Fighting Our Enemies Within

Just like our warriors fighting the enemy off our borders, we need economic and social warriors to root out the imperfections within the all-pervading menace of black money, populist government policies, criminals among politicians, corrupt and obstructive bureaucrats, poor quality products and complacent entrepreneurs or unscrupulous avarice, to name a few. For the nation to achieve its full potential and make us prouder Indians, we need to fight our enemies within

U.S. magazine Newsweek has reported that Xi Jinping’s aggressive moves against India have unexpectedly flopped. The magazine goes to add that the Chinese President risked his future with the high profile incursions into Indian territory in the face of the ferocious fight-back by the Indian Army. The incident at Galwan Valley on 15th June has been cited, when 20 Indian soldiers got martyred while pushing back the Chinese army, and not before killing at least 60 of them. China has avoided releasing the number of its casualties. There is one report based on the number of visible tombs that 106 Chinese soldiers were killed.

Newsweek accepts that in August 2020, for the first time in half a century, India carried out an offensive against China, taking back high ground. “China’s forces were surprised when Indian troops mounted their attempt to retake strategic high points. Stunned Chinese soldiers retreated,” the Newsweek said. It went on to say that China’s subsequent efforts to counter the Indian moves proved ineffective. Indian troops are displaying a “newfound boldness”. Citing Cleo Paskal of the ‘Foundation for Defense of Democracies’, the magazine added that the game has changed, as Indians are seen as more aggressive or more aggressively defensive, and that they are bolder and better.

Proud of the army

Indians hearing these comments from an international magazine of repute must have felt proud of their country and their army. The joy must have been several-fold for two reasons: First, because China admittedly is a powerful country both militarily and economically. Second, India had miserably lost the battle against China in 1962. There is no doubt that India outwitted China in its own game and China will do its best to tame India, but Indians are not scared.

There is a massive build-up of the army on both sides of the LAC in Ladakh, and anything can happen anytime, but we are not worried as we have belief in our forces. We are prepared to fight China both militarily and economically. We have already knocked off Chinese apps in large numbers and we are doing our best to curtail imports from China. The unethical intrusion by China in Ladakh has brought us solidly standing behind our army.

‘There is no doubt, entrepreneurs have a big role to play in nation building. They create wealth. They give jobs. Their work strengthens the economy’

Failing in other areas

Let us now proceed to analyse the state of things in other sectors of our country based on the exemplary illustration of our army and allied forces. Are we proud Indians as well when we view the other sections of society of our country? Our answer will not be categorically in the affirmative. Much is needed in other sectors. A country is not just a geographical area but it is made by its people. The people or citizens comprise different sectors of the nation. The defence force is one sector like many other sectors. In a small column of a magazine, it may not be possible to name all sectors and discuss them; however, I try to note down a few important sectors and discuss their state of affairs.

Law-makers or breakers?

To begin with, I take up our Parliament and State Legislatures. It is common knowledge that many of our lawmakers have serious criminal cases against them. It does not give confidence to citizens if some of our lawmakers are lawbreakers. It cannot be denied, being fair to our lawmakers, that some of the criminal cases filed against them may be baseless, and may have political reasons. It is urgently needed that there should be speedy disposal of criminal cases against our lawmakers so that the real criminals are filtered and elbowed out from the Parliament and State Legislatures. We have to begin cleaning our temples of democracy, i.e. the Parliament and State Legislatures.

‘Indians hearing comments from an international magazine of repute must have felt proud of their country and their army. The joy must have been several-fold for two reasons: First, because China admittedly is a powerful country both militarily and economically. Second, India had miserably lost the battle against China in 1962’

Vote-bank policies

Secondly, let us consider the executive wing of the government, both in the Centre and the States. We notice that definitely good work has been done over the years since independence to this date and that is the reason we have reached this stage. But we cannot deny the noticeable shortcomings which do not make us feel proud. We see particularly in the states and also to some extent at the Centre that policies announced have been more populist in nature, the prime objective behind them being to win elections. Populist measures like waiving off farm loans have been bad for the economic health of the country, but they were propounded with a solitary political goal. Similarly, there have been enactments to give reservation to some sections of the society with a political motive, when such policies are divisive and defeat merit.

Brakes of babudom

Third, I lay my hands on the bureaucracy, which is the lifeline of the administration. The British created it to help them run the government, under their dominion. It was created with the British interest in mind and in the process, it got composed of low cost babus who spoke English and understood the direction of English speaking bosses. After independence, our first Home Minister, Sardar Patel pinned great expectation from it and hoped that the bureaucracy in new India will work as a robust iron tool to help the country. As we see it today, despite having many good officers, it does not present a very good spectacle. It has emerged as the main tool of red-tape. We also notice that a section of officers, instead of helping the people, remain busy helping themselves. Such officers partner unethical political bosses. Good officers keep on doing a good job wherever they are posted, but it is the bad officers who manage better postings.

Go-by to quality

Fourth, I take up the sector of Indian business. There is no doubt, entrepreneurs have a big role to play in nation-building. They create wealth. They give jobs. Their work strengthens the economy. We have some much-respected business houses and we should be proud of them. But there are also serious weaknesses in our business sector. Largely, we have failed to produce quality products at competitive prices and that is the sole reason for our export not picking up. Just see China, which has captured the world market, when we are lagging far behind. Our business fails in the competitive market. We are a big market ourselves, but the sad thing is that even here, our entrepreneurs get beaten by the cheaper Chinese imports. The other disappointing thing is that many of our business people believe in crony capitalism, instead of an honest business atmosphere. This kills the animal spirit of aggressive business which affects both the quality and price of our products.

Last and not the least in our business sector we see large scale tax evasion. In such a big country, only 1.5 crore people pay direct taxes. The balance about 3.5 crore filers of income tax returns do it to claim a refund against TDS. It is very sad that some of the dishonest in this sector park their evaded tax money in tax havens and in foreign banks. Generally, our entrepreneurs are intelligent and patriotic but a segment of them spoil the name of this sector.

‘Populist measures like waiving off farm loans have been bad for the economic health of the country, but they were propounded with a solitary political goal. Similarly, there have been enactments to give reservation to some sections of the society with a political motive, when such policies are divisive and defeat merit’

Banes of Bollywood

Fifth, let us visit the glamorous sector of filmmaking and in this context Bollywood figures at the top. India figures as one of the largest producers of films in the world and that makes this sector a really vibrant one. We produce many good films, which have been appreciated the world over, though we have not received many Oscar awards or other international awards commensurate with our quality or production.

Having said that, there is also a grey area in Bollywood. Our film productions have mainly depended upon black money financing and this has, at times even attracted financing by the underworld. To a large extent, now things are improving as corporate filmmaking and corporate tax paid money find their way into Bollywood. Black money financing has had a cascading effect, as the persons associated with films also get remuneration partly in unaccounted cash. We also hear that Bollywood creates stars and lesser-known aspirants who have to struggle a lot to reach the pedestal. These days, there is a lot of talks that banned drugs have entered the film industry and at least a small section of it is hit by this evil. We have to see that our film industry is free from any evil and that it sparkles as a good cultural centre.

Warriors for nation-building

We have to appreciate that all sectors are segments of the same society. No sector is good or bad. It is we who are good or bad. When we work in the defence forces, we become disciplined soldiers and we are ever ready for the supreme sacrifice. We say that our defence forces are ideal. But we say that much improvement is needed in other sectors and that means that in these sectors, we do not perform to our full potential. We all have to introspect and see that if we can do good in one sector, then why are we not doing that good in other areas? We have to resolve to become soldiers in the work of nation-building. We have to be good fighters at the border and at the same time, we have to be good warriors in the economic field. We have to play to our full potential and make our nation great. We should look to our Constitution where the Preamble starts with, “We the people…”, we together constitute India.