I had some questions in my head which disturbed me for quite sometime.
I followed “India after Gandhi” by India’s best historian, Ramachandra Guha and was pretty much convinced by globalization. Then, I picked up P. Sainath’s “Everybody Loves A Good Drought”. Sainath sir is probably the only journalist who has worked extensively in India’s most rural districts and has time and again, attempted to bring out the causes of the poorest of India’s citizens. On one hand, we are emerging as the next super power. On the other, we have our farmers dying of poverty. I was feeling uneasy about it.
I referred to many to seek my answers. Yesterday, I had a discussion with my teacher on these questions. He added some new dimensions to my thought process, and finally, I found my answer- We might be the world’s largest democracy and be proud of it, but we are far off from being a good democracy. I don’t mind a simpler lifestyle if it leads to uplifting of the deprived of my country. Why do we need to be a superpower? Why can’t we be a better democracy first?