When will India become a developed nation?
When I was surfing the net some time ago I was impressed by a fine bit of information given by the author of an article. That actually gave me the base and tempted to write this article.
Living Standard:
Progress is the must for any nation. Simply as existence on the earth is meaningless. The progress should be measured by the living standard of the nation. To mention here, the living standard is not of the affluent section of the nation. The standard of living of affluent society of any poverty stricken and backward country should be reasonably high. So the grass root level people has to be taken for discussion.
Real progress is not seen:
People may argue that we are progressing. Our progress is not the real one, I believe. We may be confessed by saying the development in IT field and space activities. These developments will increase the pride of our nation among international communities but won't fill the stomach of the masses who are still below the poverty line. We should attain the growth universally not by indicating one or two areas. Our Government, politicians and people should work hard to narrow down the gap between rich and poor. There won't be any progress without giving attention to socio-economic imbalances.
Few rains from dark clouds:
Our progress is not up to the mark when considering the span of fifty-eight years after independence. Have we achieved sixty percent of education in national level? We can pat on our chest by the mystery amidst misfortunes that is nothing but one hundred per cent education achieved in our tiny State of Kerala. Let us ignore the vast States like Utter Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh etc. At least the small pockets like Union Territories should have attained one hundred per cent education like Kerala.
By knowing the importance of education Tamil Nadu Government is taking vigorous steps. From first standard to plus two they supply free books for all the students of Government schools and Government aided schools. By assisting financially to the ladies of weaker sections to do small business they put in roads to improve economy in families in order to come out of poverty. Procuring crops from farmers and waiving off interests and loan amount are the ways to help the farmers to come out from their hardship during drought. Procuring all the products from the weavers who depend on handlooms and sell them for a low price to the poor to help the poor. These are all the few welfare measures taken by the Tamil Nadu Government to improve the economic status of the State.
Beyond doubt, Andhra is the best and quality paddy producers in India and transporting rice not only through out India and exporting rice to foreign countries.
Looming contradictions:
Our brothers and sisters in East Godavari district in AP are being ruthlessly killed by naxalites. Once the naxalites movements were active in Dharmapuri district and Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu. What is the root cause for these naxalites insurgencies? Economic imbalance is one of the causes for extremism. Extremists are not born but produced.
We are not paying any attention to eradicate this but we are busy in air-conditioning the resting places of place of worship and repairing the temple cars for the car festival and deepening the temple tank for floating festival when the country is floating on economic strains.
To attain the economic growth and national progress we can't simply blame the politicians who rule the nations but people are also equally responsible for this. People should be country conscience. We don't have to see the western world for the progress. Just look around nations in the Asia Pacific regions. Once the countries were in very backward state are now became a developed nation with a high standard of living.
To come forward we have to transform our man-hours into energy towards progress. Language, religion and other associated activities etc are swallowing our maximum man-hours and being obstacles to our growth. I came to know a flow of fifty thousand people are visiting a place of worship every day. Through out India how many such places of worship are over crowded like this. If this could happen once or twice in a year we could tolerate because every day we are loosing millions of priceless man-hours. Religion, language etc are the part in life and they are not the life.
"Work is worship" is the proverb. Let us not transform the proverb, as "Worship is work."
Minimum usage is meaningful:
The developing countries like India should not waste essential things like food, milk, honey etc. In developed countries the damaged food containers are not allowed to sit in the shelves of super market. The food manufacturers scrap the damaged containers along with food. They don't consider of replacing food with a new container because the labour is so expensive. So the country with that kind of richness may adopt a policy of wasting food though it is not acceptable for our ethical value. It is understood when we recollect the act of Mother Teresa. She was given dinner at a five star hotel by people from affluent society.
When the party was over, Mother Teresa was collecting the left over food from the plates and putting it into a basket. The hosts who arranged the dinner shocked to see that and rushed to her and said, "Why did you do like this? If you would have told us we would have arranged as much as you need." Mother Teresa politely replied, "I know that but there are some people under my care who haven't seen such food of this type. That's the reason I don't want to waste this food."
Knowingly we are wasting milk and honey. When I was a student I learned from a poem in the textbook that honey and milk were flowing like river in ancient India. This may be an exaggeration on the point of our view. But today honey and milk are flowing into the drain. The tiny bee flutters it's wings in the air and move from flower to flower to collect it's mouthful of honey. Then store them in the comb little by little.
Lot of hardship to get honey by the farmers of honey farm and tribals who climb treetops and mountaintops to get honey. Similarly milk is also not easily available. In country side people cheat the calf and draw maximum milk from the cow without allowing some for the calf to drink. In diary also the production of milk is not an easy process. The honey and milk which are collected by this way are being wasted enormously for religious purposes and allowed to flow in drain without being useful to anyone.
Religion and religious rites are very important to humankind. But we should not waste things by the name of religion. There are so many young children starving without milk due to poverty. Sick and elderly people are supposed to drink milk are not getting because of various reasons but large amount of milk and honey are going into the drain.
If we use only a little quantity collected from the devotees for religious purposes and allow the balance to reach young children, sick and elderly people instead of allowing it to flow in drain, how nice it could be.
Difference among people and need of the hour:
Unless an exceptional situation, people from countries like Swiss, Sweden, Germany and Japan don't migrate to other nations. People leave their homeland for various reasons but the main reason is to earn more money and for better standard of living.
People make use of the opportunity when it knocks their doorstep. It is very rare to find a personality like Indian President Dr Abdul Kalam who refused an offer given by the NASA in United States for a tune of equivalent to one hundred crores of Indian rupees when he was there for some time.
India should become a developed nation. For this we have to follow the strategies which were followed by the developed nations. We have to start educating people and achieve one hundred per cent education at national level.
The time and money spent on religious activities should be minimised or put on hold for some time till we achieve our goal and divert them towards the progress of our nation. Develop faith and illusion that all are one and only Indians by sinking the difference of religion, language, status etc.
Our limited achievements:
People may think how would it be possible. Ironically we could say that it could be possible and give few examples. One hundred per cent education is achieved in Kerala. Bangalore has become an excellent base for IT field.
Andhra is the best for agricultural products in India. Chennai has become the medical city in the South East Asia region. Mumbai is the business spine of our country. In total India is helping adjacent countries when they are in crisis.
How to achieve the destination:
To become a developed nation we have to draw a plan by involving people like political leaders, religious leaders, economists and progressive minded people. All should work hard selflessly and sincerely to reach the destination as true patriots.
Till we reach our goal we should consider India is our place of worship and Mother India is our Goddess to worship and the works related to national growth are our prayer and religious activities. Bring all the insurgents, activists, and extremists into negotiating table and solve the problems politically.
This is very important because if anyone wants to win a running race he must be healthy and fit enough in the first place. If not it would be like allowing the wound on the leg without treating and participating in the race.
What is needed now?
A spark should be ignited to activate thinking among certain group of people. The day when the spark is ignited is the beginning of dawn for India to become a developed nation. Our past experiences speak such a type of spark which was ignited among certain group of people to free the country from the foreign rulers. If we agree that was possible, we should accept that this is also possible.
Aravind T
Research Analyst
