Basant Rawat
AHMEDABAD –Make no mistake. We live in a ‘New India’ – a brand new India led by bulldozer-brand politics. Citizens are supposed to be equal stake holders in a ‘secular democratic republic’ and so should be proud to be associated with everything that this New India stands for.
If not, they might find themselves on the wrong side and branded a disruptor, an urban naxal, or an intellectual. A non-pliant, thinking citizen doesn’t qualify to be a proud nationalist. S/he is not even a good citizen and a fit case to be in jail alongside activists, academics and journalists.
A few decades ago, this would be called an emergency situation. No more.
Welcome to New India. You are barely a few steps or a few months/years away from the ‘Dream Project’ conceived by those at the helm of affairs. It is both an exciting and anxiety-filled time to be alive in India today.
We have come a long way from 1947 when India had a population of 34 crore and its literacy level was pegged around 12 per cent. The GDP was a mere Rs 2.7 lakh crore accounting for a paltry 3 per cent of the world’s total GDP.
Over the last seven decades or so, the population rose to nearly 140 crore, and the literacy rate progressed to 74.37 percent as of 2018, with a real GDP of Rs 147.79 lakh crore accounting for 7.74 per cent of global GDP – quite a remarkable achievement,
Alongside education, healthcare and overall economic development, we also made our mark in widening the social and economic fault lines, a collateral damage that needs to be endured.
One may like or dislike it, but this project was in the making for decades, in fact for nearly a century. Its blueprint carries the ‘ideological’ stamp of Nagpur, and is unlike the ‘concrete’ imprints left behind by Lutyens and Corbusier, or the Mughals in the old fabled capital cities of bygone empires. They will soon be making way for a Central vista or reduced to rubble by bulldozers.
It will be a dream come true for the followers of the Nagpur brand of nationalism, a ‘mirror revenge’ on our much-hated twin nation who chose to separate before Independence.
All this thanks to the dreamer and drum beater at the helm of affairs. If you like you may call him the architect or modern maker of this New India. His face –very photogenic indeed – is everywhere and majority Indians, including himself, love it.
Some may call it a mockery of Indian democracy. “Colonial laws are being used to put people behind bars,” opined Nobel laureate Amartya Sen from the original seat of British Empire in Kolkata recently.
Intellectuals like him may call colonial laws archaic, but they do come handy in dealing with dissent in a modern democracy. They act like fuel to keep the bulldozers going and are easy to justify with a statement like ‘rule of law must prevail.’
For years, we never got tired of trumpeting ourselves as the “world’s largest democracy” where the rule of law persists unlike our neighboring states.
India remains a functioning democracy no matter how, even if she keeps falling in the world rankings on democracy, freedom of speech, protection of human rights and equality, happiness index etc.
Don’t worry too much, keep celebrating “India’s biggest success and achievement of becoming an open defecation free country” as did our non-resident brothers and sisters in Germany recently.
The Europeans and north Americans dare not laugh at us for we’re the masters at running their back offices.
And besides being the world’s largest democracy, we are now ruled by the world’s largest political party, which ensures nobody from the country’s 25 crore Muslims get elected to the parliament on its ticket – a feat some French and Dutch political parties would like to replicate.
Remember, our ruling party remains inclusive with its slogan Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas aur Sabka Vishwas (Everyone’s support, everyone’s development and everyone’s trust).
This may sound as hypocrisy, but not according to the New Nagpur Dictionary, which lays great emphasis on samajik samrasta, requiring everyone to follow his shown path toward social dignity to ultimately achieve social harmony in the vast country.
It’s due to such ideological changes that India has today become a bright spot on the global map.
Let the disruptors, urban naxals and intellectuals keep crying themselves hoarse about gender, communal and caste violence, increasing fanaticism and toxicity in society. Let them talk about the need for reconciliation and peace, eradicating illiteracy, poverty and malnutrition deaths, the nation must remain steadfast on its real goals, until they’re achieved.
Hoping for a square meal is too small a dream for such a big nation. We have the potential to achieve far greater things, like a place among the G7, or better still, NATO.
Feeding, clothing and housing its citizens are best served as an optical illusion, giving people the false hope of empowerment while politicians desire to be filled with the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table.
That is the true ‘Gujarat Model’ of development, which has led the ruling party to achieve electoral success in successive elections. It promises ‘acche din’ to its ever increasing tally of voters.
Any ‘bhakt’ (devotee) worth his salt will tell you that prices of petrol, diesel, cooking gas cylinders may have gone up but corruption has ended. Similarly, religious strife and caste-hatred may be on the increase but the corporate and political class has certainly and happily come closer.
You must believe all this, and never utter the word ‘crony capitalism,’ lest you be treated as a non-pliant, thinking citizen. This will ultimately result in you being isolated from the rest, inside a jail or otherwise, and can never hope for a ticket to the journey of somebody else’s dream that India is headed toward in the near future.
Remember, social, cultural and economic ghettoisation is just the beginning…there is bound to be a lot of distrust, tensions and conflicts. Wait until all those who oppose the ultimate dream get swallowed up in this, India’s real ‘tryst with destiny.’
As we move forward, we must not be embarrassed to make the reverse journey. There is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, every true Indian must feel proud about it.
Unlimited hope and patience is the key to this dream project that took root shape in 1925, of reshaping Indian democracy into a new, but also very ancient, republic of Hindutva.
P.S.: Nagpur ideologues are never responsible for the actions of their foot soldiers, whether inside Birla House or Parliament building.
Basant Rawat is a veteran journalist based in Ahmedabad.
Very good piece. It shows all the dark clouds bound to be gloomy as well!