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To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 20:26:10
+0530Subject: Re: [WaterWatch] Re: After Tryst with destiny
I guess there is so much optimism and positive thinking in our ruling class
that correct(fair) criticism is termed as pessimism and negative thinking. No
denying that we have made a lot of progress in many areas yet we are unable to
equitably enjoy the fruits of this progress.
It is only our abiding faith in the existence of a higher power that provides
us the patience to bear with all the ills in our society with fortitude.There
is also no denying that other societies/ countries are also plagued with bigger
ills but what is hurting us is that only manipulators and law breakers are
having a ball here without the slightest fear of exposure and punishment. Let
us hope 'wah subah kabhi to ayegi'.
Piyush C.Sharma
----- Original Message -----
From: rohit pathania
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 7:07 PM
Subject: [WaterWatch] Re: After Tryst with destiny
It would be unfair to highlight what we have failed ourselves at over the last
60 years without looking at what we have managed to achieve. Optimism is the
key to success, because only then would we be able to accomplish what we set
out to do. Correct criticism, and not criticism for the sake of it, is what
will help us stay on the right track. The fact that we all sit and write
conflicting opinions without any personal animosity is one out of the long list
of achievements despite all that we have faced from within and abroad. The
biggest fight though is still corruption, illiteracy, poverty, pessimism and
casteist and communalist tendencies, which intervenes at every level of our
thought process, our personalities and our socieites, making them rot.
Infringement of human rights is not helping us either, and so is not guraded
and pseudo-secularist policies, if one could use the phrase. We should be free
to express ourselves, without fearing 'hurting' anyone's sentiments. We need to
push for democratic reforms, and find ways so that those who are popular come
forward, and we should, at the very least, encourage young and enthusiastic
people of all schools of thought and belief to come forward in every sphere of
life so that they can together take the country forward.
On 9/4/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
After 'Tryst with destiny'Unending wait for new dawnNEHRU'S "tryst with
destiny" suggested that India would wake up to anew dawn. The country has made
substantial material progress sincethat fateful and historic day 60 years ago.
But the freedom struggle had other goals as well. Countless people "sacrificed
their today fora better tomorrow for us". Have we achieved that better today?
Wasthere not a different vision than the one we have worked for? Doubts arise
not only because mass poverty persists, illiteracy is rampant and insanitary
conditions and ill health continue to take aheavy toll but because we hardly
have a vision left except to followthe West and in the process we have perhaps
got the worst of both worlds. In material terms, a few, numbering less than 3
per cent of thepopulation, have done well while the rest are trapped in a
low-levelequilibrium. We boast of more billionaires than Japan while in termsof
per capita income we are in the bottom 20 out of 177 nations. The former then
is a reflection of terrible inequity and nothing to gloatabout. The largest
number of people below the poverty line, farmerssuicides, huge urban slums,
fields in and around cities functioning asvast toilets, the inability of the
so-called literates to understandmodern technology, etc, suggest that the
nation as a whole has yet towake up to a new morning. In a 1958 movie, "Phir
Subaha Hogi," Mukesh singing with pathos, "Woh subaha kabhi to ayegi" (That
morning will come some time), epitomisedthe dream of the common Indian of the
fifties and the sixties. Many ofus as children internalised the idea that we
will build a betterfuture for all our countrymen and, perhaps, we would build a
new civilization that would surpass the West. Sixty years afterIndependence the
shreds of this dream are not even left in thedustbins of those in power and
supposedly guiding the destiny of thisnation. That dream has been blown away in
the hurricane of achieving 9 per cent growth. The song is not just about
eliminating poverty, hunger, ill health andilliteracy but about a dream of
building a different society �" apeaceful one where everyone (specially the
marginalised) would live with dignity, Gandhi's "Last Person First". The song
defines thathappy morning as "Jab ambar jhum ke nachega, Jab dharti naghme
gayegi"(when the sky would dance with joy and the earth would sing songs).
Today, at our low per capita consumption, the air, water and land are terribly
polluted and weeping rather than singing and dancing. Themost revered Ganga or
the Godavari are heavily polluted, their bedscontaminated with huge amounts of
toxic material that would affect thefuture generations. Even the sacred is no
more sacred. So, what is sacrosanct? The song goes, "Jab dukh ke badal
pighlenge" (when the clouds ofsorrow will melt). "Insano ki izzat jab jhoote
sikkon me na tolijayegi" (when people's dignity would not be measured by false
money). "Mana ki abhi tere-mere armano ki qeemat kuch bhi nahin" (agreed
thattoday our dreams have no value). But their was belief, one day thiswould
change. For the vast numbers of the marginalised sections,sorrow is a daily and
endless fare that is not melting away. Dozens of their children can disappear
in Nithari and little is done. The only escape is what Bollywood dishes out �"
sex and violence. Thegovernment provides little relief since it fails to
deliver. Faith inpoliticians is a casualty. The dignity of the poor is even
more firmly mortgaged to money when unemployment is so high and the youth have
totake to crime to fulfil their expectations. The dreams of the deprived have
no value to the rulers who in theirself-centredness can only see in them the
means to fulfil their own narrow dreams of great riches, like, in the
misallocation of landmeant for the poor displaced slum-dwellers. Today labour
is devalued while speculation and greed have been raisedto a new high pedestal.
A mere 1 per cent of the population linked to the corporate sector earns more
than what 60 per cent, dependent onagriculture do. Disparities have risen more
sharply in the last sixyears than in the earlier 54 years. The young are
encouraged to sellsoap but not to contribute to nation-building through
teaching and research. Sacrifice appears to be stupidity, undermining the
entireeffort of the freedom fighters. Those of them who still surviveruefully
ask: is this what they fought for? The 3 per cent, the ruling elite of the
nation, aspire to join the international elite, sending their children to study
in collegeabroad, going there for vacations or to hospitals for health
problems.It is voting with its feet. A school in Chappra or a dispensary
inGhungrawali has little value to it, but Delhi must have 24 hours water and
electricity. That is progress. The emotional attachment to thenation is gone.
Corruption is rampant both in the public and private sectors.Institutions, like
the legislature, the judiciary and the bureaucracy, are breaking down. The
elite is lawless, breaking every single law �"from traffic laws to building
bylaws to industrial and environmentallaws. Many of the rich have earned more
through illegal means thanlegal ones. Political leaders hardly represent the
people �" leading a life ofluxury. Democracy is a great institution, but in
India it has beenturned into a fine art for self-aggrandisement. The bankruptcy
of our leadership led to our jettisoning the ideas of independent developmentin
the eighties and of the "last person first" in the nineties. The land of Gandhi
has turned into the land of the Bania (not that hewas not a Bania). The credit
for this goes to the very party which Gandhi built. Clever ones would
shamelessly argue, even Gandhi wouldhave done the same in the present context.
Would they consider that aman given to simplicity, sacrifice and truth and not
show, half truthsand consumerism would have blanched at this suggestion? From
the notion that the ills of our society have a social cause tothe idea that the
individual is to blame for its predicament, it is along journey. Everyone has
now to go to the market to get what he or she needs, the government is no more
responsible for the eliminationof poverty, etc. The devil may take the
hindmost. Nations are built on dreams, but we have narrowed it to
money-making.So, how do we build a great nation as Nehru's "tryst" suggested or
to which Mukesh referred to in the song, "Jis subaha ki khatir yug yug seham
sab mar mar ke jite aiyen hain" (That morning for whose sake fromeons we all
have been living by dying a thousand deaths). Gandhi had a dream for the nation
that the party he helped build has shattered. He perhaps saw what was coming,
so he wanted the party to dissolveitself so that this farce would not have
occurred. He wantedRashtrapati Bhavan to be converted into a hospital not
because that would have been functional but because that would have given birth
tomany more dreams rather than converting the freedom fighters intorulers in
the imperial mould. So, sixty years down the road, we are still waiting for
that new dawn in the midst of 9 per cent growth. Mukesh would have to sing,
"Wohsubaha abhi to nahin ayegi". by Arun KumarThe Tribune, August 29, [EMAIL
PROTECTED]
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