This is neither a postcard nor a form, just an editorial to indicate precisely what we mean to say. Yours sincerely and yours forever more. India still needs you, India still feeds you, even at sixty-four (with apologies to Paul McCartney and John Lennon)! The tri-colour is on sale again at crossroads around the country. Young ill-clad kids trying to appeal to every vehicle driver’s patriotism to make an extra buck. No harm in it. If Independence Day celebrations can help some people make money from other peoples’ patriotism, so be it!
As India enters a long weekend, with grateful sisters tying their friendship bands around wrists of protective brothers, many Indians would still want to tie a raakhee or two around the wrists of the millions who make this nation move. Patriotism is a helpful feeling, especially in a divided nation. So many will feel good buying those flags and flying them! Go ahead. It will also add to effective demand and sustain the growth rate.
Despite the traditional sense of patriotism that grips most on Independence Day, this year does feel different. It feels dull and unexciting. Sixty-four is an unimportant number, neither the age of retirement anywhere, nor the year when one loses or gains any benefits (senior citizen type), nor an important anniversary in any religious calendar. The only reason Mr Lennon thought of 64 may have been that he was reportedly 16 when he wrote the song and, given life expectancy at the time in working class England, he must have felt that 64, a multiple of 16, is a long way away to ask the kind of questions he was asking.
India at 64 has certainly slowed down a bit, after the energetic fifties, and so it needs its people more. With the global economy into a slowdown again and both the United States and the European Union stuck in the morass of slow growth and domestic problems, it would seem that India has to re-energise herself so that it can sustain economic growth based on domestic demand and investment, rather than external sources of growth. The mantra of 'inclusive growth’ sounds more relevant today than at any other time. In a world where nations seem threatened more by internal divisions, from the developed West to the developing South, rather than external threats, inclusive growth has to be the way forward for all.
India at 64 has the potential to regain momentum based on its strategy of inclusive growth. The old and tired debates about “growth first — inclusion later”, or “distribution first — growth will follow”, find no resonance in current political discourse. Everyone, from the upwardly mobile nouveau riche to the down and out marginalised poor, want both growth and social justice.
To use an old Mao cliché, India has to walk on two legs — of both growth and inclusion.
As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said often in his Independence Day speeches, growth creates the resources needed to finance inclusive social and economic policies, while such inclusive policies accelerate growth by the investment they make in human capabilities. An India that feeds all, and an India that makes everyone feel they are needed, is an India that will grow and rise and stand tall — for years to come after 64!