A small but educated and diverse
group of employees of a business got together last month in their Directors
room to discuss the strategies for maintaining and if possible increasing
sales. The problems that they were facing was myriad ranging from sharp rise in
cost of imported material, to non-availability of indigenous material, to
falling sales volumes, to change in consumer preferences, to increasing cost of
production, to workers unhappiness, etc. All possible scenarios were analysed
and factored in but no satisfactory conclusion was being drawn. I was sitting
and witnessing the proceedings. Everybody was disturbed by the levels of
uncertainties prevailing in the economy due to a host of national and
international reasons. Economists and pundits always seem comfortable
projecting the growth percentile for the country but sitting at the micro level
there is not an inch of comfortable space. Growth feels distant given the chaos
prevailing in the country today. Somebody in the group remarked that the
country had set out on the path of liberalization two decades ago, had seen
some unprecedented success but the road has ended up now because we as a nation
do not know how to handle growth. The thought set me thinking. Are we Indians
really incapable of handling growth? What’s wrong with us?
One very big reason that I can
see is that we have all become narrow minded and individual centric. We no more
trust the concepts of collective wisdom or the good of the maximum. All we want
today is personal benefit. Since the beginning of the 90’s many people have
become rich but many more have faltered, tried and failed. Over the years
people instead of becoming concerned or happy with what they have achieved,
were more focused on becoming concerned or unhappy with what others had achieved.
They started gauging their personal success or failure by comparing with that
of another instead of comparing what they had yesterday to what they have
today. What started out in the early 90’s under the phase of need of the nation
has now turned into the phase of need of the individual. Slowly the collective
national feeling fragmentalised. Everybody found that each one was thinking of
their own self. The economically weak people found that a homogenous group
identity had some better bargaining power as against the weak individual. The
election process came as a shot in the arm for those who could form some sort
of homogenous groups and slowly regional parties took shape which transformed
the single party majority rule into a coalition form of government. In the end
today no one speaks about national interest, each group only have their own
interest to focus on. In a way this country has returned to its roots as was
visible before the British arrived. A wise sage has once said that little in
security is better than plenty in fear but today we have forgotten our wise men
and their words. We have transformed ourselves into a nation of fearful people.
Another major problem with us is
the level of corruption which we have assimilated in our daily lives in every
sphere of activity. As a nation we all have failed ourselves in allowing such
base instincts to take control of our lives. As human we have allowed fear to
win over faith, over our talent and ability and have adopted the instincts a
weak and sly creature. I cannot call it animal instincts also because even
animals won’t kill unless hungry. They atleast do have ethics and we have gone
even below that level. It is a pathetic situation that we don’t trust each
other, we don’t trust the rule of law, we don’t trust principles, we cannot be
contented with what we have, we cannot wait for our turn to come, we believe in
hiding our faults, we believe in projecting and protecting a false image. What
to say about believing in God, we don’t believe in ourselves. Falsehood has
become our creed. We very easily accept falsehood in others and contemplate to
adopt the same as a natural sequence of events. By extending the logic of the
argument an honest person is practically considered to be a fool, a person
without any trace of smartness, a non-achiever, and a loser. Such practices do
not pay in the long run but fortunately or unfortunately India is a young
nation and it will take time for everybody to become old and realize the truth
in the statement.
With such a legacy, how far is
India expected to travel in the path of nationhood is anybody’s guess. Maybe
the Orient was meant to remain mystic, spiritual and poor. My pessimistic conclusion is that we were never
brought up to handle material wealth and my most optimistic conclusion is that if
we want to progress on the material front then we will have to first mature as
human beings and then mature as a nation. How much time it will take will depend
on the collective desire of everyone.
