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The Cancerous
Legacy of Gandhi and Nehru As Indian intellectuals confront
the dismal state of Indian politics as practised by the ruling Indian
"National" Congress and its "secular" allies, there ought to be no
doubt that modern India is at a civilizational crossroad. On the one hand,
it is confronted with a crisis of epic proportions: a billion plus
expanding population squeezed into a relatively small piece of land
that lacks the physical resources to provide the kind of easy economic
development that much of the nation aspires towards. On the other hand,
its current political leaders appear to be a uniquely venal band of
incompetent thugs who not only lack in leadership and vision but are
also ideologically bankrupt and addicted to policies that are divisive
and counter-productive. Thanks to the
internet and to the valiant efforts of many honest and concerned
Indians (including some well-meaning politicians), unparalled levels of
corruption have been exposed that spare no major leader in the Congress
or its so-called allies - such as the BSP, the SP or the Pawar
Congress. But so far, the widespread public disgust for the Congress
has not led to any significant political re-alignment in the nation. In part, this is
because the malaise that afflicts the nation goes far deeper than just
the present-day Congress leadership. It extends into all branches of
the media and into vast layers of the beureaucracy and the judiciary.
Since the Indian state still controls significant layers of the
economy, policy errors and corruption have also become routine in
numerous state-run ministries and public sector concerns affecting not
only agriculture, but also transportation and power. Regulatory
agencies designed to protect consumers in newly privatized sectors such
as telecom, banking and insurance are also functioning quite poorly. But above all,
intellectual expediency (or even complete paralysis) has infected
significant layers of the establishment that decides on the education
policy of the nation. Ome of the
toughest challenges in Indian academia is to engage in an honest
critique of Gandhi and Nehru. So much so that even the opposition to
the Congress has to feign admiration for Gandhi. And while some leaders
in the BJP have not been shy in pointing at Nehru's policy errors,
there are few comprehensive academic treatises on the Nehruvian
economic and social model that set the foundation for post-independence
India. Not enough has been written on where Nehru went wrong and to
what extent did his flawed "ideals" permeate the Indian educational
establishment to the nation's detriment. In a previous
essay on this site, there was an attempt to expose Nehru's false
paradigm of "secularism" - which in practise has turned out to be
little more than a blanket rejection of all things Hindu, and a craven
apologia of all things Islam. Even though Nehru himself may not have
intended things to evolve quite in that way - that is more or less the
direction in which things have evolved. Likewise his
championing of caste quotas may have been intended to quickly erase the
injustices meted out towards India's downtrodden casts, the outcome has
been a virtual execution of the important civilizational notion that
merit has intrinsic value and must be cultivated and encouraged in any
society that seeks secular progress. In their
vehement and unquestioning advocacy of caste quotas few of India's
social or political "scientists" have sought to look at the actual
efficacy and overall social impact of quotas. No one has asked whether
quotas are more effective in childhood or adulthood. No one has ever
asked if quotas should be time-bound and gradually allowed to lapse. No
one has bothered to look at the connection between general
socio-economic conditions and caste inequity. Few have looked at the
relationship between economic modernization, urbanization and the
declining importance of quotas - nor have analysts looked sufficiently
at historic conditions that may have impacted on casteism in Indian
society. Moreover, even
as economic growth and the spread of modern education have reduced the
importance of caste, and led to new conflicts such as intra-caste or
gender, class or other conflicts within caste, this Nehruvian/Gandhian
elite has continued to reduce all things to caste. This derives at
least partly from the approach that both Gandhi and Nehru adopted in
politics - whereby they advanced personally selected remedies to real
social problems with an egotistical vengeance with little or any
willingness to actually debate the underlying issues in a cogent and
balanced way. Although both Nehru and Gandhi are seen as intellectual
"giants" - their frequent inability to analyze reality in an unbiased
and scientific way suggests that they make quite poor ideals for the
nation. Moreover, each
displayed a stubborn (and on occasion, even psycopathic) refusal to
allow for intellectual or factual challenges to what was sunk in their
brains. These grave
intellectual weaknesses point to why their spiritual and ideological
children have become so incapable of dealing effectively with the
complexities and challenges of modern India. In a truly
democratic nation - nothing should be held so sacrosanct that it cannot
be debated in a calm and rational manner. What the rest of the world mocked as India's "Hindu" growth rate was actually Nehru's Hindu-hating Islamophile growth rate. This is not to say that it was wrong to plan or to set up state-owned industries - advanced industrialized nations such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have all benefited from intelligent state intervention to accelerate growth. But the basis for state intervention has largely been scientific and rational - not whimsical or egotistical. Today, Israel offers a remarkably successful model of agriculture with optimal use of scarce resources such as land and water. But there is no national initiative to learn from that model. Likewise modern industrial techniques offer even more revolutionary solutions whereby vegetables and other crops could be grown on an industrial scale with the power of LED based devices. But instead, the Indian political establishment is determined to save the grossly inefficient and often incompetent Indian farmer by showering him with all manner of inflation-inducing wasteful subsidies and irrationally planned and executed loan waivers and arbitrary price supports. Yet - when there are real crises (such as droughts or floods), the state shows its utter disorganization and helplessness. With a rural population that is alternately politically coddled and betrayed - it is little wonder that with few exceptions (as in Gujarat) agricultural growth has been anaemic. But it is not agriculture alone that has been mishandled. The unprecedented two-day back-to-back collapse of major national power grids is emblematic of how the Congress-led UPA government has run the country. Arbitrary, anarchic - even myopic policy decisions designed to favor political cronies at the cost of the country as a whole have prevailed again and again. Consider the brutal irony in how Sushil Shinde - the utterly useless minister in charge of power was promoted to the Home ministry just as almost 700 million Indians lost all power and the entire railway network came to a halt. Today, the leadership of the Congress is in the hands of quacks - people with little grasp of science and technology and frankly - little respect even for good managerial intelligence. Although Motilal Nehru was a very competent lawyer and a fairly intelligent man - his current progeny have shown little academic acumen. As is now well known Sonia Gandhi is not a college graduate - so it is no surprise that Rahul Gandhi was a third-grade student. Yet, a nation that now enrols over a million students in its engineering colleges must be run by a corrupt clan where no one has a post-graduate degree let alone a degree in science or engineering or management. That there isn't a nation-wide revolt against this inexcusible state of affairs is perhaps the real tragedy of India. That Indians do not demand competence in their leaders - that is India's tragedy. That even as more and more Indians are entering and graduating college - they aren't able to challenge the outdated and stagnant legacy of Gandhi and Nehru (even as it is becoming more and more apparent that their political heirs have become like a plague on the nation) - that is India's tragedy. That even as it is obvious that the Congress and its idealogical kin can only lead to its total ruination and yet so many Indians are apathetic - that is India's tragedy. It isn't enough that the Indian people throw out the Congress (as they did in UP and Bengal many years ago) - they must also root out all the false beliefs and failed models that have engulfed meek Indian minds and prevented India from realizing its true genius. The Mulayams, the Mayawatis and the Mamtas offer little in contrast to the Congress. Nor do the Maoists or their other "left" friends and relatives. There should be no foolish illusions about a third front made up of regional satraps that are as ignorant and incompetent as the Congress. Idealogy is no substitute for facts, for knowledge, for hard work or merit. To run a country well - one must have a keen mind that is always ready to observe and learn - to work with other people who may bring with them a variety of skills, experience and wisdom. Preconcieved notions imported without thinking from other nations, false idealism, foolish and ahistoric biases and prejudices - these can all be the undoing even of very well-intentioned leaders. Today, if there is any political vision and competence to be seen, it is conveyed by IIT-educated Manohar Parrikar from Goa - or by hardworking and managerially and practically adept Narendra Modi from Gujarat. In this context, Shiv Raj Chouhan and others have articulated a vision of a presidential form of government (where experts with relevant education, experience and expertise take charge of different ministries) which offers India more hope than this present parliamentary democracy where incompetence appears to rule the roost. This is not to say that politicians in other nations aren't corrupt and incompetent. As the crisis in Europe shows, there is no shortage of political expediency and short-sightedness. But for a developing country like India - political corruption and incompetence has far greater consequences. India deserves a better model of governance - and a good starting point would be to throw out the corrupt and morally bankrupt Congress and its many clones - who offer India nothing but voodoo economics and voodoo governance. The legacy of Gandhi and Nehru has now become cancerous. The Indian nation needs emergency surgery - a malignant tumor needs to be removed before it completely destroys the nation. Related Essays: Vote Bank Politics Quotas Versus Merit Back for other selections from South Asian Voice for other articles on issues confronting India and the region. Also see South Asian History or Topics in Indian History for relevant essays that shed some light on the history of the subcontinent. (If you liked our site, or would like to help with the South Asian Voice project and help us expand our reach, please click here)
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