Yatish Rajawat: India needs independence of thought

On our 65th Independence Day, we face a world whose destiny has never been more intertwined — and uncertain.

At a time when the US and Europe face recession and riots, Russia confronts home-grown fascism, and China embraces boundless aspiration, it is time to re-examine the ideas that have shaped India.

To date, we have alternatively embraced socialism and capitalism. But with both imploding, it is time to ask if India needs to embrace an independent model of sustainable development. India’s realities are unique — we are an over-populated nation with fractured identities and massive disparities. No single existing model can address these problems. We need to evolve our own solution. After 64 years of political independence, our greatest need is independence of thought.

The national discourse and debates we have been having since Independence have changed, and the arguments around them have multiplied. Multiplicity of debates should not fool us into seeing it as progress. And that we have evolved into a society that can solve its problems through just discussions. Arguments do not necessarily mean an evolution in thinking. Civil society and government can argue till they are blue, but this does not mean they are resolving anything.

Debate, while essential, needs to be accompanied by pointed action to effect real change. Across the world, the middle-class is up in arms against graft, misgovernance, and social injustice. In India, while this group is highly vocal, it is not necessarily participative in the democratic process. And therein lies the weakness of any middle-class-led change in a democratic country.

Our democratic dynamics are shaped by the masses. The wave of change currently sweeping India is not strong enough to create real impact. Does this mean that we will not see a change for the better in this globally uncertain time? Does this mean that we can never be successful as a country?

A Chinese expert once told me, “We see many conflicts in India and these are complicated by your size and democratic structure. We do not see you as a threat as we know your problems. We learn from you, but don’t solve our problems your way.”

The Chinese have confidence in their own approach to solving problems. The independence of thought they bring to bear on their actions has enabled them to evolve a national governance system that is so distinct that the rest of the world is still trying to label and define it.

Compare this with the continuing arguments in India over basic policies. India swings between extremes — from socialist welfarism to capitalism. But we can’t construct a model of our own that can deliver on our stated goal of compassionate development that is rational and just. The inability to resolve this dichotomy, or even accept it and work on it, is why we tend to accept readymade but flawed economic models from elsewhere.

In India, a national model based solely on economics and devoid of social, moral and cultural underpinnings is certain to fail. This failure is of thinking and leads to myths that economists are scientists and have all the answers. Economics is not mathematics, even though more mathematicians have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics than economists.

Somehow, we have turned economists into gods.
There is also the valid criticism that the media is the other new Indian god, deciding the fate of many, sitting in (flawed) judgement of everyone and interpreting the world for all. This simplistic and twisted approach to journalism insults the intelligence of the masses. Editors seem to forget the masses are always more intelligent in solving problems than a single very intelligent person.

The failing of highly intelligent people is that they know all but have very few new ideas. Their ideas are usually derivatives of what they already know. So the knowledge of intelligent people becomes a barrier to them being able to solve an Indian problem with an Indian perspective. And too many intelligent people in our nation read, think and argue in English. So their orientation is disconnected from India’s realities to start with.

In all this, the idea of India is getting lost and losing its way. Until our independence of thought is sharp enough to be genuinely creative and assertive enough for execution, we will lag our full potential as a nation. The recession across the world will affect us, but unlike the rest of the world the opportunity and challenge for India is much larger. If over the next decade we do not take the initiative to develop innovative, home-grown solutions, we will never be able to regain our momentum.

—  The writer is group managing editor, Dainik Bhaskar, group and Tweets @yatishrajawat