Opinion Life after sixty
The lyrical and memorably shot song from CID,Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan was a metaphor for the mix of lively spirit and urban stress...
The lyrical and memorably shot song from CID,Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan was a metaphor for the mix of lively spirit and urban stress but all-embracing nature of the city then holding the promise of what free India had to offer: opportunity,easy conviviality and the possibility of another life. Of course,Majrooh Sultanpuris lyrics caution against trams,motors and back-stabbers zara bach ke,zara hat ke but what ultimately got you hooked and set feet tapping was that refrain of promise,Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan,a tribute to a grand idea,almost a microcosm of the Indian thing. Today,the same city goes by another name,and taxi passengers are wondering if they too will have to show papers before entering the smartly-operated Premier Padminis. Its ironic that this rule has been applied for people of one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the country in virtually the same week as we are getting ready to celebrate 60 years of the Republic.
In the original calligraphed copy of the Indian Constitution the text was signed off on exactly sixty years ago,and it forms the basis for our sense of a nation and its people something that appears in the original makes an interesting point. The point,about the making of our nationhood,is worth looking at a little closer. The illustrator for the book one of the early 20th century Indian masters,Nandalal Bose powered the text with paintings in a style that drew,very much like our Constitution,from diverse influences (Rajasthani,Egyptian,Japanese) but in the end remained fiercely,and appropriately,Indian.
Sixty years on,beyond Boses wonderful interpretations,there are several prisms through which the life of the Republic can be evaluated. Inadequate progress,some could conclude,but while using the harshest criteria it may be a good idea to look at the context in which the grandest book our times,one which is a guiding first principle for a billion-strong nation,was scripted. True,there were just 250 million citizens then; but there were all kinds of isms that,as Granville Austen very eloquently put it,troubled Nehru and the top leadership of all parties at the time. It was a very complex task of cementing Indias geographical proximity at a time when Shyama Prasad Mookherji was calling for the annulment of Partition,when Master Tara Singh was advocating a separate Punjab,when the Communists were rebelling in Telengana,when the Tamils were dreaming of cultural nationhood for Dravidanad,and when Jammu and Kashmirs status within India was being questioned. More so,unlike the US and China,the other big projects of the time,India did not even have the luxury of linguistic unity or race as a unifier or the option of colonising beyond its boundaries; if anything,Indias boundaries were redrawn cruelly in 1947 in what was to be the bloodiest movement of people across lines on the map at one time.
In the face of all that,the emergence of a liberal,sovereign,democratic republic must be regarded as the eighth wonder something that others today seem to be desperate to discover as they deal with forms of multiculturalism imposed by employment-driven migrations.
India,having embarked on the road to building a nation in the full glare of the modern public gaze,has also seen several waves engulf the Republic: the Nehru years,the years following his death dominated by Indira Gandhis worldview,and then later by decentralisation imposed from above or taken by force by players on the ground panchayati raj,regional parties,coalition governments in the states and then at the Centre challenging and then reshaping challenges to what India meant. And the Republic broadened its definition at each stage.
The road may not have been the revolutionary one but its impact very often was. If privy purses were snatched in the 1970s to give more soul to the Right to Equality,2005 saw the Right to Information engage the citizenry with governance from a position of strength. The Right to Work,through the NREGA,has had a ripple effect which can be evaluated properly only after a few years.
But what is now the burning question (and perhaps not articulated that sharply as we are still going through the process) is how the young will see themselves as a nation in a few years time,with old politics and shibboleths melting down. The past twenty years of caste and religion as political mobilising units appears to be heading for the fire exit. But what is unsettling is that there seems to be nothing
by way of a new dream,idea or common destination replacing the politics of olden times. The absence of well-articulated positions on what holds us together as a nation may prove even more tough to handle as an energised,hopeful and aspirant India grows up. Rules for domiciles may just be the easy way to hark back to politics which may have worked ten years ago,but today is only a hopeless spoiler in an India that is energetic and optimistic of securing a better life.
While governance is rightly becoming the focus of choices,what is a bit blurred is the politics of it all. This vacuum,leading popularly elected governments to whip things like taxi permits,is worrying.
In India at ceremonies to mark 60 years,people are remarried to their old spouses almost to emphasise the point that its a new life after 60. Though nations are not people,sixty has been good for us (incidentally,the average life expectancy of Indians is now more than 60,it is 67 years).
But isnt it also time to re-commit ourselves to the continuance of a project which continues to dazzle and make others envious? It has warts,holes,its share of unfinished business,plenty of it but it may not be a bad idea to re-pledge ourselves to dodging the trams,motors and back-stabbers and stay with the essence of the Bombay song.
seema.chishti@expressindia.com
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