60 years of independence ... some thoughts

15th August 2007

Aaj bahut dino baad mein jaldi utha ... to attend the flag hoisting ceremony at IIMC.
(Delibrately started with hindi our mother tongue, before most of us forget using it)
I was immediately charged up when I reached that place. The flag hoisting ceremony was followed by inspirational speeches by our Director, Dean PI, Professors and others. Everyone cribbed about diminishing importance of this day among the youth, but they also portrayed the positives that we can take from India's 60 years of independence. While most of the stuff like growth, emerging market, etc ... seemed globe (universal gyaan ... that is used to fill pages when one doesnt know a precise answer ... fart in iitb lingo) to me, I did agree
with a point of view of our economics professor, who termed this period as an experiment of implementation of democracy on such a large and linguistically diverse population which stands unmatched in the history of mankind.
The truth still remains, the common man hasnt really tasted the priviledge of indian independence so far.

This reminded me of an article by Deepak Nayyar on "Globalization, history and development: a tale of two centuries". The article criticizes the concept of globalization by bolstering some figures and some hard truths. It stresses that, we people who have the required skills which are desired in most developed nations are the ones who have benefitted from the process. But are we doing anything to make sure that the other people, our under priviledged fellow countrymen, also get the benefits of the process. It has been noticed that the proponents of globalization were the people who saw their benefit in doing so. Also the growth figures from history show that the world economy has indeed slowed down due to globalization and the rich-poor divide has increased even further. Also unemployment have risen in the developed nations due to globalization.

The speeches were followed by a sweet distribution break. Savoured the bengali delicacies with chow... JBS BaroC presented songs Vande Mataram and Yeh Jo Desh hai Tera ... Choreo club featured an amazing dance performance, which was very well received by the audience... Dramatics Club presented a play "Aakhri Salaam" which featured the plight of soldiers during partition, where they were made to fight with their fellow military friends who had fought together during the world war ... The prize distribution ceremony followed the performances. Top 20 academic rank holders were given prizes. Chitresh Kumar Sainia from our wing received the prize for the 20th rank. His feet was amazing given that he had scored a CGPA of 6.5 at the end of term 1.