Today, we
are celebrating the 64th Republic Day, it is indeed a great privilege to be a
part of a republic at a time when most of the countries of Asia are still
struggling under monarchy or dictatorship. It is indeed a great honour to be
part of such a country which has diversity in language, religion, culture, etc.
We are part of the biggest democracy and youngest country of the world. Even
the world realises the potential of Gandhian philosophy, which served as base
for various movements in India and outside. But then what went wrong in last
six decades? In these 63 years of republic, we have some-how missed the
principles of our forefathers. Though we have moved far away from 1950 level in
various sectors viz. education, health-indicators, industrialization, etc. But
common people i.e. poor labourers, farmers, daily-wage earners, etc are still
living the same life as their ancestors lived 60 years ago; there is a marginal
change in the lifestyle of poor class. Our Human Development Index ranking in
1980 stood at 134 and it remain unchanged even in 2011. It is difficult to
suppress these voices of common people which will emerge in form of naxalism,
crimes, demand for separate states, demand for reservation to different sections,
etc.
We have
shown improvement in literacy levels but the quality of education deteriorated,
where almost 50% students of class V can’t read the book of class II. Our
health indicators viz. maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate are
still far behind the UN millennium development goals. The average life of
Indian people has reached in 60s, but there many old-age people who are
suffering due to nuclear families, they don’t have a place to live. A clear
policy on old-age people is missing in govt. legislations. Our political
leadership is crawling and is unable to implement common welfare programmes in
efficient manner. There is huge rise in rate of crimes seen against women in
these 63 years, we have taken a form of a patriarchal society and which is very
dangerous for any society. There is a sense of sensitivity which is missing
from the society. The men-women divide is emerging very rapidly; we need to
take immediate steps to bridge this divide. It is better if we inculcate
sensitivity towards women community and deal with all the cases with utmost
care and high priority.
We are not
able to change with time, we are framing policies which were required a decade
before. How can a same policy work at all parts of the country when there is a
difference in culture, religion, geographical locations, and requirements of
each region? I think we need to move towards a system of customized policies
for each region and decentralisation of power and giving more autonomy to
panchayati raj institutions and local municipal bodies. Our policies should
bring a transformation in life style of common people at the grass-roots level.
Until we bring that change, our policies are failure. Inclusive society should
be our ultimate dream. Continuous reforms will bring change.
It’s time
the three basic institutions of this country metamorphose. It is good if we
take these steps sooner than later. The latter will only add to the agony of
the common people and we will go on seeing these people’s movement in the near
future. In the present context, kiran bedi’s quote reminds of India’s potential
– “If India has million problems it also has a billion solutions! We just have
to make them visible and upscale their ideas!”
