India: Six Decades of Independence

India has completed 62 years of independence from the British rule on this 15th August.
Well truly speaking we were under a foreign rule ever since Muhammad Ghori defeated Prithvi Raj Chauhan way back in 11th century. But we had accepted them and the subsequent Tughlaqs, Lodhis and Mughals as our brethren. They amalgamated into the society so well that nobody actually felt they were under any oppression. It was largely due to the way the rulers ruled especially Akbar. But after Aurangzeb came to power situations began to change drastically. It was the first time when a spirit of nationalism arose among the Marathas, the very first in the history of India. It was short-lived and actually turned more towards imperialism with the decline of the Mughals.
So, when Robert Clive arrived in Murshidabad in 1750’s, India was not like that we know now. It was fragmented on the lines of religion, language, caste and what else. The British were always thought to be meddlers from outside and they never could be woven into the social fabric. An uprising did occur in 1857 but in it personal interests played a more important role than the nationalist ones as is proved from the non-participation of Punjab, Scindia, Nizam among others. It cannot be altogether rejected as a sepoy mutiny but neither could it be called a war of INDIAN independence.
But the British did push us into the modern era albeit for their personal gains. The railways, telegraph, land & socio-economic reforms along with large scale industries would have taken a long time to come were it not for the British. But eventually, especially after the 1905 Bengal partition, nationalism arose in India in spite of all the differences nature could provide. And then came the day when we gained our freedom after lot of struggle and sacrifices.
But the India that we got after such a struggle comprised of 500 odd states excluding the British India. To add to our troubles was the reluctance of states like Nizam & Junagadh to join us as was the indecision on the part of Kashmir. But with the persistence and expertise of leaders like Sardar Patel, we were able to complete the union using both words and bullets as and where required. Eventually on 26th January 1950, India was declared a republic.
But these six decades have not been without turbulence and it all started few months after independence when our brother, the newly carved out Pakistan attacked Kashmir and ever since this is one problem we haven’t been able to solve even after three full-fledged wars and numerous pseudo wars. To compound to the problems there have been numerous religious and ethnic conflicts which have gained momentum after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992. We have suffered from breach in confidence from China in 1962 that broke Panchasheel to attack us. Pakistan and Bangladesh (which was incidentally helped by us in gaining freedom in 1971) are known to harbour terrorists who have repeatedly tried to disrupt our socio-economic system time and again. Ethnic and political reasons in Nepal, Bangladesh and Srilanka have also compounded our problems by pouring in a lot of refugees.
But we have never yielded in these six decades and hope will not do anytime in the future. We have kept successfully kept our social fabric intact and have progressed economically so much that we are teemed as one of the potential superpowers in making.
Nowhere in this world will anyone find states divided linguistically. The cultural diversity in India along its length and breadth is non-existent even in the vastly big Russia spanning over two continents. The way we can bounce back even when pushed to the wall is just remarkable. A special mention in this regard should be done of the Mumbaikars, the valiant and energetic of the lot.
Even though we live in a kind of a furnace with unstable inflammatory countries outside and boiling states inside, we have been able to sustain development and create indigenous revolutions like the Food revolutions of the 1960’s and the economic ones of 1990’s.
We have been able to excel both in cultural and scientific front as well. People ranging from Sachin Tendulkar to Pt. Ravishankar , Satyajit Ray to J R D Tata, Homi Bhabha to Amitabh Bachchan are popular all over the world and have brought laurels to the country.
In spite of the differences, discrepancies, corruption (Transparency International regularly puts us in the 70s of their annual list), needless communalism & regionalism, illiteracy and poverty we have been voted as the happiest country in the world. Slowly and steadily we are approaching the pinnacle of success which our great leaders had aimed of. Its noteworthy to say that no other country which gained freedom in the previous century, with the exception of China, Singapore and few others, have not attained such success levels. While diversity has caused many nations to crash, we have gone from strengths to strengths and will do so in eons to come.
JAI HIND !!!