Independence Day!

India celebrates its 61st independence from British rule today. Though the struggle for indepedence was a peaceful one, post independence saw a lot of communal violence and the establishment of two neighboring countries at war forever. Amount of money each country spends fighting or preparing to fight each other is humongous when you consider the poor people that live in both the countries.

While I am post-independent born and cannot really comment about the changes that independence bought us, it appears that many of the policies our leaders followed were way off the mark. The search for a socialistic environment kept us in the dark for many decades before we opened up and embraced globalization. Government tried do everything including business(telecom, banking etc.) and failed in its fundamental duty of governing the country to enable people to do business. Also many of the policies and institutions created a elite and non-elite classes.

Though there were plans in place for education and food for everyone, nothing really proved effective. The top class institutions for the elite who could train their folks to get entry into these institutes predominantly created engineers who migrated to the west - the education they got from these institutions were of little use in the country. Though the idea was to build a stronger nation with these highly trained folks, the environment had nothing for entrepreneurship. Creating excellence in isolation was a waste of money for a poor nation. Education at the grassroots is still a major problem for the country that we don't have solid plans for. When people are struggling for their food, education is not a priority for them. Illiteracy still rules in many parts of the country where superstitions still drive the people.

But we still are a democracy even with all the problems and differences, which is indeed a great achievement. But integrity among politicians and in politics is a rare commodity. Most of the politicians are out to make money while in power. Country also is pretty much divided on communal lines - Kashmir remains a problem forever that was created by partitioning the country on communal lines.

Globalization seems to have lit the place with some hope though it still is concentrated on the big cities. You really don't have to go abroad to get good opportunities to work - most of the big MNCs are out here. Though most of them see India as an low cost economic region to outsource low value work, there are pockets where you can do top class work. Some of them do realize that globalization's value is in tapping the talents of people anywhere in the world rather than looking for quick cost gains.

Telecom scenario has exploded in the country once government let the private players in. For a country where it was practically impossible to get a phone line, we have very affordable mobile phones in the country now. Internet has been a leveler as well - it brings in information from all over the world and in creating global communities irrespective of the region and class. Access to information on anything is pretty much available and mostly free.

So we seem to have corrected a lot of our mistakes over the years, but fundamental problems in food, education and housing remains. Hopefully, globalization will bring real independence and prosperity in the country in future.