There is much to be celebrated. India is a leading democracy in the world and the only one in the Third World of any consequence. This is so despite all the fears and obstacles foreseen by critics such as Winston Churchill at the advent of its free existence. A Western model of democracy has flourished in India precisely because the ballot box has been used by the masses to empower themselves. The lower depths of Indian society—the untouchables and backward castes, the tribals, the rural poor, women in their deprived millions—have all gone to the polling booth time after time and exercised their power to dismiss or elect governments. Through it all, parties have emerged nearer to the identities the people value—of religion, of region, of caste, of tribe. No one designed this; few foresaw this. It is the miracle people have made for themselves. The economy has also overcome its age-old inferiority complex. Indians no longer need recall the muslin of Dhaka or the textiles of Gujarat of old. India can now hold its own in global competition. For centuries, Indians did better by going abroad than staying at home. Now they can make it at home as well as anywhere in the world. This miraculous turnaround happened when in 1991 a shy retiring academic, my friend Dr Manmohan Singh, got hold of the economy and began its reform. Now after fourteen years, he has resumed his command. But the old loser mentality of the Left which kept the economy in shackles for four decades is flexing its muscles again. The Left cares only about those who work in public sector enterprises—the aristocracy or shall we say the Brahmins of the working class. Between Nehru’s death and the 1991 crisis of foreign exchange, precious capital was frittered away in building an economy which generated very few jobs, neglected the rural areas and shackled the economy to a low ‘Hindu rate of growth.’ Whatever the rhetoric, going back to the old ways will condemn India to the slow lane again.
