69. WASTED TIME : NATION

69. WASTED TIME : NATION

MEN,  their  time limited on earth, do suffer irrepairable loss when they miss opportunities in life. Life offers no second chances. Hindi poet Anand Bakshi wrote in telling words:

Time passes, never to return

ज़िन्दगी के सफ़र में गुज़र जाते हैं जो मकाम
वो फिर नहीं आते, वो फिर नहीं आते


Zindagi ke safar mein guzar jaate hain jo makam
Woh phir nahi aatae, woh phir nahi aatae

Those landmarks you pass in the journey of life
They never return, they never return.

[makam = maqam in Urdu. It also means destination  ]

सुबहो आती है, रात जाती है
सुबहो आती है, रात जाती है यूँ ही
वक़्त चलता ही रहता है रुकता नहीं
एक पल में ये आगे निकल जाता है
आदमी ठीक से देख पाता नहीं
और परदे पे मंज़र बदल जाता है
एक बार चले जाते हैं जो दिन-रात, सुबहो-शाम
वो फिर नहीं आते...

Subah aati hai, raat jaati hai yunhi 
Waqt chalta hi rehtaa hai rukta nahin
Ek pal mein ye aagae nikal jaata hain
Aadmi teekh se dekh paata nahin
Aur parde pe manzar badal jata hain
Ek baar chale jaate hain jo  din raat subah shaam
Woh phir nahi aatein, woh phir nahi aatein

Morning comes, night departs
In this manner time keeps moving, stops not
Just in a second it moves forward
Man is not able to see this properly
And the view keeps changing
And once the days, the nights, the mornings ,
the evenings pass,
They never come back, they never come back.

[From the 1974 film Aap Ki Kasam. Listen to the song on Youtube.]

That is why the man who feels he has missed or messed up something in life feels so  inconsolably  sad.

Take the tide!

Our master Shakespeare says this in his own way:


Brutus:
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat…

This is from Julius Caesar. Act IV, Scene III.

Leaders miss chances, nation suffers!

We must be able to recognise an opportunity and seize the moment.  When the person involved is a national leader, his success or failure in understanding affects the whole nation. Thus it is not just the individuals who suffer by wasted time or missed opportunities; countries also do. 

India missed such an opportunity when Gandhi&Co refused to accept the Cripps proposals in March 1942. Had they accepted them, India would not have suffered Partition.

Cripps and Gandhi

Expectations belied

Those of us who have been students of public affairs and watching how the nation has shaped since Independence feel so disappointed. No doubt there were exciting days and a sense of exhilaration.

Years before, Wordsworth had written about the French Revolution:

Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy! 

For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood 

Upon our side, we who were strong in love! 

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 

But to be young was very heaven!—Oh! times, 

In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways 

Of custom, law, and statute, took at once 

The attraction of a country in romance! 

When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights, 

When most intent on making of herself 

A prime Enchantress—to assist the work 

Which then was going forward in her name! 

 


He was not dreaming of a new world- this very earth on which we stood was so full of light, love and promise of happiness!

William Wordsworth

And in the region of their peaceful selves;— 

Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty 

Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire, 

And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish; 

Were called upon to exercise their skill, 

Not in Utopia, subterranean fields, 

Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where! 

But in the very world, which is the world 

Of all of us,—the place where in the end 

We find our happiness, or not at all!

 Our own Subramanya Bharati sang of our freedom fully twenty five years before it actually dawned, and said how the lowly and the lost found their Freedom, how we all became equal!

விடுதலை !  விடுதலை ! விடுதலை !
பறையருக்கும் இங்கு தீயர் புலையருக்கும்  விடுதலை !
பரவரோடு குறவருக்கும் மறவருக்கும் விடுதலை !
திறமைகொண்ட தீமையற்ற  தொழில்புரிந்து யாவரும்
தேர்ந்த கல்வி ஞானம் எய்தி  வாழ்வம் இந்த நாட்டிலே .

He expressed the hope that we would all master learning and flourish in this country undertaking skillful, harmless industry!

Alas! We know how disappointing the French Revolution was in the end, culminating in violence, destruction and horror. Wordsworth renounced all his former enthusiasm for it. Edmund Burke has written a classic critique of it. In 1790, he stated that the Revolution would end in disaster, because it was based on  vague ideas and ignored the complexities of human nature and the realities of society.

Blunders of Nehru:

Economic ruin

For us who have studied (and not merely followed) the way our own economic and political life was organised and directed under Nehru, it has been equally disappointing. There may not have been the outward violence and horror, but the results have been disastrous. 

Nehru's political and economic ideas were acquired and crystallised  while he was in Cambridge (1907-10). They were socialist. Later his visit to Soviet Russia in the 20s made him an admirer of that system, and blind to its faults and horrors. He never learned anything further, and never cared to. He thought he knew everything. His mind was closed.

Though he was with Gandhi, he never fully imbibed Gandhi's ideas on the economy or politics. The moment Gandhi died, he started pursuing  his own  ideas. No doubt he had all good intentions but lacking practical experience in any walk of life, he did not know how to make use of the resources he had. He simply did not know or ignored that  ideologies like socialism, capitalism had undergone changes. Capitalism of the mid-20th century was not what he had learned when he was a student at Cambridge. Nor was socialism what he had imagined  it was.

Indian industry and business had struggled under the British to establish themselves and had acquired expertise and proficiency in many fields. But Nehru totally spurned them in favour of socialist designs. And what did it all  come to? The public sector units ended up as fiefdoms of bloody bureaucrats who did not know a thing, nor cared to learn. Huge investments were made, generating little income, but vastly expanding the bureaucracy. [Whether in private sector or in the public,investment must generate returns so as to cover the cost of investment, and also to provide for replacement and renewal. What the public does not realise is that the govt does not pluck the money from trees, the investment comes from taxation and borrowing and they have to be properly used, which is only when they generate a return. Nehru did not understand the scientific distinction between normal  profits in the economic sense, and 'profiteering'.This is the result of his infantile mind.] 

Nehru was against the concentration of economic power, but was blissfully ignorant of how that very power was being concentrated in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians.Public ownership means in the end govt ownership and control by politicians and  bureaucrats. Both  are not accountable to anyone.  Nehru thus laid the foundations of an oppressive  and economically unproductive regime. Gandhi had said: 

I look upon an increase in the power of the state with the greatest fear, because, while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the root of all progress.

The State represents violence in a concentrated and organised form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.

What I disapprove of is an organisation based on force which a State is. Voluntary organisation there must be.

Yet Nehru, anointed heir by Gandhi, was expanding and strengthening that very State machinery. The govt of 'free' India became even more oppressive of Indian enterprise than the colonial regime. There were two disastrous consequences:

• India's share in world trade was 1.5% in 1951. It came down to 0.5% in 1991, after 4 decades of centralised planning! This, in spite of the incredibly enormous expansion in mulilateral trade after the Second World War. India under Nehru failed to take advantage of the rising tide of world trade.
• 
  
• The British govt had, during the Second World War, introduced exchange controls with a fixed exchange rate to serve colonial interests. This was continued even after the end of the War and even after Independence with great vigour. It was continued even after the system of fixed exchange rates collapsed all over the world in 1971! All because the idiots who ran our economy swore by Nehru and could not sense his idiocy!

India thus lost 4 decades persisting in economic folly! An entire generation of Indians lost economic opportunities!

Even Hitler called his system "national socialism".

Foreign policy blunders

Another folly of Nehru was in respect of foreign policy. When Pakistan invaded Kashmir, Indian Army was asked to repulse it. While it was engaged in the task, and had very nearly won, it was asked to stop- a blunder no statesman or military general would commit! This was in 1948 and now, 68 years later, this problem is still with us! Two generations of Indians have lived with this problem! 

In these years, Pakistan has also acquired nuclear weapons capability! An aggression which could have been ended in another 48 hours is still continuing after 68 years! It has become an even bigger problem than it was originally!

Nehru initiated Panchsheel and special friendship with China. But there were ominous signs already- as when Tibet was invaded by China. Nehru ignored and ridiculed all those who cautioned him, including Sardar Patel. In 1962, China invaded India and Nehru lost his credibility. It was the very Imperialist America which came to the rescue of India.

But the world has moved forward. Today, the US and China are closely linked economically. Though communist, China has introduced enough reforms and taken advantage of the expanding world economy. India is still raising slogans!

India is reduced to the pathetic position of always trying to catch up!

Domestic bungling

Another area where Nehru wasted his years is in managing domestic polity. He started with tremendous advantages. Though Sardar Patel was the overwhelming choice of the party men, Nehru was foisted on them as the PM by Gandhi.. He was very popular throughout the country. Soon after Independence, Gandhi died. In three years, Patel also died. So there was no restraining influence or authority on Nehru. Yet he failed to take decisive steps in vital matters.

It began with the division of Punjab, Sindh and Bengal. Till the day of Independence, Nehru (who was the interim PM- actually vice-president of the Viceroy's executive council)) did not know the actual division. Mountbatten had called a lawyer  from England who had no idea of Indian politics,and no idea of the demographic composition of the areas. He was made to sit in a secluded bungalow with maps , cut off from everyone, and asked to draw the line between India and Pakistan and complete the job within a month! He delivered his redrawn map on 13 August 1947, but it was not disclosed for another 72 hours. So, Indians did not really know the boundaries till after Independence was declared! 

It was a serious  blunder and the main reason for the refugee problem- not partition as such.

 Nehru could do and did nothing. Mountbatten simply bulldozed him. [ The barrister, Sir Cyril Radcliffe himself was so disgusted with his work that he returned the remuneration he had received for his work]

It is thus Nehru alone who must bear the major blame for the violence associated with the Partition.

After Independence, conflicts arose between states in regard to sharing river waters, borders etc. Orissa had been created in1936 on linguistic basis. Yet, when Telugu people demanded a separate state on the basis of their language, Nehru opposed it. But he quietly agreed to it when a Telugu zealot fasted and died! Yet, when Marathis demanded a separate state for them, involving the bifurcation of the Bombay state, he did not yield till the agitation snowballed and over 100 people died. In the meantime, the Pataskar Commission had been appointed to suggest reorganisation of  North Eastern States. This too left many dissatisfied.

Agitation for separate Telengana from Andhra- both speaking Telugu! What is the logic of the linguistic state now?
picture: newsyahoo.com


 There are disputes to this day between Karnataka and Maharashtra. And linguistic minorities in every state do face discrimination and at times open oppression.

Front cover of a book.

Similar is the case with inter-state water disputes. These continue for years. Nehru was the most powerful leader and his party ruled the states. But he did not solve any of the practical problems of free India! It seems if he could bungle, he would!

Farmers' rally in Tamil Nadu in 2011 demanding end to river water disputes. Picture from The Hindu. 
But how will the disputes end when the same political party in the different states- be it Congress or BJP or others - support the respective states and not fair treatment, or refuse to accept judicial verdict?
In free India, people have forgotten that they are Indians!

With each passing day we are creating more difficulties for ourselves.