By Anonna Dutt:
From being the ‘Golden Bird’ to being tagged as a poor, under-developed nation, India has faced it all. But now the times are changing. Now even India is competing in the race to become a super power. And it seems to be a pretty achievable dream taking into consideration the tremendous amount of progress that India has made since the time of Independence when this country was left in shambles.
India, as we all know, is the largest working democracy. After 63 years of Independence, we do not have to protest or arrange mass agitations to change the government; we just need to vote. So easy to do and yet seldom done. Approximately only 40% of the Indian people vote during the general elections. We give away our most fundamental right, the right to vote, without any rhyme or reason. We complain about the bad governance and then do nothing to change it. A bad government comes to power because of the good people who do not vote.
For the protection of its citizens India has a huge army, the second largest in the world. But, the corrupt politicians take this as a sign of population growth, maybe. This is the only reason that can explain the frequently reported deaths of air force pilots due to problems in the aircrafts. And what do the politicians do? They keep on buying the second-hand fighter jets.
Taking Indian economy in consideration, it has been steadily growing since liberalisation. India is now competing in the world market. We have people like the Ambanis and the Tatas to back our economy. The GDP of India is also increasing, being 8.2% in 2010. The immense amount of growth of the Indian Economy is the reason why Rupee became the fifth currency in world to get a symbol. People rejoiced the day. But is India really growing?
The politicians, the businessmen and the film-stars definitely are, but the rest? Nobody cares about the common man. In a country where more than 60% of the population depends on agriculture, farmers are committing suicide due to lack of funds, and to add the topping the government cannot even subsidise the farming because it is under the debt of World Bank. We also have schemes like NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) which now everyone knows is a huge scam in itself because most of the people listed under it do not even get the benefits of the scheme.
This brings us to another major problem that India faces: Corruption. We all know about it but cannot do anything because the whole system in itself is corrupt. The problem majorly came to the forefront once again after what happened during the Common Wealth Games (CWG); right after it we had the Adarsh Housing Society Scam and the 2G scam. In India there are scams galore and yet we want to become a super power. Indians are definitely optimistic!
Talking about corruption, the Jaitapur power plant has also been given a green signal by the government, ignoring all the health and the environmental hazards. And even after the people in Jaitapur have been coerced to agree to the project, very few people actually know that such a nuclear plant is being built. But it is not the fault of the people, the news never found space in the mainstream newspaper.
This again has a reason behind it, the unholy nexus between the government and the media. This was proved when 2G scam came into light and Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi came under the radar. There is another kind of media censorship acting in India.
The list of the black marks on the name of India can go on and on. We have given away all that the freedom fighters fought for and are now running a rat-race to become the super power. What we see is a glossy and polished image of India and nobody tries to see the truth because it is scary. And the worst part is that we try to live in an eternal oblivion and do nothing to uplift the condition of India.
I dread to imagine the shock of the freedom fighters if they happen to visit India now. It is free from the British Rule now but the condition has not changed a bit. The only difference is that now we are being ruled by the brown sahibs. And to state the Irony, many people still believe that India is shining brighter than ever!