At the time of Independence, India was a diverse geography of 3.3 millions square kilometres with 1652 spoken languages, 86 different scripts, eight major religions and 16000 castes and tribes, 300 million population, 1000 small and big kingdoms, and 8000 years of known history. This huge diversity of our Indian nationhood was further augmented by ethnicity, beliefs, traditions, customs, rituals, arts and culture, architecture, cuisine, music, literature, history and social structure. This hugely diverse India had been stitched together on 15th August 1947 into one independent nation, thanks to the non-violent struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi. India is now celebrating 75 years of its Independence on 15 th August with all its diversity intact.
Unique Constitution
The new Indian nation later enacted a unique democratic Constitution for all its citizens which came into effect on 26th January 1950, bestowing equal voting and civil rights and freedoms to every Indian from the day one irrespective of his/her social, economic and religious background. Even the oldest democracy – USA - gave equal voting and civil rights to all its citizens and minorities only in 1965, 180 years after its Independence (in 1776) and its Constitution (1787). Apart from equal voting rights, our Constitution also provided reservations to oppressed social classes like SCs and STs in Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies to ensure representative form of governance.Based on equal voting rights and reservations, the first new Indian Government was elected in its first elections conducted over 1951-52 and put in place in 1952. India so far conducted 17 Parliamentary elections. There is no other such large country in the world as India which conducted peaceful elections for smooth transfer of power.
Jawaharlal Nehru as first Prime Minister
Nehru was the first Prime Minister of a United India. In order to judge Nehru’s tenure in 21 st Century, one needs to remember the context of the prevailing global and national situation between 1945 and 1964 which happened to be the most volatile period.
National and global ecosystem at the time of Independence
World War II started in September 1939 and ended in September 1945 with atomic bombing of Japan. Franklin Roosevelt, the American President since 1933, who was part of the troika of England PM Churchill and USSR leader Stalin which supervised the World War II by Allies, died on 12 th April 1945. Churchill, the leader of Conservative Party was defeated in elections held in the UK in 1945 by Richard Atlee, the Labour Party Leader. Joseph Stalin, who led the USSR since 1927 also died in 1953. As agreed upon earlier at the insistence of USA, European powers now totally devastated in WWII had to leave their colonies giving them Independence. Thus, many new nations, including India, were created after 1945 and the process went on till late 1960s. American State Department, taken over by war-returned Veterans who lacked the skills of subtle diplomacy and global perspective, bullied the new Nations as the US emerged as a Super Power after WWII. So India, as a new nation born in 1947, had to grapple such fluid global circumstances and forces during Nehru tenure.
Similar to the global situation, India’s national situation was very volatile. England announced the intention of leaving India in 1946. The following issues engaged the full attention of India in 1946-50 1) The accession of around 1000 Princely States in the entire Subcontinent 2) The issue of Partition 3) The drafting of the Indian Constitution 4) Replacement of Administrative Structure with Indians as British were leaving India immediately. 5) Containing the Partition violence and taking care of huge inward and outward migration of displaced people. Immediately after Independence, Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 and Sardar Patel died in December 1950. Nehru was the lone surviving member of the Troika which led the Independence movement and post-Independent issues. The other stalwarts of the Independence movement passed away between 1947 and 1960, leaving a void in leadership in building New United India.
Nehru leadership and legacy
Nehru took over reins of the newly created Indian Nation on 15 th August 1947 as its first Prime Minister and steered it through most turbulent waters in his 17-year tenure. He had no previous administrative experience. He spent almost nine years in prison during the freedom struggle. Still Nehru gave his best during initial struggling years.As the first Prime Minister, it was baptism by fire for Nehru. Yes, he committed a few mistakes during his tenure, particularly with regard to China. He had to seek Russian help in the first decade as the US State Department taken over by WWII Veterans was impatient with democratic India. Still he held his own as a lone warrior and laid strong economic, social and political foundations for India.
A giant nation with immense potential
There are around 195 countries/nations in the world with different geographic areas and population size. But there are only eight nations in the world with more than one million square kilometres geographic area together with more than 100 millions populations. India occupied 5th place with 3.30 million sq km area and 1352 million population. Among these giants, seven countries have more than USD 1 trillion GDP size economy each. They are 1. USA (USD 23 trillion GDP) 2. China (USD 15 trillion GDP) 3. India (USD 3.30 trillion GDP) 4. Brazil (USD 1.89 trillion GDP) 5. Russia (USD 1.60 trillion GDP) 6.Mexico($ 1.27 trillion GDP) 7. Indonesia (USD 1.20 trillion GDP).
India’s strengths after 75 years
With huge population and large geographical area as major resources together with sixth largest GDP of USD 3.3 trillion, largest percentage of arable land to its geographical area, surplus food production of 290 million tonnes, youthful population of 45%, median age of 27 years, large physical and material resources, the largest educational system in the world, the most sophisticated stock market and financial sector, vibrant Capital market, best public distribution system, with USD 580 billion foreign exchange reserves, India will continue to be the largest giant nation forever in so many respects among 195 countries in the world.
To emerge as a shining example by 2047
India is the only shining example of functioning democracy among top ten large populous nations of the World. Always remember, India as a geography survived for 8,000 years with its continuous supportive thread of Indian spiritual wisdom nurtured by its gurus and saints in every century. Let us not judge India through the lenses of our limited time framework of 75 years as any nation would attain maturity only after the completion of 100 years. What we have achieved in the last 75 years has been only a “net practice” in certain aspects and the best is yet to come for India.
B Vinod Kumar, Vice-Chairman, Planning Board, Telangana State