Update: Lost in translation

Last few weeks have been very happening. Cricket tournament, gym, research proposal, course preparation, India trip, UPSC result and an Interview.

So much travel and new experiences. Somehow blogging became a casualty of this busy schedule. Despite the busy schedule, there was a lot of self-talk and introspection. My international experiences and conversation with people at home and abroad led to some recurrent themes like lack of faith in democracy and inclination towards benevolent dictatorship, skepticism about future of India and rising appeal of communal thinking. Such discussions and thoughts gave me some sleepless nights. It made me wonder if the idea of India is so weak. Is bringing change next to impossible in India? Could there be something which could be done to fix India's poisonous air, polluted water, and congested roads? These questions led to a further set of questions which I am going to discuss here.

First of the question was can there be a change with a compassionate and empathic thinking or do we need to be ruthless and stern in taking tough decisions? Change often leads to pain and displacement. As a result, some casualty and problems are sure to occur. In such situation, how can we bring change? How can we expand roads and acquire new land without disturbing the routine way of life? One of the solutions is to have a new institutional mechanism of rehabilitation ministry in India which will dedicatedly work toward providing a new arrangement of life to displaced people. Another could be to implement Benami property act in letter and spirit. How much all of these are problem specific solutions which target only at the surface and do not solve the root problem. The root of the issue is how far Indians are ready to stretch themselves in the nation-building exercise and how to arouse a nationalist consciousness in the times of self-interested instinct? This is something we need to ponder upon. 

Another question which shook my mind was how can we bring in and apply wisdom from USA or Dubai to India and use it as a developmental model for the country? The answer to this is we just can't do this. Teleporting a USA or Dubai model to India would be a crime. We need to do things as per Indian context. For example, we can not use the transport model of USA. Ours is a big mix of the small and large vehicle so we need to tailor our system accordingly. We need to push extensive research in these areas. Be it urban problems, road transport or waste management, we need to factor in India's scale, magnitude and social structure into account.  

The third question which become important in this context is can we bring these changes with democracy or do we need a dictator? Most of the people I interacted voted against democracy and reposed their faith in dictatorial model of governance. This gave me a feeling of gloom and Deja vu as if the aristotle's prediction about democracy is coming to life. 

Anyway, of the three questions, I may have my doubts about the first two but for the third my conviction remains strong. Democracy is the only way India can sustain and succeed. Considering our diversity and uniqueness, there is just no other alternative.