Building the nation will always require sacrifice at the collective and individual levels. This is particularly so at present, when the ongoing attempts at reforms are impacting every section of society. The usual ‘revolutionary’ objective is to ‘take’ power away from another and its attendant benefits. However, the ‘revolution’ that Indian’s voted for when they brought Narendra Modi to power has required structural changes, the dismantling and rebuilding of a system that everybody was tapped into one way or another.
The renewed debate in the present with the INDI Alliance, particularly the Congress under Rahul Gandhi, seeking to revive the socialist model of the past, brings focus again on the necessity for a mindset change. Those who had built and benefited most from the socialist system have been impacted the most, but it is also a truth that – even for mere survival – almost everybody except genuine ascetics had to live with it. There will be some who will find it easier to reattach with the new system, while others will require major reorientation.
Everybody agrees that the ‘socialist’ economic model initiated by Nehru was successful only till the time it was operated by honest, gifted, upstanding and patriotic persons. From the time politicians and bureaucrats began feeding off the system instead of building it up, it became the fount of corruption. From Indira Gandhi’s time to the UPA years, this cancer reached the point where it had almost destroyed the host. It was only the robustness of the Constitution and the strength of certain institutions that allowed the nation to even survive.
Now, however, the nation cannot drag on the way it did in the Manmohan years. Economic growth that creates opportunities for employment is an absolute imperative. There are many who claim a theoretical understanding of how this can be done, and debate endlessly on the subject, but it was Narendra Modi who was given the task at a crucial juncture. He may try and make the process as painless as possible, but the smart people should prepare themselves for change.
‘First world problems’ cannot become the criteria for what is possible and what is not. The infrastructure, for instance, has to be built for the good of all, and special interest groups, particularly those rooted in the West, cannot exercise a special veto. The sad fact is that these groups have specialised in speaking on behalf of ‘disadvantaged’ sections such as tribals and farmers, who are otherwise unrepresented. The only way they can participate in the process is through elections, which is when caste and community issues are brought to the fore. It is for the first time, perhaps, that ‘development’ has prevailed over all these factors, but few seem to have the stomach for what the process involves.
There is a section of society that has a greater stake in development than others and that is the youth. Many of them remain convinced about Modi’s good intentions but may otherwise remain non-political. This is the crucial time when they must bring their clout to bear on the peddlers of influence by making their opinion known (and their purchasing power felt). Otherwise, they too might become one of the ‘lost generations’ that ‘socialism’ consigned to irrelevance. Worse, they may see a meltdown of the kind being witnessed in so many parts of the world, instigated by forces inimical to liberalism and democracy.
