The Backward Indian in Us

I don't write on the behalf of Indians but as an inseperable part of them.A sense of frustation seems to creep in as and when each day passes not because we as Indians tend to be moving away from the idea of a progressive state but shamelessly endorsing the ideology of moving backwards without any inhibitions towards devicing any means to achieve the same. The thought is not just one of the fly by night one's..it's got to do more with the vulgar display of our capabilities to disrupt daily lives, a price that a non-participant Indian has to pay for the follies of those at the helm of self-interest. Not that a pragmatic approach towards achieving our goals requires us to take a tough stance but what seems to be bothersome is the fact that it is done at a cost of a fellow Indian. A simple thought of a family member requiring immediate medical treatment or a student appearing for an exmiantion being denied the same due to breakdown of state mechanisms even for a single day are enough to stiffen up the body. A cracker of an observation by the Supreme Court that India is possibly the only nation where people fight to be declared as 'backward' may as well prove to be the defining statement for India in this decade. State governments being held at ransom at the pretext of reservations, social distictions, religion are not signs of a nation being reminded of and by those getting left behind in the developmental proces but rather indicative of the rumbling political structures whereby just about any interest group with enough political clout can make a mockery of a sysytem. The question that really needs to be asked at this stage is - "whether we are in a postion to give the world a face changing ideology for the future". In my view, we already had one which we ourselves have lost. One doesn't need to be an Indian to just remember what Gandhi stood for. It was an ideology that the world reeling under the effects of almost consecutive world wars was awaiting to prove it efficacy....we had the onus!!...Not moving off track and declaring to be a Gandhian but trying to emphasise that at the end of the day Gandhi did not plainly stand for non-violence. He was a staunch activist working towards removal of class distictions. And this is where we all have almost fudged the very foundations of the state building process. Today we are clammering for participative development by classifying ourselves as the victims of past and latest beneficiaries of the class based society leading to the establishment of almost a reverse process of individual identification - first towards the caste one is born into and then, later as a citizen of India. The solution to social upliftment surely has to lay through scocial enlightenment and not partisan politics. High time we channelise emotions and not dislpay them in crude form !!