THE COUNTRY THAT NEVER CAME TO BE

Thisis a continuation of my previous post, written wheni wrote the previous post..but uploadin only now.

There comes a new question now: Why is the society pushing me? Why does the society need somebody to do its dirty work? Do I care about being someone I wouldn’t want to be, but, as I am already here wouldn’t mind doing?

Well, I am not sure. But, when I have thought about it, I feel the society needed this to a certain extent. Yes, I know, it is surprising. But, in a developing country like ours, especially one with such large geographic  boundaries, and gifted with such a large amount of flora, fauna and other natural resources; we needed people with the technical know-how to convert this basic raw material to a finished product. This is because, a finished product earns us income many times a raw material does. So, we needed people who could find out new and better uses for our natural wealth, yet protect these above mentioned God-given(something we have to discuss, but later) money machines(if you want to look at it, the capitalist way). Also, we needed the medicine men, who could look after and take care of both of our thriving, vibrant and diverse fauna and our most valuable resource in the 21^st century, our human capital.

When our country had just become independent in 1947, our leaders had very people who could do this, hence, they encouraged people to go study, acquire the required knowledge and help our country to progress. Thus, we got our first premier engineering, research and medical institutions; not forgetting to thank the visionary Tatas, Birlas and other families who helped in this process.

The society and that time, though had a much different demographic. A majority of the people (I am not foolish to assume, that there were no fools, money-mongers and selfish people because, where do you think a lot of the current age politicians come from) knew reason, they knew the advantage of thinking before jumping into anything. But, after all, we are all human. So our great leaders made a mistake, even though they made a constitution based on democracy, made for the people, by the people and of the people, they erred in making America and Russia our role models. Our leaders chose Non-Alignment over communism or capitalism, yet they covertly sided with Russia for military and space capabilities and America for many of the industrial advances. There, in their attempt to maintain democracy in all its even-handedness and parity, they made it unbalanced and unfair.  

Sorry, I am going off-topic. I shall talk about our great nation and its leaders, both past and present, further down. So, what I was alluding to was that, our nation’s young society in an attempt to acquire technical know-how started making journeys to new corners of the world, learning new things, seeing new and wonderful places, acquiring new experiences. Many came back to tell about this wonderful dreamland abroad, with flush toilets, coffee and tea in packets, bakeries with all sorts of mind boggling and mouth-watering foods. Imagine the delight of an Indian who must have gone to America or the U.K or Russia during the 40s,50s and the 60s. A time when even owning a bicycle was a luxury in India. Thus, began the great Indian gold rush.

Many a person came back to India, after acquiring the technical know-how, proud of themselves and their motherland, which in their minds was day by day becoming greater and greater. But, only when they came back did they notice with dismay the lack of equipments, the machines without which their training is worthless. So, many went back, and settled down abroad; making arrangements very slowly and painstakingly to amass money and then purchase machinery, equipments and everything they could get their hands on, so that our country could progress. Thus, went the first few years of our country. More and more people entered technical field, at the same time, the country started progressing in earnest, one step at a time.

The engineering, scientific and the medical fields started booming because of new wars, plagues, the population explosion, need for better amenities, rising lifestyles and also due to opening up of markets after the downfall of the Soviet Union. Thus, as the industries also matured, so did the incomes and the paycheques.

But, then somewhere in the late 80s or the mid-90s we misplaced our blueprint for the nation. Instead this position was taken up by money, lifestyle and one-upmanship. Thus, began our second Indian gold rush, though we didn’t realise it.   People continued going abroad to learn. Yes, learn, but to learn what? 80-90% of the people went to learn the big buck jobs. The big buck jobs being science and engineering, management and medicine (I classify medicine as a separate division though it comes under science because of variation in the practice of medicine and other sciences.). 5-digit incomes became a prerequisite to be an elite member of a growing middle class which is largely materialistic, money-hogging, selfish and attention seeking.

In all this hurry, we the people forgot the arts completely; the people who choose arts courses being called either dunderheads or people who have a wish to commit social and financial suicide. The people who become successful in the arts fields being called savants and geniuses; many of them are true geniuses, I agree. But, the truth is all of us have the gift to be beautiful and artistic, we just don’t look at it or develop this gift, or by chance if we do, it’s just another achievement to add to your precious resume.

One other change is in the demographic of our country, that has seen, a declining number in true political and intellectual leaders; People who could think. Nobody is willing to take up this responsibility, as it is not an easy one, nor, is it one which guarantees you any money. Due to this, we now have leaders up in the ruling class, who have either half-baked or no knowledge of the art of reasoning. All they know is argument without applying themselves and arguing for that cause till the end. And, also, the knowledge of how to make money by swindling the people of the country, anyway, they are not making any hue or cry. The middle class which is the one of the biggest and most influential classes of this country is conveniently asleep, hoping and praying only 2 things. One, that he gets more and more money by the day. Two, that he fares better than his neighbours. Because of this, the ragamuffins, our supposed leaders who are supposed to run the government machinery loot us day in and day out, and yet, the middle class accepts it resignedly, because even now they are thinking” After all, my neighbour is also paying it”.