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.