What does an empowered India mean to me? Can it mean differently to different people? Can there be a convergence of understanding on empowerment of a society like ours? Even after 58 years of freedom, India still lives in different centuries. On the one hand is the India of the affluent, of those who have had the benefit of modern education and are intellectually and materially empowered and on the other is the India of those who live under conditions of poverty, deprivation, squalor, illiteracy, ignorance, intolerance and prejudices. We have not yet achieved the desired result of the full empowerment of the socially backward sections. Caste-based social stratification is a reality we still have to reckon with. Similarly, gender-based discrimination is yet another major social issue we have to address. The women who constitute almost 50 per cent of our population are yet to have an effective share in the political decision-making proces-ses, especially in our representative institutions. Large-scale unemployment is another serious issue we have to grapple with. The working class, which is contributing significantly to the building of modern India, is not receiving its due recognition from the system as a whole. More than one third of our citizens are yet to be extended the benefit of basic education. Only 6 per cent of the university education age-group, between 18 and 23, are actually taking the benefit of higher education in the country today. Nearly half a million of our villages are still without access to safe drinking water and dependable energy supply. The benefits of modern medicine and developments in the field of science, information and communication technologies have not reached a substantial section of our people yet. Nearly 400 million of our citizens continue to live below the poverty line. The freedom that we talk about and all the achievements that independent India made in the last nearly six decades have no meaning for all those unfortunate citizens who still live unsure of their next square meal. We need to recognize the fact that India lives in her villages. Long-term development of the country cannot be achieved without addressing the concerns of the agricultural sector which still constitutes the backbone of our economy. City-centric developments will not help in emancipating the substantial majority of our people who live in our villages and who have not been effectively touched by the developmental initiatives of the past. One of the basic tasks that we have to undertake with top priority today is in the area of human development. An integrated development strategy linking social development with the economic development programmes involving the direct beneficiaries in the management and execution of all such programmes is, therefore, urgently called for. This can be achieved only through a strategy of decentralised planning and development. Empowering India calls for transformation of our huge human resources into an asset. India has enormous unexploited potential as a ‘‘knowledge hub’’ for the world. In fact, the rest of the world recognizes this distinct advantage that we have. This has to be translated into a developmental agent for the whole country. Education plays an important role in this. Only through universalisation of education, laying special stress on vocational education and on the education of the girl child can we achieve true empowerment of our people. It is through education that we can equip the women also to make their own contributions to the productive processes in the society. Removing the factors that inhibit their full participation in the various spheres of society is, therefore, a very important first step for their empowerment. We have to create conditions whereby our huge workforce is productively engaged in the task of nation-building. Initiatives like the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme should become part of a national mission to achieve an empowered India. Empowering the country would involve ensuring health for all, education for all, home for all, jobs for all and security for all. This is the expected end results of democracy, which can be achieved only when the power structure is adequately representative of all sections of the society. Democracy is also about good governance. Only when the government is participatory, transparent, accountable, responsive and responsible, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive, consensus-oriented and committed to the rule of law can we claim to be moving in the direction of good governance. The greatest challenge of good governance is to bridge the gap between the expectations of the people and the effectiveness of the delivery mechanisms. Corruption has no place in such a system. This can be achieved only through a leadership committed to the cause of the people. Empowering India, therefore, would essentially, involve bringing into the national mainstream, by taking the benefit of development, all those who have so far been kept out of it by social, economic, political and historical factors. It involves the establishment of a socio-political order in which no discrimination takes place on the basis of race, caste, creed or sex and where all citizens enjoy equal opportunities and at least an acceptable minimum quality of living. It is about providing real substance to our democratic existence. Substance of democracy has to be assessed in terms of the impact it makes on the quality of living of the people. The new economic forces, unless monitored with a caring eye for the vulnerable sections of our society, have the potential to further impoverish the poor. Therefore, while applying new strategies for development, the social dimensions should receive adequate attention. A fully empowered India will be a cohesive India. Intolerance, negativism, hatred and violence that have been generated in the country in the name of narrow, parochial, sectarian, religious and other divisive issues have been factors that inhibited our development. We need to be constantly on the guard against divisive forces raising their heads in the country. An empowered India will be known for its inclusive and modern social order. In such an India, the State would be totally dissociated from the shackles of religious orthodoxy and use its power only to positively intervene in addressing the socially dangerous and outdated customs and traditions and for bringing about social harmony and socio-political and economic stability. Only when the basic needs of all our people have been catered for can we say that India has been empowered. For this we have to bring every section of our society within the purview of development and enable the people with the capacity to hold their representatives, the government and the bureaucracy accountable. A socially, economically and politically empowered India will be scientifically and technologically advanced and industrially developed. It will be constituted of self-sufficient villages. Democracy would have taken deep roots there, it would be emotionally integrated, one in which every section of our population would begin to think that it has equal stake in this country and its future. It will be an India in which your social status will be decided not by your standing in the caste hierarchy but exclusively by your worth as an individual and as a citizen of this great country. It will be free from the scourges of communalism, poverty, illiteracy, exploitation and unemployment and free from the feudal hangover, and which has such a social system and such an economic environment as would provide plenty of choices for the fuller development of our human potential and to ensure a dignified existence for all our citizens. Such an India, in consonance with its traditions and ethos, will be fully committed to a peaceful, just, equitable, inclusive and co-operative world order and be able to play, from a position of strength, a decisive role in the comity of nations, helping to provide a qualitatively new direction to the world. FULL COVERAGE
