India @ 74 - Aspirations of a liberalization kid (or Uncle ;)!!

 I have absolutely no memory of 1991 or 1992. These 2 years are very significant in the modern History of India. First, in the month of June 1991, Manmohan Singh presented a historic budget, that made simply put writing of this blog possible. The 40 year old tryst of India with socialism came to an end in several sectors and we tasted the benefits of an open market for the first time. On December 6th, 1992 a 400 year old Mosque was brought down in Ayodhya that strengthened the nationalist movement that has lead to dominance of Narendra Modi in Indian Polity. Both these events have greatly influenced where we are as a country. 

India, the country is one of the most unique experiments in the history of mankind. A group of more than 500 different independent entities we clubbed together to form a country that does not have a common language and more importantly, a shared identity. Still this country has against all odds and to the chagrin of many soothsayers is celebrating its 75th birthday. When I joined NIT Trichy in 2006, I got a first taste of this diversity. In my class of about 40 chemical engineering students we could at least speak 20 + languages and have 20+ identities. Over my 4 years at that institution, my perceptions and ideology underwent a gradual change which taught me the value of questing.  I cannot think of any other place with such diversity other than Indian parliament maybe, an institution which embodies the spirit of questioning. My understanding gained a complete different perspective when I moved out of India. Back in 2012 while searching a for a food, (Malabar Parota) it was ironic, that I found it first in a srilankan store than Indian store; My Indian colleague talking in hindi (from punjab) with my Pakistani colleague and in English with me, while I talked in Tamil with my a client from UK(orginally from Sri Lanka) and in English with many of my Indian colleagues. (phew!! I once tried to explain it to my friends from west and lets say, it was super fun ;) ) There is a fundamental question - What makes me Indian? My birth or religion or something else? I have no clue. 

India's First Cabinet (Courtesy: Wikipedia)

Talking of Indian Parliament, here is a picture of the first Indian Cabinet. This is as a very diverse group of people who could come together. Among the people who are sitting, the Left most person is B.R.Ambedkar (Ideologically "the most left leaning" personality in the cabinet) and person in the right most is Shyama Prasad Mukerjee (Ideologically "most right leaning" personality) with Nehru just left of Center and Sadar Patel right of center. In spite of their divergent personal ideologies this league of Extraordinary gentlemen, came together with a single motive of laying a strong foundation for a very young nation ravaged by partition and mourning the death of a unifying figurehead in Gandhi, for generations to come.  

While I am incredibly proud of what India has achieved in these 74 years, I am equally afraid of what holds for us in the future. In this, I want to document what my personal hopes are for our country and us Indians: As I have taken up listening to podcasts, I have tried to add certain episodes of podcasts relevant to each of the points. 

1) We take sustainability and the fight against energy transition seriously: Climate change is one of the biggest challenges in the coming couple of decades. India, can and should play a big role in this fight. Still majority of the energy we use come from coal and imported crude oil and have a fifth of the population almost no access to energy.  We have the almost impossible task of marrying poverty elevation and moving to greener forms of energy. According to the latest IPCC projections, India could face the worst of the climate change. (The Energy Gang's Podcast on latest IPCC report , The Filter koffee podcast with Karthik Ganesan)

2) We develop a scientific aptitude: Funnily enough, for the country the produces the highest amount of the world's engineers, we can hardly call ourselves a technology hub. I really wish this changes in the next couple of decades. (Pragathi podcast about Scientific Communication)

3) We can achieve this unique feature of technological brilliance, if a good portion of our population have an incentive to have an entrepreneurial spirit or we need to embrace a free market economy in its truest sense. India has never had a true economically liberal government. Be it the 1991 one or the 1999 one. Sadly we mix the corny capitalism and free market. (The Seen and Unseen Podcast with Shruti Rajagopalan about the 1991 Project - Easily my favorite podcast)

4) Minimalism is a concept that is gaining lot of popularity. I really hope we have a minimalist government. The three sectors where government is definitely needed is education, heath care and defense. Government should function as mediator for the society to flourish and make sure the benefits of economic prosperity reaches those who needed it the most. (Puliyabaazi podcast about Indian State Capacity - A hindi pocast)

5) Talking of minimalist government, I hope we have a truly federal structure in governance meaning we have a robust local government at the municipal or panchayat level. Our cities need to organically grow too.   A strong local government is also essential to have an inclusive growth. (Seen and Unseen Podcast on Urban Governance, Pragati podcast on Future of Indian States).

6)Economic prosperity would mean nothing if there is no social justice. Of all the aspirations I have, this is the most important one. India for too long has been an unequal society, where a certain group of people have always considered to be better than the rest. In our development story we have left behind a large chunk of population behind. B.R. Ambedkar and Gandhi had completely different outlooks on social equality. Personally I have no clue who is right and what is the the right way to bring about a society which is socially just. Sadly reservation is the only tool we have at this moment to tackle this problem. Its like taking a wooden sword to a gun fight. I am personally most afraid of this aspect of our future and not even sure what the solution is.  (Ideas of India Podcast with Amrithya Lahri And Shruthi Rajagopalan , Puliyabaazi - Ambedkar on Caste Part 1 and Part 2)

7) To make sure we have the right economics and governance, our institutions must be strong, transparent and accountable. Our institutions include, courts,  investigative organizations, our media, academic institutions, ISRO, CSIR labs etc. Sad reality is that, these organizations have absolutely no accountability or data transparency. Let us take ICMR for example. On 20th April, ICMR came out with the following table:

Countesy, https://rukminiwrites.medium.com/episode-116-variants-and-vaccines-part-i-72c72af05918

If I use this kind of a graph either in my work or during my studies, lets say most of my stakeholders would be pissed off. Just to give context, on April 19th, we had done 12.7 crore injections (Thanks to the data from the wonderful https://www.covid19india.org/) of which only 9.5 crore unique individuals had a vaccine. Now, if we look at this data, the message it gives is fantastic. But if we understand how the system works, the number of positives will at least be 5 days old and this was the period when the shit was literally hitting the fan during the second wave. While I have lot of problems with the data itself, there was absolutely no scrutiny of ICMR when they published (or rather presented the table in their evening press conferences) this. Other than 1 solitary piece from the unbelievably patient and probably the only data journalist I know from India, Rukmini S, (Her piece here), we just accepted. In a well functioning democracy, we will have media and institutions which will ask tough questions. i we cannot ask ICMR, forget keeping our elected representatives accountable. Hey we just had a retired supreme court chief justice nominated to the Rajya Sabha with absolutely no opposition at all. ( Seen and Unseen Podcast with Nidhi Razdan , Pragati Podcast on Supreme Court  and many more)

8) Another important aspect of respecting our institutions, is understanding history. I  enjoy reading history and one the challenges is, not looking at the past from the present's prism. A source of huge personal frustration is how people from our history are painted black or white. We need to respect our past while we learn from it and not twist it to sow hatred in the hearts of people for political motive. I need to write a separate article on my understanding of history. ( I am gonna give a lot of episodes here, Rest is History Podcast on East India Company , Seen and Unseen Episode with Ram Guha - Taking Stock of the Republic, Understanding Gandhi, Seen and Unseen Episode on Early Indians with Tony Josef )

9)  A problem that going to hit us like a gathering storm is the future aging population. While we are reaping the benefit of a young productive nation, we will age in the next few decades. We need to plan for that future. (I dont have a good episode to link here, but its a personal opinion)

10)  I wish we take up sports more seriously which not only will make children healthier, but also help improve the overall fitness of the population. (State of Indian Sports - Seen and unseen podcast )

11) The last but not least, I really wish we wish all our diversity can have a healthy debate about our differences and have the opportunity to learn from each other, while being humble that however deep rooted our knowledge is, there is always room to improve. I spent the whole 4 years of my undergraduate studies wearing mainly a saffron dothi in the hostel, developing a very leftist view of the world, aspiring to go abroad for my studies while masquerading as a conservative.  Lets say, my ideas has metamorphized into something new, all thanks so some wonderful conversations. The debates between Gandhi and Ambedkar or Gandhi and Tagore are simply sensational. Most of those communications are published and would be worth our time to read and enjoy. ( Tagore vs Gandhi- Puliyabaazi episode )

For the sake of the world, the Indian experiment has to become a success. Quoting Krish Ashok, the quintessential Indian food is the Pav Baji, where almost all ingredients are borrowed from all over world and made into a unique dish that's very Indian. This is the closest I have come to answering the question of who is Indian.  I have not written anything for sometime now, but this is a topic that is close to my heart. As we grow older, we somehow become resistant to ideas that question our dogmas. But as a country we should do our best to avoid falling into this human fallacy.   When India celebrates its 100th or 150th birthday, lets hope we are an example in nurturing diversity, have equitable growth and is a frontrunner in technology.