60 years of Solitude ...

I was passing by the news stands on one of my trips from Malad to Churchgate and what struck me was the number of articles talking about the same things under the banner of 60 years of Freedom for India. Each article spoke about the enthusiasm that all of us feel about the resurgence of the Indian economy, with a few dashes here and there about the impending challenges such as efficiency of governance, infrastructure bottlenecks and lack of skilled manpower. The few that delved deeper spoke about the education systems shortcomings, corruption, blah blah ...

Thinking about the last 17 years, a lot has obviously been said about how the material things around us have changed. This includes the explosion of choices available to us in every segment of consumer products and the improvement in quality of service enjoyed by consumers (though its still abysmaly low even now).

The part that goes unnoticed is the subtle change in beliefs and social behaviours happening across the country from the metros to the smallest village. Here again, various sections of society are at different levels of change. For example, there are sections who have moved out of the belief that marraiges need to happen within tight caste and sect definitions. There are others who have moved on to leniency on castes but are very picky about language similarity. Yet others are ok with language differences but wont tolerate a non-vegetarian family as in-laws. Even the most lenient probably still fall short of accepting a hindu-muslim marraige. Somehow the seeds of dessention sown by the British are still at work.

The point is however that different sections of society are at different rungs, but there is distinct movement from the more conservative rungs to the more liberal rungs. This in a sense is a renaissance of sorts, where ideologies are changing with development.

The struggle for independence united India against the British. However, with the British gone the first division was between the hindus and the muslims symbolized best by the partition. The next was division of Hindus into the castes and languages and on the other end, division of muslims into Shia and Sunnis. The situation is a lot more complex than that, but the essence remains that to fight off the usurper, it was a weak unity.

It was a weak unity because it was not based on any radical change in beliefs or behaviours, but on the need for freedom. Once freedom was at hand, the old beliefs and prejudices held closely continued to play havoc.

What was not done by a struggle against a foreign power, probably is being done now by the onset of the knowledge economy and economic development of the country. Various sections of society are moving to a more liberal view on age old traditions. This in my mind will eventually trigger a tipping point, where a massive social change will sweep through the country, more fundamentally altering our lives than the simple increase in living standards.

Hmm .. there are times when you start writing with a certain thought in mind, and end up flowing to some different idea.

The initial thought that I had was that if we go through the process of development of other countries, do we see a similar faze of rapid change where deeply held beliefs are gradually uprooted and replaced? Could we also draw parallels between how the nature of a culture influences these times?

There are 3 very clear periods. One, the renaissance in the west. Here christianity defined the belief system and the dogma of the church was very strong, against which liberalists had to fight to establish a new world order.

Two, the development in the middle east. Here inspite of huge wealth being created through the oil, the dogma of the islamic institutions has ensured that no social change comes about in these parts. Its either this, or the international media creating a grossly misinformed picture.

Three, the japanese development and now the Chinese development. Here the philosophies of Tao and Confuscious are the influencing factors. Somehow, the changes in these countries have been very organised, clinical and effective. Japan has moved to become the second largest economy with little to show as natural resources to benefit from. China has emerged as the new driving force for the world economy and looks like its succeeding in its growth plans (keeping aside the doubts on the banking system). How exactly the confuscious and taoist belief systems work here is something I am not informed about. I don't know too much about the history or the present in these countries.

In this light, Hinduism has been a more open and accepting faith than others across the world. Infact Budhism, an offshoot of Hinduism, is also strongly prevelant in China and Japan. Given the observation through history, what does this mean for India? Does India run the risk of one part of its population being stuck in the past, with age old beliefs? Would such pockets hamper the rest from moving forward and match up with the world? Or will the rebels succeed and bring about some much needed (as well as some much avoidable) social changes.

Overall I find the idea absolutely fascinating. Its an extremely complicated mix of variables, ranging from economics to caste system politics to language barriers that still exist to religious conflicts to access to education and many more. At the end of the day though, this melting pot will decide the future of the country. At the end of the day, it will be these wierd fuzzy factors that will decide the rate at which the country grows, develops and progresses.

Cheerio ...