As I said yesterday, the plant must be learning
to coexist with the pests. How much better >the
plant would fare if the pests were eradicated!
That is a lovely metaphor and registers our noble wishes.
Unfortunately people, unlike NRAs or NRIs ,
cannot live off metaphors, no matter how
beautiful they are.
To know what I mean, read the forwarded 'Rising
Corruption,Black Money' that came into my mailbox
from the 'asom' list.
At 9:22 AM -0700 5/9/07, Dilip/Dil Deka wrote:
Content-Type: text/html
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by
mailin-02.elitehosts.com id l49GO7r2011579
From below - "Guha has recently published a
brilliant narrative on post-Independence India
India after Gandhi: The History of the Worlds
Largest Democracy. "
Has anyone read the book? Is it just a narrative
or does it have some analysis also?
The editorial below states the facts as they are
- there are flaws but India survives and makes
progress as a nation.
As I said yesterday, the plant must be learning
to coexist with the pests. How much better the
plant would fare if the pests were eradicated!
Dilip Deka
======================================================
From the Sentinel
EDITORIAL » »
Last updated : WEDNESDAY 9 MAY 2007
The Idea of India
Is the idea of India a failed one after about
60 years of Independence? It is difficult to
answer that. However, what is crystal clear is
that India has survived the crises of varied
hues, and in the wake of each crisis we have had
extraordinary lessons on the cardinality of
democracy and better ways to deal with the
aberrations therein. It is another matter that
the Indian political class, barring a few
exceptions, has failed the electorate in so many
ways; and yet, there has been a select class
indeed very small of heroes rescuing the same
set of people in the form of honest and upright
politicians and bureaucrats, learned judges,
pro-people activists and selfless workers. India
is deeply indebted to all of them. Therefore,
when eminent historian Ramachandra Guha says
that the defining feature of Indian
democracy is that it has gone from crisis to
crisis and somehow we have been able to contain
these crises, the very rationale is based on
the peculiarly Indian chapter of democratic
sustenance. Guha has recently published a
brilliant narrative on post-Independence India
India after Gandhi: The History of the Worlds
Largest Democracy. He talks of India as an
unlikely democracy when it started out as an
independent democratic nation because never
before had a democratic framework been grafted
on a society that is so large, poor,
illiterate. The fact that this unlikely
democracy has survived all along its tortuous
trajectory and is now a key global player, is
illustrative of the wonders that democracy can
work out, despite all aberrations, as also the
fact that there is no alternative to democracy
if the cause is that of a welfare state.
However, ours is not really a welfare state in
the true sense of the term. And in the glitter
of the near-double-digit growth rate, many of us
tend to overlook the dismal human development
index of the country. Many of us are oblivious
of the fact that the face of rural India which
is indeed Real India even now is still so
pale, and then there are attempts to disfigure
that very face. The success story of Indian
democracy will be authenticated only when Real
India is addressed to, and elevated, so that it
shines along with its happening urban
counterpart. And for all this to happen, one has
to ensure that the class of unscrupulous
politicians and bureaucrats is prevented from
committing fraud on the innocent people all the
time. An alert and active society can surely
ensure this. This apart, India is plagued by two
more serious problems. One is the ongoing
conflict between the Judiciary and the
Legislature or the Executive, with a panicky and
guilty political class giving it all a new name
judicial activism. The people of the country
must categorically assert that whenever the
elected representatives have failed them, it is
the Judiciary that has come to their rescue, and
exemplarily at that. And two, most of our
lawmakers have also excelled as classic
lawbreakers, thanks to criminalization of
politics, nay politicization of crime. It is now
up to the Election Commission of India to act as
an effective deterrent to the unholy trend of
criminals having to adorn Parliament and State
legislatures. At this stage the idea of India
needs a sustained flourish.
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