationalised banks and brought many industries under price control. Corruption touched new highs during this period. To please the Communists, the Indira Gandhi government included the words “Socialism” and “Secularism” in the Preamble of the Constitution.
Although India liberalized its economy, an earnest effort to include Swadeshi values in economic governance was initiated only during the NDA 1 led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The relentless campaigns by Swadeshi Jagaran Manch and other organisations played a major role. But overhauling the whole economic paradigm seemed impossible. However, the NDA government led by Narendra Modi has shown a genuine desire to make this happen. His campaigns to make India “Atmanirbhar” and “Vocal for Local” display the collective aspiration of a nation that wants to spread its wings and reclaim its position as the “Sone ki Chidiya” of the world.
INDIA’S EMERGENCE AS A ‘SOFT SUPERPOWER’
It cannot be disputed that during this period, India has achieved considerable progress in almost all fields, despite many policy missteps and lack of direction on the part of our rulers. India has emerged as a major player in the global arena going by material indicators as economic growth, military expansion or demographic evolution. Besides being a major economic power, India is globally acknowledged as a soft superpower, thanks to its culture, food, music, science and technology and films. Its Diaspora is the most successful ethnic group across the globe. It is an asset for diplomacy. Indians settled abroad assimilate easily with that country’s domestic culture and population. Indians spread across Fiji, Malaysia, Mauritius, South Africa and Trinidad have emerged as the most politically and economically successful group in those countries. In Western countries also, Indians have emerged as the most successful immigrant group. The educated Indianamerican community has played an important role in improving Indo-us relations by lobbying American politicians and by giving a positive image of India to the American public.
With China falling out of favour in the wake of the Covid pandemic, India has emerged as the most dynamic alternative to Western cultural values. India produces around 1,000 movies. Its movies are popular across the world. Yoga, Sanskrit and spirituality are some of India’s most powerful exports to the world.
Indian cuisines and its spices have earned a space in the hearts of people across the world through their stomachs. Recently, the Australian Prime Minister displayed his culinary skills by making samosas and tweeted its pictures tagging Indian Prime Minister.
India’s democracy is another aspect: while most other decolonised countries failed to sustain democracy, India has emerged as the largest democracy in the world. Its conduct of elections continues to surprise the world. It shows the resilience of Indians. The stability of India’s democracy over more than 60 years, especially in a neighbourhood rife with ethnic conflicts, has demonstrated that unity in diversity was possible in a democratic format and there could be an institutional alternative to Western political systems. While minorities are persecuted in neighbouring countries, India has given them more rights than the majority. India’s highly qualified professionals are leading major corporations in the world. Its own IT firms such as Infosys and Wipro, the achievements of other multinational companies such as the Tata Group and the Reliance Group; and the now global reputation of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) have contributed to the development of a new image of India as an economic powerhouse.
However, while the government of the day and the majority of people continue to promote its good image, a section of political parties, including the Left, are trying to damage India’s reputation. The Tukde-tukde gang, Islamists and Leftists try to create a discordant note in the national discourse. In this context, it is important for all Bharatvasis to do their bit to enhance the image of the country. Nandakumar is an RSS ideologue and All India Convenor of Prajna Pravah.