India

by Shashi Tharoor

  The independence generation, newly freed of the incubus of colonialism, was deeply mistrustful of the outside world. After all, the British had come to trade, and stayed on to rule: foreign investors were therefore seen as the thin end of a neo-imperialist wedge. The result was stagnation and underemployment, as we turned away investments that would have created jobs and strengthened infrastructure, while we tried to divide an ever-shrinking economic pie. (I have often wondered how much of our political troubles can be laid at the door of our economic choices. Youth and students without economic prospects in a rigidly controlled economy were ready material for agitations and militant movements: had we opened up the economy earlier, they might have been recruited by MNCs rather than by terrorist gangs.) Today even Communist China has learned to transcend history, to put the past in its place and open the doors to the future. India’s youth have no colonial hang-ups to hobble them; they can look with confidence, not fear, at what the outside world has to offer them.

  I began this book by recalling my own cynicism as an adolescent in the India of 1975. Which way will India’s youth turn? In resolving these great debates of our time, their challenge is not only to develop, and take pride in, the “sense of belonging” whose absence I bemoaned as a nineteen-year-old It is also to sustain an India open to the contention of ideas and interests within it, unafraid of the prowess or the products of the outside world, wedded to the pluralism that is India’s greatest strength, and determined to liberate and fulfill the creative energies of its people. Such an India can make the twenty-first century her own. Back in 1975, I ended my article with the words, “Perhaps our citizens of tomorrow will be of a different breed.” Perhaps they already are.

  MAP

  Chronology of Major Events

  Mentioned in India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond

  1947 August 15, India becomes independent

  1948 January 30, assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

  1950 January 26, adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of India

  1952 first General Elections; Congress government elected

  1954 Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru adopts goal of “socialist pattern of society”

  1956 States Reorganization Act creates ethno-linguistic states

  1957 second General Elections; Congress under Nehru increases its majority; Communist government elected in Kerala state

  1959 Indira Gandhi, as president of the Congress Party, leads successful campaign for dismissal of the elected Communist government in the state of Kerala

  1962 war with China; third General Elections

  1964 death of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru; succeeded by Lal Bahadur Shastri

  1965 war with Pakistan

  1966 death of Prime Minister Shastri at Tashkent peace conference; succeeded by Indira Gandhi

  1967 fourth General Elections; Congress majority slashed; several opposition governments formed in the states; formerly secessionist DMK party assumes power in Tamil Nadu

  1969 nationalization of banks, followed by split of Indian National Congress Party; Prime Minister Indira Gandhi rules with support of left-wing parties

  1971 fifth General Elections; Mrs. Gandhi wins overwhelmingly; Bangladesh crisis (largest refugee influx in human history); war with Pakistan; creation of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan)

  1974 Jayaprakash Narayan leads movement for “Total Revolution”; Supreme Court decides in Keshavananda Bharati case that right to property is not part of the basic structure of the Constitution

  1975 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi found guilty by court of electoral malpractice; June, State of Emergency declared, including arrests of opposition leaders, press censorship, and Sanjay Gandhi’s “five-point program”

  1976 passage of the Forty-second Amendment to the Indian Constitution to enact Emergency-era changes

  1977 March, Emergency ends in sixth General Elections; Mrs. Gandhi and Congress (Indira) crushed; Janata Party government takes power under Prime Minister Morarji Desai

  1979 Janata Party splits, with rival faction under Charan Singh seeking Mrs. Gandhi’s support to form government; withdrawal of this support leads to seventh General Elections

  1980 January, seventh General Elections; Mrs. Gandhi restored to power as prime minister; June, Sanjay Gandhi killed in air crash of stunt plane over Delhi; Mandal Commission report recommending additional reservations for “other backward classes” submitted, and quietly shelved

  1981 Rajiv Gandhi wins by-election to his brother’s seat in Parliament

  1982 Asian Games held in New Delhi, prompting major infrastructure development in the capital

  1983 Sir Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi wins eight Academy Awards

  1984 July, Sikhs’ Golden Temple assaulted by Indian Army in “Operation Bluestar”; October, Mrs. Gandhi assassinated; Rajiv Gandhi becomes prime minister, calls eighth General Elections, and wins biggest landslide in Indian electoral history; anti-defection law passed

  1985 Rajiv Gandhi attacks corruption and inefficiency at Congress Party’s centenary celebrations; “new economic policy” announced; Shah Banu alimony case ruling by Supreme Court

  1986 passage of Muslim Women (Protection of Rights Upon Divorce) Act

  1987 controversy arises over allegations of corruption in Bofors gun purchase

  1988 first of an eight-year run of good monsoons; Babri Masjid/Ram Janmabhoomi controversy erupts over disputed mosque at Ayodhya

  1989 ninth General Elections; National Front coalition defeats Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress government; minority government led by Janata’s V. P. Singh takes office

  1990 Mandal controversy arises over Prime Minister Singh’s decision to implement 1980 recommendation of further job reservations for “other backward classes”; twelve students die in protest immolations; Bharatiya Janata Party launches nationwide agitation over Ayodhya

  1991 Prime Minister Singh’s government falls, with rival faction under Chandra Shekhar seeking Rajiv Gandhi’s support to form government; withdrawal of this support leads to tenth General Elections; gold reserves pawned to stave off default on international debt; Rajiv Gandhi assassinated by Sri Lankan Tamil suicide bomber; Congress government formed under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao; economic reforms launched

  1992 Supreme Court upholds Mandal; Harshad Mehta stock-market scandal erupts; December, demolition of Babri Masjid at Ayodhya by Hindu mob; serious Hindu-Muslim riots in several cities

  1993 Hindu-Muslim tensions continue; bomb explosions rock Bombay; Washington conference of Vishwa Hindu Parishad; Congress wins confidence vote in Parliament, allegedly after illegal payoffs to opposition members

  1994 October, sugar scandal erupts; November, Andhra Pradesh state elections lost by Congress

  1995 September, statues of Ganesh reported to be drinking milk; Kerala state declared 100 percent literate

  1996 India hosts cricket World Cup and Miss World contest; eleventh General Elections, largest democratic exercise known to humanity; defeat of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao; Bharatiya Janata Party government led by A. B. Vajpayee falls after thirteen days; United Front coalition takes power under Janata prime minsiter H. D. Deve Gowda; Common Minimum Programme adopted

  1997 April, political crisis following Congress Party’s withdrawal of support leads to resignation of Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda and his replacement by I. K. Gujral, India’s twelfth prime minister; 15 August, India marks fiftieth anniversary of independence and democracy; a Dalit, or ‘untouchable’, K. R. Narayanan, is elected President of India

  1998 The United Front government falls; a new coalition of regional parties and the BJP, the National Democratic Alliance, takes office, with A. B. Vajpayee as prime minister; India conducts a series of nuclear tests in the Rajasthan desert

  1999 Prime Minister Vajpayee undertakes a historic journey by bus to Pakistan and signs a declaration of peace; within a few days, Pakistani soldiers cross the line-of-control and infiltrate Indian Kashmir; India repul
ses the attack and Pakistan loses the brief, but bloody, border conflict in the Himalayan district of Kargil; armed militants hijack an Indian Airlines aircraft, with 189 people on board; the passengers are freed once the Indian government bows to the hijackers’ demand and releases three high-profile terrorists

  2000 Tensions between India and Pakistan mount with the violence in Kashmir escalating; the Indian rupee hits a record low against the dollar and the Reserve Bank of India intervenes to introduce measures to stabilize the faltering currency, the states of Chattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Jharkhand are carved out of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar respectively and become the 26th, 27th and 28th states of the Indian Union; Vajpayee extends the unilateral ceasefire; the extremist Kashmiri terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba attacks the military outpost in the Red Fort

  2001 Massive earthquake in Gujarat causes over 40,000 casualties; India mobilizes massive rehabilitation effort; Vajpayee and Pakistani President Musharraf have a high-profile but unsuccessful summit meeting in Agra; Indian Parliament comes under terrorist attack; tensions between India and Pakistan mount; India’s first privately owned FM station, Radio City, goes on air

  2002 Hindu-Muslim violence, including attacks on Muslims condoned by the police, leaves over a thousand dead in Gujarat; Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, a Muslim and the father of the Indian missile program, is elected President of India; a joint session of Parliament pushes through the Prevention of Terrorism Act, a controversial anti-terrorist bill that had been defeated in the Rajya Sabha after being passed by the Lok Sabha

  2003 Pakistan and other Islamic countries express their displeasure at the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s state visit to India; tensions between India and Pakistan decrease; the Indian government declines to send its troops to Iraq; India announces many peace initiatives with Pakistan as confidence-building measures, including renewing air, rail and bus links

  2004 The Congress Party returns to power with the help of the Left parties, and heads a new coalition, the United Progressive Alliance, after a surprise victory in the 14th General Elections; Sonia Gandhi declines the post of prime minister and nominates Dr. Manmohan Singh, an economist and former finance minister, as prime minister; a tsunami kills over 15,000 people in India alone and over 240,000 people worldwide

  2005 The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India cuts tariffs for international communications; suicide bomb attacks in Delhi cause over a hundred casualties; terrorist attack on the Bangalore campus of the Indian Institute of Science; both houses of Parliament unanimously pass the 93rd constitutional amendment which allows the government to impose measures for the “advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens”

  2006 The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index (Sensex) crosses the historic 10,000 mark in February. U.S. President G. W. Bush visits India and signs a landmark nuclear deal pending approval from the U.S. Senate and the Indian Parliament; the human resources minister announces 27 percent reservation for Other Backward Castes in government-aided and unaided institutions ofhigherlearning,sparking off large-scale student protests in medical colleges and the Indian Institutes of Technology and Management; multiple coordinated bomb blasts on commuter trains across Bombay during the evening rush hour kill over 200 people and seriously injure over 700; the police suspect Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Student Islamic Movement of India

  2007 The Bahujan Samaj Party, led by Mayawati, a Dalit woman, wins a stunning 205 seats out of the 408 in the state elections in Uttar Pradesh, and gains absolute majority in the Vidhan Sabha; the BSE Sensex touches the historic milestone of 15,000 points on 6 July 2007; India’s GDP estimated at 40,701,955 million rupees; Pratibha Patil becomes the first woman President of India; the rupee falls below 40 with respect to the dollar, rattling the markets; the country celebrates 60 years of Independence

  Glossary

  The glossary below defines not only Indian terms and words used in the book, but words whose usage in Indian English carries connotations not always evident to non-Indian readers.

  agitations

  Street demonstrations, usually around a particular cause, and often as part of a broader movement involving mass rallies and protest marches.

  Amethi

  District in Uttar Pradesh, political constituency of Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi.

  backwards

  Members of the intermediate castes, or “Other Backward Classes,” a term invented by a British colonial census official and retained by the government of India ever since. The “backwards” themselves show no discomfort with the term, since in India’s quota-laden system (see reservations, below) “backwardness” is a guarantee of political privilege. The “backwards,” it should be stressed, are not at the bottom of the caste system (see Dalits, below).

  Bangladesh crisis of 1971

  The crisis resulting from the military crackdown by the Pakistani Army in East Bengal, then a province of Pakistan, following the victory by a Bengali nationalist party in elections that were intended to end military rule in Pakistan. The army crackdown, followed by a declaration of independence by Bengali leaders, resulted in the largest refugee crisis of the modern era, when more than 10 million refu gees streamed across the border into India. The crisis ended in war in December 1971, when the Indian Army took East Pakistan in fourteen days, giving birth to the new independent republic of Bangladesh.

  Bhagavad Gita

  “The Song of the Lord,” an episode interpolated into the ancient epic the Mahabharata, in which Lord Krishna expounds some of the most important philosophical doctrines of Hinduism to the warrior Arjun, who is assailed by doubt on the battlefield. The Gita, as it is simply known, is a transcendent explication of faith and an appeal to disinterested action in the name of duty; it is considered amongst Hinduism’s most sacred works. Bollywood The popular film industry of Bombay.

  bonded labor

  A system of indentured servitude, in which a worker is “bonded” to work for a creditor until a debt is paid off, which usually means in perpetuity.

  Brahmins

  Members of the highest caste in Hindu society, traditionally priests and scholars; still a dominant elite.

  charvakas

  Followers of an ancient school of skeptical philosophy that propounded materialist doctrines.

  communal(ism)

  Sectarian(ism). The word has a negative connotation in India that is absent in England or America; “communal” does not suggest “community” in the sense of cooperative harmony, but in Indian usage explicitly means identifying exclusively with one’s own religious community, to the detriment of others. In India, a “communalist” is a bigot; “communal violence” refers to sectarian rioting.

  Congress, Congressman

  Shorthand for the Indian National Congress and its members. American readers should not confuse the Congress with the Parliament. The Congress, founded in 1885, is India’s oldest political party, it led the nationalist movement for independence and won the first five of India’s General Elections. The Congress’s nationalist old guard was sidelined after a split engineered in the party in 1969 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, whose crushing victory in the 1971 elections reduced the rump to irrelevance. After its defeat at the hands of the Janata Party in 1977, the Congress split again, with the faction led by Mrs. Gandhi baptizing itself the Congress-Indira, or Congress-I. Mrs. Gandhi’s return to power in the 1980 elections made hers the dominant party to claim the Congress label, and though several splinter groups have broken off over the years (and for the most part re-merged into the parent party), the Congress Party of the last decades of the twentieth century is identified completely with the Nehru-Gandhi family.

  crore

  Equal to 10 million. Indians count in lakhs (100,000s) and crores, rather than millions and billions.

  Dalits

  “The Oppressed,” an appellation preferred since the 1970s by the new generation of those at the bottom of India’s caste system, who have been known variously
as “Untouchables,” “Harijans” (Mahatma Gandhi’s term for them, which translates as “People of God,” and which many Dalits find patronizing), or “Scheduled Castes” (a bureaucratic term derived from their listing in a Schedule attached to the Indian Constitution).

  Delhi, New Delhi

  India’s capital, built on the site of seven previous capitals stretching back over the millennia. Delhi refers generally to the teeming old town, and New Delhi to the well-planned city laid out by Sir Edwin Lutyens in the 1920s and 1930s, but the two merge seamlessly into each other, and Indians usually speak of “Delhi” to refer to the common conurbation as well as to the seat of the national government.

  dharna

  Agitation (see above).

  Emergency

  A period of autocratic rule in India from June 26, 1975, to February 22, 1977, during which freedoms Indians had long taken for granted, including freedom of the press and of assembly, were suspended, opposition politicians were jailed, and dissent was suppressed (for details, see Index). The Emergency ended with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s comprehensive defeat in the elections of February 1977.

  Ezhava

  A “backward caste” in Kerala, socially disadvantaged but economically and politically powerful.

  hartal

  A general work stoppage, often bringing an entire town or area of a city to a standstill.

  Hindi, Hindu, Hinduism, Hindutva

  Hinduism refers to the religion of 82 percent of Indians, whose adherents are called Hindus. Hindi is the language of northern India, and is officially the country’s “national language” (and it has nothing to do with Hinduism; not all Hindi speakers are Hindu, and not all Hindus are Hindi-speaking). Hindutva (“Hinduness”) is the name given to the movement for Hindu resurgence, led by a number of groups loosely and inaccurately described as “Hindu fundamentalists.”