Page 28 - EducationWorld March 2023

Expert Comment

Self-reliance as confidence

trick

RAJIV DESAI

N THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, TWO BOSTON Winning elections is different from
Brahmins — Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David
Thoreau — together with Russian aristocrat Lev Niko- effective policy formulation. With the
Ilayevich Tolstoy, were leading voices against the iniqui- economy, foreign policy, defence, and a
ties of the industrial revolution. They advocated compas-
sion and welfare as antidotes to workers distressed by the myriad other fields, the government has
excesses of technology. come a cropper
Inspired by these 19th century activists, Mohandas Gan-
dhi fired up the incipient freedom movement led by the
Indian National Congress. The target was the British Raj, of common people. Bureaucrats ran government and busi-
a draconian colonial government that practised industrial nesses. The idea was to bring to bear the minds of the best
near slavery. Gandhi was quick to discern that the entire and the brightest on the country’s development. But they
structure of colonial rule depended on the participation of were unequal to the task.
its subjects. He launched the non-cooperation movement The political class was sold on the ideology of planned
and along with it a swadeshi campaign that called for the growth. Perhaps the most noxious outcome was the sys-
boycott of British made products. The rest is history. tematic way private enterprise and free markets were pro-
India started on its journey as a proud democracy and jected as ideologies of repression. The resultant low growth
won plaudits the world over for holding fast to the concept economy simply increased poverty and worse, aggravated
of universal adult franchise. Articulated in Article 326 of inequality. India was riven with conflicts based on language
the Constitution, it enshrines the right of all citizens to vote and ethnicity. A classic example was Punjab which strug-
for governments of their choice. In the event, the charter gled with militancy over Khalistan in the 1980s.
guarantees freedom of choice in politics and government. s it struggled to govern the vast population, the bureau-
But — and that’s a big but — leaders of the new republic Acracy shut out essential notions of economic choices,
were not enamoured of free markets and private enterprise. believing it knew best. India was stuck in a rut at a time
As critics of India’s colonial experience, they came to be- when the world was surging ahead on the wings of technol-
lieve the two were instruments of control by the few over ogy. Through the 1980s, faced with the pressures of globali-
many. The choices available to Indians in politics weren’t sation, the government relented, allowing foreign invest-
matched in the economy. From the very start, the economy ment in hitherto barred areas such as telecom, financial
was hobbled by State intervention. services, and consumer goods.
An additional factor was the dominance of Prime Min- Finally in 1991, the Congress government revoked the in-
ister Jawaharlal Nehru. From his days at Cambridge Uni- dustrial licensing and control regime. The economy was set
versity, he was fascinated by the Soviet Union. Enamoured loose. An economic boom followed as GDP growth soared.
of its high-thinking ideology, in which the state played a The period evoked an excitement best captured by the 19th
central role in setting economic and social priorities, he century English poet, William Wordsworth: “Bliss it was in
set up the Planning Commission, which was intended as a that dawn to be alive…”
council of the best and brightest. As always, there was a dark side. As reforms shone a light
Under Nehru, scientific temper became the sine qua on the economy, there were shadows. Among them were
non of development philosophy. It was an open minded hidden bigoted forces that threatened to derail the entire
way of thinking, welcoming of new knowledge and experi- edifice that Nehru built, and his progressive descendants
mentation. Discussion and analysis were held to be vital expanded and embellished. Since 2014, they’ve managed
ingredients along with the readiness to confront develop- to win elections on a nakedly communal agenda and form
ment challenges and overthrow superstition and bigotry. the government.
In short, he embraced rationality and observation, rather However, winning elections is different from effective pol-
than dogma and ritual. icy formulation. With the economy, foreign policy, defence,
Nehru’s aversion to religion was well-known; he believed and a myriad other fields, the government has come a crop-
it to be the root of stagnation in society and dismissed it as per. The economy is in free fall, relations with neighbours
a set of beliefs and practices that “shuts its eyes to reality”. are questionable, China has occupied large swathes of Indian
He thought of its adherents as self-centred and intolerant territory in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the West
of others’ ideas and opinions. is back to its old ways of putting India on the back burner.
Thanks to Nehru and his band of enlightened support- An entire decade of growth has been negated and a pri-
ers, India was set on the path of modernisation. However, mordial mindset reigns.
poverty persisted because the five-year plans introduced (Rajiv Desai is president of Comma Consulting and a well-known Delhi-
by the Planning Commission did little to improve the lot based columnist)

30 EDUCATIONWORLD MARCH 2023