Editor's Note | 75 Years of India’s Independence: A licence to dream
Seventy-five years ago, a famous midnight speech by our first prime minister heralded the birth of a new Nation. Meanwhile, the architect of independence was fast asleep, over 1,500 km away, where he had gone to douse the flames of a communal riot.
A pledge we made to ourselves
Defying dire warnings that it would be a land cleft asunder within a decade, the Republic of India, a profoundly feudal and impoverished country at the time of its independence and fraught with casteist, religious and linguistic divisions, has survived as a strong nation-state. Unlike most post-colonial countries, democracy in India has taken deep roots. It is home to a strong middle class, has a vibrant diaspora and is a rising global power with the world's fifth-largest economy. Read more
Rise and sway of the Sangh Parivar
During a routine family gathering, I heard an uncle say it was time “we” stopped buying fruit from Muslim vendors. I must have been 12. It’s taken more than half a century for such advice, given behind closed doors among trusted family members, to be given publicly and even implemented in some states. Read more
Karnataka paradox: Economic modernity versus depravity
There is something stark about Karnataka’s post-independence trajectory. While the state’s economic pre-eminence has been continuous during this period, its record in the polity has suffered reversals of late. Call it the ‘Karnataka Paradox’ — the symbiosis of economic modernity and political depravity seems to be the emerging Karnataka model, which, if left unchecked, will be a blot on its image as a progressive state, and even threaten its economic success. Read more
Free India: Between joy and fear
Recently I had the privilege of attending the convocation ceremony of MBBS students at a reputed government college in Maharashtra. As the newly-minted doctors walked on stage, one by one, to receive their degrees, a diversity of backgrounds was self-evident. Read more
Freedom, violence, and peace through a gender lens
India’s journey towards independence from the British empire is said to have been one of the most peaceful transitions from a colony to an independent nation. However, this statement can be challenged and rechallenged as independence was accompanied by enormous bloodshed, violence, and death. It was neither intended nor expected that once the subcontinent was free of the colonial master, she would be ravaged by terrible suffering due to religious animosities. Read more
An equitable future for all
The present century is often described as the ‘knowledge century’. The ‘knowledge century’ label is open to discussion and is not incontestable. Indeed, self-perceptions of human civilisations can change quite radically over a relatively short temporal span. But if at all the present century can be viewed as a unique era in human history, marking a new kind of engagement with what is considered ‘knowledge’, where would Indian education be in 2047 when the centenary of independence will be celebrated? Read more
Where opposites are true
The brilliant Cambridge economist Joan Robinson visited India several times from the 1960s to the 1980s, and she had this to say: “Whatever you can say about India, the opposite is also true.” As we look at the Indian economy 75 years after Independence, this still rings true. Read more
The reforms we urgently need
We have come a long way since India’s independence 75 years ago. We have a long way yet to go to reach our tryst with destiny of “poorna swaraj”, i.e., political, social, and economic freedom for all Indian citizens. Read more
Corporate India: A work in progress
The history of India is usually narrated through stories of either myriad rulers or the hapless lives of its subalterns. Equally important, and still a work-in-progress is the history of Indian business which provides critical insights into the nation’s contemporary political economy. Read more
Green and blue milestones of independent India
The history of modern India's forests, water and soil is full of stories, life, resistance and hope. Read more
No piecemeal solutions, please!
The year 2022 is important. It not only marks the 75th anniversary of India’s independence, but it also marks the 50 years of institutional environmentalism in India. Coincidently, a week after we celebrated 25 years of Independence, the Lok Sabha passed the Wildlife (Protection) Bill, 1972, making it the first environmental legislation in Independent India. Read more
Heritage in stone and concrete
Every now and then, Bengalureans hear of a heritage building being demolished or a conventional single-screen theatre being razed to the ground to make way for a commercial complex or a mall. Fortunately, many buildings considered heritage structures, and worthy of renovation and restoration, continue to dot various parts of the city. Indeed, some have already been restored. Read more
Will the Bengaluru ethos survive?
Bengaluru makkalu bhuja kunisodhu joru! (“The children of Bangalore shrug so often!”) A close aunt who lived in Shivamogga had remarked thus on seeing me shrug my shoulders. Around the same time, in the early eighties, another close relative who lived in an interior part of Sakleshpur taluk had told me with quiet relish that a direct bus now plied daily from his village to Bengaluru. The city has long stood out in the state, as a modern place, a place of power, a place with money and a large number of people. Read more
And some dosa deliverance!
Gandhi Bazaar’s iconic dosa destination Vidyarthi Bhavan boasts more than one link to the Freedom Movement. For one, the hordes of hungry souls of all ages and descriptions surging against the great grilled barricade, waiting to gate crash into the restaurant, are a stark reminder of the freedom fighters crowding outside the prison gates, ready to make a sacrifice for the country’s freedom. Read more
Needed: a shared purpose in science & tech
In the 75th year of our independence, we should celebrate, introspect, and urgently put our shoulders to the wheel at the centre of our flag and ensure that we are effective in enabling the use of science in social and economic transformation through sustainable growth. Read more
The end of knowing
The world changed dramatically after the turn of the millennium. Smartphones, digital payments and streaming movies took over from the age of TV, telephones, wallets and theatres, just for example. A list of all changes would be large and confusing. Why are all these changes happening now and why so quickly? Instead of looking at a “Gee Whiz” list of things that have changed, it is easier to understand what is happening by looking at the underlying causes driving these changes. Surprisingly, there is only one root cause — just one tipping point — The Internet. Read more
I expect India to take the lead in 3D tech: Mashelkar
Raghunath Anant Mashelkar was four years old when India became independent. An internationally acclaimed chemical engineer, Mashelkar has a ringside view of Indian science primarily due to his 30-year-long association with the CSIR, of which eleven years as its director general. One of the most well-known Indian scientists who championed innovation, Mashelkar spoke on India’s progress in science and technology in the last 75 years.Read more
Poised for a big leap
Perhaps it is apt that India’s golden star in the Olympic firmament has a spear in his hand, and his predecessor at the top of the podium, a gun. Neeraj Chopra and Abhinav Bindra are no warriors but both had to embody that spirit to break down barriers and cross over to unexplored territories, coming as they did from a country with little history of success in their chosen fields. Read more
Rise of a cricketing superpower
Followers of a recent vintage perhaps need reminding that India wasn’t anywhere near the top of the list of preferred cricketing destinations at the turn of the millennium. Interestingly, even ironically, most of the same set of complaints — the massive crowds, the constant clamour for autographs and photographs, the incessant noise — that were once deterrents have now become India’s USP. All these, of course, and the visibility and financial riches that the undisputed powerhouse of world cricket has to offer. Read more
India@100: Of pride, not prejudice
The future lies not in the romance of old sporting tales, but on the still-slender shoulders of young dreamers and doers willing to internalise the pride, not the prejudices, of those who preceded them. On those wide-eyed children capable of distilling from the trials, tribulations, and successes of designated demi-gods of the past to realise their own truth and path into the unknown future. Read more
Indian Hockey: milestones of glory
A feat that is still talked about, in fact,raved, even today is the Indian hockey team's spectacular feat of winning six Olympic golds. The reign started in 1928 in Amsterdam and during the next five Olympic Games, the Indians unleashed a reign of terror on their opponents. Led by the legendary Dhyan Chand, whose stick work was nothing less than magic, the Indians absolutely dominated the sport, not losing a single game at the Summer Games during their successful run. If not for World War II which caused the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Olympics, the mighty Indians could have had two more to the kitty.Given that India was not even a sporting nation, let alone a powerhouse, in those pre and post-Independence days, the hockey medal was a sense of pride for all. That pride is still felt even todayand is a feat no one has been able to replicate. Read more
Where is Indian cinema going?
On the 75th anniversary of India’s independence, it would be a useful undertaking for someone steeped in cinema to make an association between film motifs and the trajectory of the nation. Read more
How the music of freedom moved
‘Door hato aye duniyawalo Hindustan hamara hai’, (Be gone! India is ours) went Anil Biswas’s composition for Kismet almost 80 years ago. Around the same time, we were hearing ‘Vande Mataram on the classical concert stage from the likes of Mogubai Kurdikar. This was in anticipation of a great event in the history of the country, our Independence from British Raj. Read more
What’s your favourite patriotic song?
Over the years, songs have played an undisputed role in inciting emotions of nationalism and patriotism in Indians. Songs of resistance to ones describing the beauty of the subcontinent — many popular numbers describe ‘Mother India’ poetically. Read more
Looking back on a lived idealism
Politicians are not famed for saying anything original or entirely honest. However, there are two speeches which remain some of the finest words spoken in a nation’s history. Read more
Celebrating democratisation or hollowing it out?
Name-calling essential investments for building human capital to close the inequality gap between the poor, the vulnerable, and the discriminated as "freebies" as the Minister for External Affairs, S Jaishankar, did or describing it as "revadi culture" as Prime Minister Narendra Modi did in July is an unacceptable assault on the ideas of federalism and plural politics. Read more
Let's renew our vows for a free and courageous press
As an Indian journalist, I feel proud that many of those who fought for independence and laid the foundations of my country were also journalist-writers. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was associated with six journals, two of which he was theeditor. Bhimrao Ambedkar wrote in the journals Mooknayak, Bahishkrit Bharat, Janata, and Prabuddha Bharat. Mooknayak translates as the voice of the voiceless, and he was the founder but not the official editor. Bhagat Singh wrote in Urdu, Punjabi,Hindi and English in many journals (some under an assumed name), and he was learning Persian in his final days in jail. Read more
A change in the global world order?
Despite ghastly predictions when it gained independence, the Republic of India has survived, and in one piece, unlike many other post-colonial democracies. We’ve managed to hold onto the basic democratic structure of free and fair elections, and our voters are intricately aware that no leader can survive without their support. Economically, we have done well overall and are now a rising global power with the world’s fifth-largest economy. Read more
India’s soul: From rural to urban
India has constantly been on the move. Though there are multiple dimensions to the movement observed in the country, some set patterns have become a norm over the years. Read more
India over the years
CV Ranganathan (Former Indian Ambassador) (1930s)
We have not fully accepted the importance of what the Constitution gave us in terms of fraternity. The political spectrum should uphold the values of the Constitution as it is still a work in progress. Unscientific thinking and superstition should be eliminated. It is good to say Amrut Mahotsav for this year’s independence but this is just a self-congratulatory term. For the next 25 years, citizens and governments should do far more to make this country great. We need to focus on improving science, public health, preventive care and political decentralisation. Read more
Public health: How to make a difference
"If it were possible to evaluate the loss, which this country annually suffers through the avoidable waste of valuable human material and the lowering of human efficiency through malnutrition and preventable morbidity…we feel that the result would be so startling that the whole country would be aroused and would not rest until a radical change had been brought about.” Read more
Enviable demography; subpar dividend
As developed economies struggle with ageing populations and a concomitant reduction in their growth potential, emerging economies with favourable demographics have taken up the mantle of being the global economy’s growth driver. As such, the ASEAN nations, along with India, have emerged as potentially the best bet for high and sustainable growth in the future. But whether the potential demographic dividend is realised will depend on how they are able to harness their population. Read more
'PVN, the unsung architect of economic reforms'
Welcome to an economy characterised by fiscal profligacy, frequent borrowings from multinational institutions to temporarily tide over economic crises, and the rupee trading agreements with the centralised and controlled economies as its greatest source of succour. With its credit ratings being lowered recurrently, it is walking towards a severe balance of payment crisis and defaulting on its external debts. Read more
How can we get more women in the boardroom?
We have made significant strides towards gender equality in the last couple of decades. However, despite this progress, women are underrepresented in the higher echelons of the corporate world. According to the Deloitte Global Boardroom Programme’s Seventh Edition of the ‘Women in the boardroom: A global perspective’ Report, women hold an abysmal 3.6% of board chairs in the country. Read more
India at 75: Building a fortified future
The first few decades of independent India were about building state capacity and deploying our limited resources on physical and intellectual infrastructure. Britannia has a unique vantage point to look at India’s economic history through the lens of evolving consumer choices over the past hundred years. Read more
Protect Big Five and look ahead
India is a country of about 1.38 billion with a population density of 382 people per sq km. Yet, we were able to save the ‘Big Five’ — the tiger, elephant, lion, rhino, and leopard. Read more
No silver-bullet solutions for water supply worries
Water has high political salience as a subject in India. The country has made steady progress in access to drinking water since the National Drinking Water Mission was launched in 1986. The Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) launched in 2019 furthers this progress by aiming to provide functional tap connections to every house. Read more
Forests are more than just trees
In the first fifty years after independence, India is thought to have lost well over five million hectares of its forests. In sharp contrast, in the next 25 years, official figures reported a staggering eight million hectare increase in forest cover. This was despite the legal diversion of one million hectares of forest area to non-forest uses. Read more
The handloom paradox
Khadi was called the 'Fabric of Freedom', for every patriotic Indian wore it as a symbol of the struggle for independence from Britain. Mahatma Gandhi exhorted every single Indian to sport this delightful handspun and handwoven fabric and thecharkhabecame the instantly recognisable logo of dissent! Read more
Creating an India where all are equal...
Nearly a half-century back, transformative Kannada writer Siddalingaiah began his iconic poem with the lines, ‘Yaarige bantu, yellige bantu, nalavatellara swatantra’ (‘To Whom, till where, did the freedom of ’47 reach?) Read more
Grassroots movement is key to freedom for our cities
Seventy-five years ago, we finally won the freedom we fought for for decades. Millions of ordinary citizens came together to demand political freedom that gives us, and no one else, the power to write our own destiny. Many lives were lost and precious years wasted in jails but their personal sacrifices did not go waste. Read more
India’s evolution in biology research
Among the scientific pursuits, it can arguably be claimed that biology is among the youngest of disciplines of human inquiry of nature. Increasingly over a period of time, like some other disciplines, it is also becoming resource intensive. In post-independence India too, it can be argued that biological research received attention somewhat later than other disciplines. For example, the first five national laboratories established by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), did not have the presence of biology as a discipline. However, research at molecular, organismal and population level was being carried out in a small number of universities that had been established prior to independence. Read more
How India became an IT giant
India has a booming technology sector — software and information technology services, business process outsourcing, engineering R&D, and technology start-ups — which contributes to exports as well as the domestic market. It garnered revenue of a massive 227 billion dollars during the last financial year, according to industry data. A bulk of it (178 billion dollars) came from exports with technology services accounting for more than half of India’s services exports. Nearly five million Indians are employed directly in this industry, while several million others are indirectly dependent on it. The IT and communication revolution is easily one of the most amazing success stories of independent India. Read more
Franchise leagues are here to stay
It is impossible to keep a tab on the number of professional sports leagues in the country, and yet those in the business of sport, keep churning them out. Read more
The story of Indian badminton from Padukone to Lakshya
History has a strange way of making cliff notes and highlights, making a series of events seem linear, sequential and compressed. One domino after another falls into place as the story unfolds. A great tragedy in Indian sport — save for cricket — is the lack of documentation. The stories are told and retold by those who lived them, memoirs made from memories. The same is true as one tracks back through the history of Indian badminton. Read more
Focused planning has propelled performance in athletics
Indian athletics is on a climb. The past two years have seen track and field medals for the country in Olympic and World Championships. The Commonwealth Games in Birmingham yielded eight medals without the presence of Neeraj Chopra. Indian juniors have also made their mark on the world stage with 10 medals in the past six years in the U-20 Athletics World Championships. Read more
Theatre against violence
This long-read essay is based on the transcript of a talk given at NOT The Drama Seminar, a five-day conclave of theatre people from all over India, held at Heggodu, Karnataka, from Saturday 22 to Wednesday 26 March 2008. A version of it has been published by Tulika Books, in Our Stage a compilation based on the talks given at the conclave, and the discussions that took place there. The following is an edited and slightly rewritten version of the text published as part of that compilation. Read more
'Don’t spare me'
When Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru uttered these words to cartoonist Shankar Pillai, he was not giving reassurance about the freedom to draw cartoons. Because this freedom was already allotted to cartoonists by India’s constitution. Nehru was rather reminding Shankar he’s accountable for governance. Read more
Art activism in changing times
CF John saw a shift happen in India's visual arts practice in the late 1980s-early 1990s. From being a pursuit of self-exploration via drawings, paintings and sculptures, it started becoming a voice for society, bringing multiple artists to set up evocative installations. Read more