Indians take stock of 50 years of freedom

For A Change, April-May, 1997 by Jyoti Kanetkar

In the rays of the setting sun, batches of schoolchildren arrived with bands playing and banners unfurled in a time-hewn amphitheatre, high on the Maharashtran tableland above Panchgani town, for the opening of an international conference to celebrate the golden jubilee of India's independence.

Everyone, from the tongawalas (horse-drawn cart drivers) to Panchgani's first citizen and the conference participants from 20 countries, was spellbound as the children burst into patriotic songs and dances illustrating such social themes as dowry, alcohol, literacy and family-planning. For them, India was a land of promise.

The former Vice-Chancellor of Shivaji University, PG Patil, broke a ceremonial coconut to open the event and spoke in Marathi about the need to raise the nation's moral standards. Everyone joined in a pledge to remove bitterness and hatred, violence and corruption in order to make a better India. After doves symbolizing peace had been released, the procession wound its way down from the tableland, through the streets of Panchgani, to Asia Plateau, the Asian centre for Moral Re-Armament.

The conference reflected on the lessons of independence, at a time when many. Asian and African nations approach the milestone of 50 years of freedom. Nobel Peace lauriate Aung San Suu Kyi, in a special message from Rangoon, wrote, `There can be no real freedom until the mind and spirit are free.' (See Guest Column.)

India could be proud of her democracy, said Rajmohan Gandhi, journalist, biographer and Fellow at New Delhi's Centre for Policy Research, `but our democracy needs to be sharpened'. He pointed out the difference between swaraj and suraj--freedom and good government. His grandfather, the Mahatma, had maintained, `Independence means nothing more nor less than getting out of alien control.'

Today, Gandhi said, India faced enormous stresses: as her population approached a billion, those living in urban areas would nearly treble to 700 million over the next 20 years. Nearly a half of India's population, and 60 per cent of its women, were still illiterate. There were also tensions in a number of states with demands for greater autonomy.

Yet India was able to grow more grain than she needed. And 60 per cent of her 550 million voters had exercised their franchise at the last elections--`a tremendous exercise in democracy'.

There were fears that multinational corporations were going to `take over India through the back door as the East India Company did', continued Gandhi. He believed, however, that `India needs the world and wants to be a partner on honourable terms.'

The need to `create a new business and industrial culture' was addressed in a plenary session. Other plenaries dealt with family values and `revenge, justice and reconciliation'. India faced the challenge of achieving `economic enrichment without spiritual impoverishment', said Anil Sachadev. His company's turnover had grown from Rs80 million to Rs10 billion in 18 years without a single bribe being paid, he said.

Industry had a role to play in helping the 55 per cent of India's population who lived below the poverty line, asserted Bombay businessman Suresh Vazirani, whose company, Transasia Biomedicals, now exports to a world market. Bombay entrepreneur Vivek Asrani appealed for `Made in India' to be known as a mark of quality.

Farhad Forbes, director of a family engineering group in Pune, described how several hundred of his employees--from both management and labour--had taken part in industrial seminars at the MRA centre over the past 20 years. `We benefited greatly through the interactions which we had, and many of our problems were resolved,' he said. The company was also committed to several rural development projects.

Kiran Bedi, New Delhi's renowned Inspector General of Prisons, described her presence at Asia Plateau as `a pilgrimage fulfilled'. She had been the first woman recruited to the Indian Police Force, in the 1970s, and when supervisor of Asia's largest prison, in New Delhi, had introduced Gandhian philosophy and practice. This had dramatically reduced intolerance, anger and revenge among the prisoners.

Rabbi Dr Marc Gopin from Washington DC appealed for compassion and acceptance of `the other' in a multicultural world. This would require `breaking the human pattern of in-group love requiring out-group hatred, love of the saved and damnation of the unsaved'. This was `the only way to peace between five billion human beings, and thousands of nations, ethnicities and religious affiliations'.