The impoverished population post partition of the two nations had one single agenda. To define the culture to be better than the other nation. Political parties at the time had the huge task of raising their countries from the poverty levels to sustain themselves. The initial prosperity post independence gave rise to a confidence to both nations.
The problem with both countries was whether to define the states as a right wing secular in the credentials of the majority or to opt for secular credentials. Pakistan chose a Muslim identity to ensure that the majority got their say. In retrospect, it appears to have been the most idiotic move on behalf of a smaller nation which could have been managed better given the lesser problems at the time. While India focused on multiple spaces, and developing the economy as outlined in the five year plans, Pakistan still had a very narrow focus of defining its blasphemy rules and often, governance was overtaken by its military. With the military came another set of problems which involved consistent war mongering and baiting India over Kashmir. In addition, the nation itself got into a trap by letting itself be used as a base for its war against Afghanistan. The alternative if Pakistan had opted for secularism, is that the country probably would have been in a much more envious position than now, but the question of itself being separate would no longer have existed and the border with Pakistan would have been as porous as the border with Nepal(A jolly 2 hour bus drive from Patna and you are in Nepal!). Let me reiterate – The identity of Pakistan as a separate nation may not have made sense and if India too had trodden the secular path continually, the question of being a unified Hindustan may have have risen again and again.
India began by being a secular nation. No history lessons are required here. But with the focus being on reservations and keeping Hindu considerations aside, the biggest blunder had been made. Would it have been better if India had opted to instead have reservation for the economically downtrodden? At the time sectarian Hinduism warranted that reservation be provided and it made sense. But without a timeline to remove reservations completely, each group wanted it to be retained inspite of it no longer being as big a social evil as during independence. The reality now is that entire villages earlier considered OBC/SC/STs are much more economically developed that the upper caste villages as a result of the government’s focus. The good part is that people in India are more concerned about economic considerations than that of other aspects pitched by political parties.
The problem lies only with one aspect. Successive governments appear to have had a consistent focus on jobs and the state of the economy including farmers. No government can choose to ignore its farmers for food security. The current government also has increased its focus on jobs with Make in India schemes. However the pitch is moving away from secularism. If you can have religious people getting into business and politics, it makes life that much harder to wean society away from it. Unless this is stopped immediately, there is no turning back to the days of the 1940's. This is exactly what we have tried to avoid when we gained independence.
Make in India appears to be just words, as both the organized and informal sector have gone down to pre-2012 levels at 420 million. Notwithstanding the focus, there are some hard facts to be considered. There are 12 million students passing out every year. The number of jobs that need to be created daily is 32876 jobs. The number of jobs being created daily as of December 2017 is 580 jobs(Down from 2012). Regardless, India’s strength has always been its demographic numbers to give us an'India Shining' slogan. In a decelerating economy, its biggest weakness will be its demographics. Imagine the type of social unrest it can cause as a result of unemployment. Unless India elects its leaders carefully, there is a risk that India will be a perennially developing country regardless of the size of the economy.
Question – Where do you see India 25 years down the lane?
