India United?

Vasu Reddy From Chicago
vasureddy@aol.com

So many people with so many languages with so many religions and so many traditions, and we can go on and on about so many of this and so many of that, and India would be a prime example of so many of everything.

Adding to the vast diversity of the country, there is political diversity in every part of the country that further fuels the real agenda of each of these parties that completely acts as counterproductive measure for any type of developmental activity.  After the independence in 1947, the primary focus was on planning for the country’s development and catering to the vast diversity of the nation, which was poor from being vandalized by the occupiers for centuries.  Indians never behaved as one nation prior to the independence in 1947, and they don’t seem to behave as one nation after that.

For a while after 1947 the freedom fighters were rewarded the leadership positions as they were the only alternatives and Indian National Congress was the party mostly made up of self made leaders who after the independence turned into the politicians who were the first representatives of the newly independent India.  The glory and aura of being the leaders of the independence movement sustained their positions of power for many elections and perhaps to this day the Indian National Congress banks on the glory of the leaders of Independence and the relationships to the Nehru and Gandhi family.

It is difficult to put value of the past sacrifices of people on obtaining independence for the nation, and the many leaders and their followers and families who sacrificed their lives for the country.  The nation in return continues to pay rich homage to their contributions, and will always do this.  The independence leaders should be paid homage by the nation as long as it remains independent and there is no denying the importance of their contributions to the freedom of the nation.

The decades of independence and multiple elections that have passed through the time have shown as a nation that is so different than the country that fought hard for independence form invaders for centuries.  Every section of the country with their own agenda for their own benefit, and no one seem to think of India as one nation.  The selfless attitude displayed by the independence leaders has disappeared with each cycle of politicians, who are enamored with their own self-benefit and self-indulgence.

National interest is just a thing of the past, and no one seems to really care about what is really national interest.  If anyone speaks of national interest it really makes no real sense as the national interest has been forgotten many elections ago.  Now we only have leaders who are there to rake in as much money as possible and grab as much resources to their own as possible in as short of a time as possible.  Too many political parties with absolutely no public agenda to work with, except the self-interest of the politicians and their own money making agenda.  It is difficult to make any political sense with the current crop of politicians as they really have only one agenda, which is self-interest.

If we are one nation, it does not look like we are striving for the benefit of the nation.  We are different people who really are not even a loose federation that work for a common goal.  We are not even able to represent a single agenda for the nation together, and not even the best interest of the people as a nation.  We are so divided in our agenda; it is even difficult to make any sense of a plan for the nation.  Politically we are in rock ages and don’t even represent the state, party or people, except ones self-interest.

How can we be united?  How do we address the vastness of our requirements?  What is our agenda anyway?  How do we present our self as one nation except in concept?  How do we discourage the looting of the nation by every politician?  What has independence given to us except a great big population with great set of problems?  So many questions and they keep getting larger and larger with every election cycle.

If the nation is only dealing with constantly reoccurring scams and politicians bickering, when will they have time to deal with the very demanding requirements of the nation?  It might take several election cycles and 100% clean government to minimize the impact of what has been happening in the last few years of complete disregard for the national interest.