Post on 16-Apr-2017
THINK OF INDIA
(1947-1991 AND LATER)
Development since
independence
The Polity:
INDIA, a Union of States
• INDIA, a Union of States, is a Sovereign Secular
Democratic Republic with a parliamentary system of
government.
• The Republic is governed in terms of the
• Constitution, which was adopted by
• Constituent Assembly on 26 November 1949 and came
into force on 26 January 1950.
What is India in 2016?
• India, for administrative purposes, is divided into the
National capital territory of Delhi, 29 States, and 6
centrally administered union territories.
• States: Andhra, Arunachala Pradesh, Assam, Bengal,
Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal
Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka,
Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur,
Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab,
Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura,
Uttarakhand, Uttara Pradesh.
• Union Territories: Andaman and Nicobar Islands,
Chandigarh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu,
Lakshadweep, Puducherry.
Gandhi, Jinna and the British
• Gandhi & Jinna didn’t last long after the British departed from
their Crown Jewel of the Empire, one was bumped off by Godse
and the other was claimed by TB.
• No one cared for Gandhi’s ‘Hind Swaraj’ and Jinna’s Secular
Muslim Majority Democratic state.
• While India brought in ‘Unity in Diversity’ Pakistan practiced
between Democracy and ‘Unity by Army guided Governance’.
• ‘the inalienable right of the Indian people, as of any other people,
to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil’
• ‘Independence Day came, January 26th, 1930; it revealed to us,
as in a flash, the earnest and enthusiastic mood of the country.’
• Ah! Hitler’s air force and Gandhi’s truth-force finally convinced
the British to quit India, creating Pakistan as a parting gift.
• Gandhi had fought for a free and united India; and yet, at the end, he
could view its division with detachment and equanimity.
• Others were less forgiving. On the evening of 30 January he was shot
dead.
• The assassin, who surrendered afterwards, was named Nathuram
Godse. He was tried and later sentenced to death.
• Godse claimed that his main provocation was
• the Mahatma’s ‘constant and consistent pandering to the Muslims’,
‘culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast [which] at last goaded me to the
conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end
immediately’.
Integration of Princely States into India
• By 15 August most of the states had signed the Instrument
of Accession. Congress Party cleverly used the threat of
popular protest to make the princes fall in line. They had
acceded; now they were being asked to integrate, that is to
dissolve their states as independent entities and merge with
the Union of India.
• They would be allowed to retain their titles and offered an
annual allowance. There was the threat of uncontrolled
agitation by subjects whose emotions had been released by
the advent of Independence.
Jammu and Kashmir-1
• The state of Kashmir bordered on both India and Pakistan. Its
ruler Hari Singh was a Hindu, while nearly 75 per cent of the
population was Muslim. Hari Singh too did not accede either to
India or Pakistan.
• Fearing democracy in India and communalism in Pakistan, he
hoped, to stay out of both and to continue to wield power as an
independent ruler. The popular political forces led by the National
Conference and its leader Sheikh Abdullah, however, wanted to
join India with autonomous status. J & K has become a ‘Helen of
Troy’ for India & Pakistan.
Jammu and Kashmir-2
• The most contentious issue and one that has been a
subject of international attention is the accession of
Jammu and Kashmir to India after Partition in 1947.
• India insisted that the accession was completely valid and
accused Pakistan of forcefully occupying parts of the
state. India also maintained that since Jammu and
Kashmir is an integral and inalienable part of the country
there can be no question of negotiating on the question of
its accession.
Jammu and Kashmir-3
• The mainstream political parties of J & K, like the National
Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party advocate
autonomy and self-rule.
• The National Conference demands the strengthening of
the Article 370 of the Constitution of India.
• The Peoples Democratic Party advocates a step-by-step
integration of Indian and Pakistan (occupied) Kashmir in
fields like trade, travel, institutions and legislature.
• The people in Jammu as well as Ladakh often complain
that both the Central and state governments are
neglecting their regions and give undue importance to the
Kashmir valley.
The Constitution of India formed, adopted
• WITH 395 ARTICLES AND 12 schedules the constitution of India is long.
Coming into effect in January 1950, it was framed over a period of three
years.
• During this time its drafts were discussed clause by clause in the
Constituent Assembly of India. In between the sessions the work of
revising and refining the drafts was carried out by various committees
and sub-committees.
• B. R. Ambedkar was law minister in the Union government; and also
chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution.
• After its adoption, the constitution has been amended many times.
‘Socialistic pattern’ for India _ Nehru is blamed for this
(1947-1964 and later)
• Develop and industrialize rapidly through the agency of the
State, within a democratic framework.
• Even though foreign capital and technology may be essential,
these would be under the control of the State.
• (Do not grant freedom for FDI, they exploit us)
• Rationality of technocrats, economists and scientists would
bear on decision making. Mixed or khichdi economy.
• Thus India started Five Year Plans.
Indian economy consolidated,
but did not take off, why?
1. Import substituting inward looking ‘swaraj’ no global outlook
2. Massive, monopolistic, inefficient public sector investment with
no autonomy of working. (Trained and employed youth?)
3. Diminished competition in the market by over-regulation.
4. Less FDI, no benefit of world class competition.
5. Pampered organized labour, lower productivity.
6. Insufficient investment in education, specially, girl children.
Nehru’s ‘Tryst with destiny’
• Preserve, consolidate and strengthen India's unity, to build up
and protect the national state as an instrument of development
and social transformation.
• Indian unity was strengthened by recognizing and accepting
India's immense regional, linguistic, ethnic and religious
diversity.
• Indianness was to be further developed by acknowledging and
accommodating the Indians' multiple identities and by giving
different parts of the country and various sections of the people
an adequate space.
Linguistic states reorganisation-1
• After an agitation, with death of P.Sriramulu in December, 1952, Andhra
would come into being with Telugu language.
• Once Nehru conceded Andhra, he had to set up the States
Reorganization Commission-1956.
• Unexpectedly, Linguistic reorganization did not disturb, but consolidated
the unity of India. Hindi is now official language along with English (which
is an interstate and international one).
• Eventually, on 1 May 1960, the states of Gujarat (Gujarati) and
Maharashtra (Marati) came into being, with Bombay allotted to the latter.
Linguistic states reorganisation-2
Other examples of states with language:
• Assam (Assamese), Bengal(Bengali),
• Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh
(Hindi), Telangana (Telugu),Tamil Nadu (Tamil), Odisa
(Oriya), Karnataka (Kannada), Kerala (Malayalam) Punjab
(Punjabi) Goa (Konkani), etc. Sanskrit is an originating
language and Urdu is a recognised language.
• Officially (statutorily) recognised languages are 22.
Goa liberated from being a Portuguese colony
• In the third week of December 1961 a detachment of the
Indian army moved up to the borders of the Portuguese
colony of Goa.
• For a decade now New Delhi had sought, by persuasion
and non-violence, to convince Portugal to give up that
territory.
• With those measures failing, Nehru’s government decided
to ‘liberate’ Goa by force.
Indira Gandhi era: Modernized agriculture
• The 1960s and 1970s showed India was still vulnerable to
the effects of failed monsoons, droughts and food shortages:
in 1965 – 1996 India was forced to turn to the United States
for grain imports and Indira Gandhi was obliged to devalue
the rupee. She initiated agriculture with high yielding wheat.
• The Green Revolution brought some respite by increasing
domestic grain yields, but the benefits were unevenly
distributed regionally – the Punjab, Haryana and Tamil Nadu
were the states where the new varieties were most
successfully introduced.
Indira Gandhi era: Socialism, Bangla Desh
• Indira took over the Indian premiership two years after
Nehru's death in 1964. Domestically, Indira Gandhi picked
up where Nehru had left off, further tightening the
government's hold on industry—nationalizing banks and
forcing foreign companies to either go into partnership
with an Indian firm or quit the country.
• The war between India and Pakistan over East Pakistan
took place in 1971 and a new liberated nation called
Bangladesh resulted.
India and Pakistan, Estranged brothers?
• India and Pakistan will have great economic potential to exploit if
they bury their differences and join hands to promote bilateral
trade.
• India and Pakistan continue to talk to each other, even though
the dialogue often appears to be heading nowhere.
• Pakistan claims that relations between the two countries can
improve only if the Kashmir dispute is settled.
• India and Pakistan have been the worst of neighbors, on four
different occasions descending into a shooting war.
India in Rajiv Gandhi & Narasimha Rao Years
• Rajiv Gandhi initiated long overdue moves to rid India of the burden of
bureaucratic controls that had been built up since the late 1940s, to
encourage new industries like telecommunications and computers,
and to open the country up to global markets after fifty years of near
isolation.
• Momentum was sustained by Manmohan Singh as finance minster in
the coalition administration of P. V. Narasimha Rao in the early 1990s.
• Faced with a deepening economic crisis which saw India turn to the
International Monetary Fund for a US$1.4 billion loan, Manmohan
Singh committed the Government of India to range of radical reforms.
• India ’ s rapid economic growth since the early 1990s has
also been aided by the Indian diaspora.
• The old swadeshi ideal has largely been supplanted by a
belief that India has most to gain by being a global player,
using its domestic resources and overseas connections to
build an economy closely tied to the outside world.
• Special Economic Zones have been created as tax - free
havens in which firms can operate unconstrained by the
labour laws and environmental protection legislation that
prevail across the country as a whole.
• Economic liberalization and participation in a globalized
economy have brought wealth and material benefits to many
Indians. They have helped increase not just the size but also
the confidence of the Indian middle classes, finally freed from
the austerity of Gandhian economics and Nehruvian state
socialism.
• However, in the 1990s more than 260 million people, nearly 30
per cent of the total population, lived below the poverty line.
• A huge slice of the population either remains excluded from the
boom - time economy or has its cheap but arduous labour (as
in the garment industry) exploited to fuel India ’ s dynamic
export sector.
India’s Urban Economy
• India will add millions of people to the urban economy in
the years and decades ahead. India’s cities need to be
safe, efficient, pleasant to live in, supported by
infrastructure (water, sewerage, electricity, transport, etc.).
• Cities be able to create jobs which are globally competitive
and India needs a revolution in sustainable urban planning.
• Sustainable cities mean: walk able, mix used areas, public
transport, urban planning, public health and other services,
and climate resilient especially coastal cities.
On the national infrastructure front, India needs
• inter-city rail upgrading,
• sustainable and secure energy,
• watershed management (river-linking to the extent that this is a
sound and safe concept), dams policy,
• fiber connectivity nationally,
• ports and airports, etc.
• India will also need an integrated, life-cycle, population scale vision
of human capital accumulation.
• This includes: Population stabilization and early childhood
development, especially to overcome the scars of under-nutrition,
which may be India’s greatest plague.
• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) began with a modest budget of Rs. 150
crores7 which now stands at a staggering Rs. 20,000 crores.
• SSA has undoubtedly helped the country take impressive strides in the
elementary education sector with opening of large number of schools;
large-scale hiring of teachers; provision of free school books for
students from the BPL families; mid-day meals program and so on.
• As a result, while in 2001, 28.5 percent of the 205 million children in
the 6-14 age group were out of school, by 2006 this proportion had
dropped to 6.9 percent and further to 4.3 in 2010.
• However, many schools have only one or two classrooms and most
lack running water and toilets. A large percentage of children drop-out
before completing primary schooling.