A dream washed out!

So here's my fourth post. Well i had half a mind to shamelessly post this one as if nothing had happened in the year went by since i last posted but times were such one could not hold the writer in oneself any longer. This is written from the perspective of an elderly person who grew up with hopes and aspirations, struggled to fight against the system determined to keep us in poverty, retired in cynicism and finally today is realizing that it was all part of the one of the greatest con-jobs in history ever.Read on!

Dear children

This is a message from an almost septuagenarian who was born at the time the British Raj in India was coming to a close. I was born in 1942 which is the date you all know in your history books as the year of the launch of the “Quit India” movement. No doubt you think that the atmosphere then was very charged up and almost everyone in his right frame of mind was obsessed with seeing the British kicked out of India. Well I don’t remember much of that time as I’m sure you all who were born in 1984 don’t remember much of “Operation Blue-star” or the riots. Yes what I do remember was an almost universal loathing for the “white man” in the closing years of the Raj (I think that was 1946). What I do remember is the small crowds in white protesting over some inane thing or other while we played “gulli-danda” in my home-town which was a small town in the then United Provinces. What I do remember was that there was a club near the railway station which was frequented by the “white man” and which used to be held by the locals in very high regard and fear almost as if it was haunted. Once while playing we climbed the fence of the club and seeing a crystal clear pool of water, thought it appropriate to relieve our morning stomachs there (we did not have any bathroom in our homes then) which apparently created a lot of mayhem. When we brothers came back and told the story to our mother she was in mortal dread and kept us inside the house for two days. We did not understand her fear then but we too were drenched with fright.

On 14th august 1947 we just could not sleep. There was too much commotion everywhere. People were glued on to the radio. As we heard Nehru come on air and deliver his historic speech, we felt a flood of pride flushing down our every vein. Although we did not understand most of what we said, it was clear that the much loathed white man was gone, for good. For everyone it seemed like this is the end of the pain. Our father told us that since now the national wealth is in the hands of our own people, we will become rich. He was happy. He had grown up in a country bound, his children were going to grow up in a country free.

We did not understand much of all that was happening. It is important to understand that the times never seem momentous as they occur, only when one looks back do they appear history-changing. There were never large humongous crowds as is shown on TV. Those are for the rare occasions which were captured for posterity by the newly invented cameras. It was always a small group of people residing in different pockets of the country who seized on the universal hatred everyone was feeling for the white man and made it happen.

As the years went by, we grew up. We saw overwhelming poverty everywhere but knew that our leaders were working 24x7 to help us out of the mess. After all a shameful devastation of 200 years cannot be cleaned in 10 years. We waited. We were patient. We used to go for long distances to hear Pandit Nehru speak whenever he used to pass by the provinces. And came back perplexed. Because he did not talk about the nation or the poverty. He talked more about how we should respect every animal and not just the cow (a dig at the Sangh Parivar) and how labourers and farmers must do more to help India by giving their land and rations. He used to praise China more than India. We did not know much about the world. He was a learned man. He must be right. So even though we were perplexed, we came back satisfied that our futures were secure.
Around 10-12 years after independence as I was in my late teens, we began to get a feeling that something is not right. There were food crises and inflation everywhere. Apparently the second five year plan was a shameful disaster. It had given agriculture almost a total miss. But we did not know about it then. Most of us gave the leaders the benefit-of-doubt. Afterall it was Pandit Nehru at the helm. How could anything go wrong?

The disaster of 1962. It was a complete surprise for most of us. A few months before that Nehru had been making some statements in Parliament against China but we had been schooled in the genuine benevolentness of China for the last 12 years that we thought it must be a temporary phase of misunderstanding between brothers. Only after we lost thousands of hectares of land to the aggressor, did we understand true Chinese designs. But by then it was too late. For the first time, our confidence in our leaders was shaken. For the first time, Nehru appeared human. It was the first dream washed. He appeared too human. He was making meaningless statements in Parliament like “Aksai Chin is a deserted piece of land and not a blade of grass grows on it”. To which a parliamentarian pointed to his bald head and said “Not a blade of hair grows on my head but it still belongs to me”. The parliament was in uproar but we were not amused. He was defending Krishna Menon the chief architect of Indian defeat. It was inexplicable.

Two years later he died. Such was his charisma that everyone was worried about the country’s future. Luckily a great man like Shastri was there to take command. And he did it so commendably that we did not miss Nehru for a minute. In fact some of us wished Shastri to be the first PM then perhaps we could have been in a better state. Unfortunately as happens so often with our hapless nation, a great leader died too soon.

He was replaced by the little princess. Few of us knew about Indira Gandhi then. Most political commentators at the time (end of the 1960s) were giving her a right-royal ignore. I got commissioned into the army around that time. Soon after, the 1971 war was upon us. I was in the Western sector when the news of Gen Niazi surrendering reached us. I cannot describe the feeling among us at that time. For the first time we felt India had come of age. We had become a power which cannot be taken lightly and pushed around anymore. To be in the army at that time was a supreme honour I take pride in till this day. That was the pinnacle of Indian patriotism.
And it was downhill since then. The queues outside the ration shops grew longer. The protests by farmers became more violent. The trains were late as always and the coaches were becoming more crowded. The roads and power situation were worsening. But we had faith in Indira Gandhi. She had won against Pakistan. She had given us the nuclear bomb. She’ll tackle these problems too. Give her time. And tackle she did in her own style. By imposing the emergency. Whatever people may say about it, for the first time there was order in the country. Trains were running on time. Government offices were actually pushing files. We finally happened to be progressing. Yes, the Youth Congress had become very boisterous and rowdy but that was collateral damage. To our military minds, this was the answerable solution to chaos all around.
And we stayed as apolitical as ever even as our generals were made to run from “pillar babu” to “post babu” for even small things as procuring rations for us. Most gave up. And the army too went into a steady decline.

But we still were hopeful. Indira Gandhi will set it right. Nothing got right. She was shot dead, the riots followed. By this time, a cynicism was setting in. People were becoming disillusioned. This country with all its contradictions and contraptions is inherently ungovernable. Her son came and brought with him a beautiful young Italian woman who used to keep a low profile. She seemed an amiable person and we took a liking to the young couple. When the Bofors scandal broke out, most thought Rajiv had been conned into signing documents and made to look like an imbecile. Nobody thought someone that high could do such a thing.

The real shocker was the progress India made after liberalization. For the first time, we knew (even though we had doubted it for a long time) that our policies were wrong. But by then my generation had lost out completely. The brightest among us become gazetted officers. It’s shocking to think of how incredibly intelligent young Indians had wasted away their lives sitting as clerks in a decrepit government office signing and stamping on the gargantuan paperwork that the bureaucracy produces in India.

Soon enough we knew that Indira was not the patriotic lady she was made out to be. Her economic policies were an unmitigated disaster. Economists proved that Indian economic output actually shrinked during her years which is a crime for a developing country. And we did not have a civil war like the African and Latam countries did. M.D Nalapat writing in the Indian Express exposed her corruption cases and the “Queen-in-waiting” Sonia Gandhi too. Wonder where he’s now. Why has he stopped writing suddenly?
But all of this pales out when I come to this day. After seven decades of living as good-citizen a life as I could, I feel I’ve been cheated. Been mocked at and my intelligence insulted. By everyone. The politicians, media, bureaucrats, foreign powers all have taken me for a ride.

New-age media tell me that my heroes (and heroines) were nothing but greedy power-mongers and money-launderers. That the first family was in the payroll of the KGB since the 1970s. Suddenly a lot of things are falling into place. Like why the Indian rupee was pegged artificially at 43 rupees to the rouble and 20 rupees to the dollar while the rouble was pegged at 47 roubles to the dollar. Very simply the Russians took commodities dirt cheap from us and sold them at high rates to the European countries. The Russians were supposedly helping us but sold us second-rate equipment (like Mig 21 when the Mig-23 had already been launched).

Our laws which were framed by the British to help keep an imperialist government in power continue till this day. Our education system which was again framed by the British to keep the vast masses illiterate and hence unable to understand the ramifications of the loot of India continue till this day. Each passing day is bringing into even starker contrast the image we had of our leaders and what they did/continue to do to us. Each passing day seems like an unbearable burden for our generation who have been conned again and again and again. I wish I had the mental or physical strength to be another Anna Hazare, God bless him, but plainly I don’t. So I helplessly watch and hope and pray that something, some real tangible comes out of all this upheaval right now. You, my children, are growing up at an age where you know that you’re being looted. Hence you’re shackled with something much more difficult. You will be knowing that while you were looted, you did nothing about it. If we are to personify a generation, we will be the simple hard working farmer who lost his life’s savings to a crooked moneylender through fraud while you will be the crowd traveling in a Mumbai local train sitting calmly worrying about your own future and bank account while a gang of hoodlums rape a deaf and dumb physically challenged minor girl!