
By Justice Markandey Katju–
(Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge, Supreme Court of India, and former Chairman of Press Council of India. The views expressed are his own)
With our huge pool of technical talent and immense natural resources India (in which I include Pakistan and Bangladesh, for we are really one country, only artificially and temporarily divided) should be today a mighty industrial giant, like the US or China, with our people enjoying a standard of living equal, if not higher than most of the developed nations in the world.
But the reality is that, despite all tall claims of being the fastest growing economy and the ‘Vishwa guru‘, we have massive poverty, massive unemployment, appalling level of child malnutrition (every second child in India is malnourished according to Global Hunger Index), skyrocketing inflation, an almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for our masses, etc.
A great nation with a known history of 5000 years, which had built mighty civilizations at a time when most Europeans (except in Greece and Rome) were living in forests, which had made outstanding contributions in science (e.g. the decimal system in mathematics, plastic surgery in medicine, etc), literature, philosophy, etc, which at one time had 25-30% of the world’s wealth and trade, is today lying in the grip of massive poverty, unemployment, malnutrition. lack of proper healthcare and good education, religious and caste conflicts, etc.
How could such a catastrophe happen, and what is the way out?
To my mind the reasons are:
(1) We are disunited, and
(2) Our masses have feudal mindsets, mostly being casteist and communal
To make our country great again, we must unite, and our masses must develop scientific and rational mindsets.
When hundreds of millions of Indians rise unitedly like a typhoon or tornado, it will be a force so powerful and so swift that no power on earth can resist it.
By unite, I do not mean giving up one’s own religion, language, or customs. We prospered under the Mughals, and before that under Emperor Ashoka, although our people had different religions, languages, etc.
Under Mughal rule India had 25% of the world’s GDP and 25% of the world’s trade, and Indians were perhaps the most prosperous people in the world.
The nefarious British policy of divide and rule culminated in the greatest tragedy in our long history: the Partition of India in 1947 on the basis of the bogus two-nation theory. Even thereafter, we are disunited, fighting each other on the basis of religion, caste or race. Pakistan declared itself an Islamic state, thereby making its minorities second class citizens.
India had declared itself a secular country under its Constitution, but it has today become a de facto Hindu state, with many atrocities on its Muslim and Christian minorities taking place. We waste our precious resources and energy in hostility with each other.
When Napoleon conquered and subjugated the German states, and Germans were lying distraught, dejected and downcast, the German philosopher Fichte (1762-1814) wondered about the cause of such a terrible calamity. He found the answer in the lack of unity and patriotism among the German people. In his famous ‘Addresses to the German Nation’ delivered in Berlin in 1807-8, Fichte explained to the German people what they were, and that German unity and patriotism was absolutely necessary for them to get out of their distress and predicament.
Similarly, unity and patriotism is absolutely necessary if India is to rise again, and this does not mean Hindu patriotism (which is propagated by some bigoted people today) but Indian patriotism, which means a burning desire among our people to abolish the curse of poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, lack of healthcare and good education, casteism and communalism, and to develop the scientific temper.
We must have patriotic, selfless, secular, modern minded leaders who are determined to rapidly modernize and industrialise the country, and raise the standard of living of our people, and give them decent lives. Also, to progress rapidly it is absolutely necessary that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (which are really one nation, sharing the same culture) must reunite under a secular, modern minded leadership.
We must see through the game of the developed nations who do not want us to be united and developed, as that will affect their economic interests. How will this be achieved, and when, one cannot say. But I am confident it will happen one day, though it will require a long, arduous struggle and tremendous sacrifices. A mighty historical endeavor and travail is ahead of us.