One hopes in his next term, Narendra Modi will take up the mission of inculcating respect for following rules in Indians as a mission.
Therein lies the chance for India to become a developed country, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The honest answer to this question is, maybe! Readers would wonder why this doubt.
After all, under Narendra Modi's determined leadership, India has taken great strides in all fields.
Mr Modi has succeeded in giving immediate succour to the poor and yet built up infrastructure rapidly.
He has successfully integrated the long term with the short term, a feat that eluded many of his predecessors.
India is today the fastest growing economy, a stable democracy, and a reasonably peaceful country.
One must always be mindful of the fact that India is not just a country but a subcontinent with mind-boggling diversity.
The diversity is far greater than in Europe and we all know what is happening in Europe.
The reason for my scepticism or more accurately cautious optimism with a tinge of doubt is that far too many times have we seen the starry-eyed forecast of an Indian 'take off' that is either imminent or has already happened. Only to be pulled back either due to political, social, or international factors.
Many rightly attribute our lack of progress to a corrupt leadership.
I remember asking General Krishnaswamy Sundarji in 1981 after he had just reyurned from a tour of China why China was doing better than India.
He answered that China had an honest leadership while we did not.
India's spectacular progress in the last decade or so is essentially because after a long time we finally had an honest leader in Narendra Modi.
He has single-handedly reduced the corruption in the system.
We all know that today with digitisation dens of corruption like income tax, excise departments, RTO or the public distribution system have all but vanished.
Octroi tax, one of the biggest source of generation of black money/corruption, has been finished with its abolition. Any non-partisan Indian will accept these facts.
Yet despite these positive factors, some perennial weaknesses persist. I would list them as:
- Lack of defence consciousness and defence preparedness.
- Not enough emphasis on 'Ease of doing Science' as opposed to rightful emphasis on ease of doing business.
- Lack of inherent respect for the rule of law or self-discipline in the population at large.
Let us take the first 'weakness', of lack of defence consciousness.
It is true that in the last 5 years or so we have woken up to the fact that we must be 'atmanirbhar' or self-sufficient in defence.
We have taken great strides in this field, but the fundamental fact remains that many intellectuals in our institutes of science and technology as well as higher learning remain aloof from this endeavour.
There is a general prevalence of pacifism and the notion that being militarily strong is sinful and being weak is moral.
This is a result of colonial historiography that created the myth of the 'White Man's Burden' and sold the notion that the West enslaved the world due to its 'moral' superiority.
The European conquests beginning the 17th century were gunpowder' empires, a fact carefully hidden from subjects in colonies like India.
It is often forgotten that India attracted invaders from the world over because it was an economic prize, a 'golden sparrow' as Babur said.
Currently, the tendency amongst most Indians of higher learning is to consider the issue of defence or security as a matter to be dealt with by the armed forces alone.
Without the input from scientific and intellectual elite, the defence of the country can never rest on sound footing.
Fortunately, this is not such an insurmountable problem. One way to rectify the situation is for the armed forces to interact with these institutes on a systemic basis and regularly.
False notions of security, must be discarded to achieve this.
With over 60% of our hardware being of foreign origin even now, the only people ignorant about them are our own citizens. The enemy knows more than enough about them.
The second and more effective way to build defence consciousness is to introduce the history of modern warfare or the country's military history as an additional subject in all institutes of higher learning.
In the past, India has paid a very heavy price for neglect of this vital issue.
As a military historian, I have searched far and wide to find an analytical account of the numerous battles we fought at Panipat and my efforts came to naught.
One does not find a single such account. Is it any wonder then that we continued to repeat the mistakes we did in the first Panipat battle?
We remained oblivious to the advances in firearms and artillery and paid the price.
Even after Independence, we never rectified this flaw.
To cite a simple example, the official history of our first war in Kashmir 1947-1948, written in the 1950s was kept under wraps and only published in 1987... forty years later.
The 1962 debacle in conflict with China is still kept secret. The consequence of this was that we never understood the role air power played in the 1947 victory and our non-use of air power in our defeat in 1962.
Consequently, when went to war with Pakistan in 1965, we went in initially, without air support.
If like Israel two years later (the Six Day War of 1967) we would have used air power right on September 6, 1965 when we advanced to Lahore, Pakistan would have lost Punjab and may have even collapsed as a State.
Our future generations must know the true facts of our past wars and learn from them and not repeat Panipat like our ancestors.
For a long period, India had emphasiSed economic development. But in the contemporary world this needs to be balanced with the military might needed to defend it.
The fate of economically prosperous countries like Iraq, Ukraine etc should be a warning.
In the 21st century, the US is maintaining its world economic hegemony with its military might.
The second Indian weakness is in not being able to have scientific breakthroughs or new technology developed within India.
We did start well with the establishment of IITs and scientific laboratories after independence.
Credit for nurturing these in the early years goes to our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
However, in the later period, the IITs basically became institutions to supply trained technical manpower of very high quality to the US.
These Indians developed many new products and technologies in the West.
Even in basic science research, it is Indians trained here, but working abroad who made a mark.
The issue of why these scientific geniuses did not flower in their own country needs to be pondered seriously.
Unless we do good science and basic research in India, we will never be able to create new technology and new products.
One of the unfortunate facts of our scientific establishments is the tendency to work in isolated silos.
Scientific breakthroughs in Indian laboratories are not known to the technologists.
There is an urgent need for intercommunication between users developers and scientists.
A group of technology 'spotters' need to be part of all major technological institutes and users like industry or armed forces.
Scientific advisors, as existing currently in the prime minister's office and defence ministry, are needed in many other fields from communication, and agriculture to transport.
Big public enterprises must have their own R&D and science advisors.
Our private enterprises either prefer to buy technology or are satisfied with being mere manufacturers.
We have too many such examples from vaccines to automobiles.
Investment in basic research is an investment in the future. It is this that will eventually give technological independence to the country.
Funding for this must be seen as a public good and not link it to profits.
Like a good practice implemented by the Vajpayee government in 2001, the budgets of scientific establishments should be rolling budgets that do not lapse on March 31.
It is futile to expect private investment in basic research as their economic horizon is short-term.
In addition, the current restrictions on imports, laudable for promoting domestic industry, should not hamper getting the tools for scientific research.
In India, there is a tendency to equate science with 'jugaad' (innovation or repurposing). This is false.
True progress can take place only with new ideas and scientific breakthroughs.
What is necessary is a dialogue between the scientific community and decision-makers.
This should receive as much attention as 'ease of doing business' receives.
When did we last hear of such a consultation? While dialogue with businessmen is an annual affair.
The biggest obstacle in India becoming a developed country is the general lack of discipline of Indians with a tendency to flout the law, take shortcuts and generally disregard rules and procedures.
In India, the rich break the law to become richer, the poor break the law to survive, but most break the law out of sheer habit.
We have ushered in high-speed trains and wide roads, but in lawless India, these have also become death traps.
The recent horrific rail accident in Odisha and elsewhere took place because of flouting of rules.
Every year, approximately 1.5 lakh people die on Indian roads, which translates, on average, into 1,130 accidents and 422 deaths every day or 47 accidents and 18 deaths every hour.
Unless the basic Indian attitude changes, these improvements will become counterproductive.
No country can run a modern infrastructure or systems with this approach.
Many years ago, a meeting of secretaries of the Government of India concluded that India was ungovernable.
The roots of this malady go back to our freedom struggle.
Gandhiji's call for civil disobedience made the freedom struggle a mass movement and made India ungovernable for the British.
Many leaders of the time, notably Annie Besant, warned Gandhiji against this tactic and its long-term repercussions.
In 1947 once we got Independence and a democratically elected government, this should have ended.
In a free democracy, it is people's elected representatives who make laws, thus indirectly it is 'We the people' who make these laws.
When in a democracy we break these laws with impunity, we are breaking rules made by ourselves.
It is pertinent to see the way people follow laws in developed countries and in direct contrast the way we flout them in India.
Without this minimum condition of respect for the rule of law, India cannot become a developed country nor can it run a modern and efficient economy or transport system.
Let us take a simple example of our driving habits on the highways.
I have been traveling all over India and have observed that in complete disregard to the rules of traffic, it is the heavy vehicles that drive in the fast lane forcing light and faster vehicles to overtake from the wrong side.
It is this single fact that results in collisions as the sideline may have vehicles that have halted for some reason.
This is not rocket science and implementation of this single measure can reduce road fatalities by 30%.
But like the tree rots from the top, this disdain for rules is copied by a common citizen from our elected leaders.
Indian politicians have made flouting of the rules a norm and following them an exception.
The spectacle of our highest legislative bodies being paralysed by unruly behaviour gives a cue to ordinary citizens to emulate this.
There is very little to choose between parties on this score and all political parties have been guilty of this transgression.
Unless our elected leaders set an example, we can never have a functioning developed country.
I would like to quote directly from a series of lectures Annie Besant gave at Adyar on February 16, 1908 on 'Right Citizenship'. (published 1995 by the Theosophical Society Adyar, page 29), I quote:
On Discipline
Our boys in the Central Hindu School elect their own captains.
They had elected a boy who was a good captain, but rather strict.
He tried to do his duty without favouring one or the other and some boys did not like him and they came to me to complain.
They said that he was very strict and not a good captian.
"we want you to change him"
My question was "Didn't you elect him?" "Yes, we elected him, but we don't like him now."
Then I said, "If you think he is not a good captain, you need not re-elect him, but as you have elected him you are bound to obey him till his term ends. Am I to over-rule or cancel your own election? If so you have not begun to learn the first duties of electors and you are lacking in the instincts of a citizen."
One of the greatest achievements of the current government to my mind is the end of open defecation.
In the last 70 years of rail travel in India, one was greeted in the morning with the sight of Indians defecating in the open on both sides of the rail track.
Mahatma Gandhi in his lifetime tried his best to end the practice, but failed.
Where Gandhiji failed, Narendra Modi has succeeded.
One hopes in his next term, Shri Modi will take up the mission of inculcating respect for following rules in Indians as a mission.
Therein lies the chance for India to become a developed country.
Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) is a military historian whose earlier columns can be read here.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
