By Sujatha Fernandes
On August 15, 1947, India won its independence from Britain. With independence came not only the promise of freedom from servitude to the British masters, but also the hope of an end to grinding poverty, hard labour and misery. Fifty years later, how much have these hopes been fulfilled?
Judging by the anniversary celebrations, it would seem that they have. In Australia, the dance festivals, music recitals, film showings, academic conferences, puja displays and art exhibitions convey the message that Indians have maintained their diverse culture and made others aware of it, established niches in all fields of social life and are heralding a new phase of development and success.
The poverty, political corruption and communal violence and tensions don't enter into this picture. The new promoters of India, the marketing gurus, want to combat the view that India is a poor country by focusing on the lives and lifestyles of the emerging middle class.
Clever marketing can win some big clients, but the glossy, manufactured images can't quite hide the reality.
While Indian promotional advertisements present shiny, slick images of happy, well-dressed people in offices and department stores using the latest technology, World Vision ads still show malnourished children with bloated bellies, and documentaries reveal the vast army of exploited workers in the factories and coal mines.
While business exchange fairs and lobby groups show an India that is embracing the world market, ready to accept the challenges of international trade, Hindi popular cinema produces a film like Hindustani, which depicts as the hallmark of the new India the constant corruption and dishonesty encountered by a post-independence nationalist fighter.
While the glossy travel brochures present an array of sumptuous images of the Taj Mahal, the Arcadian Himalayas and India's tropical beaches, environmental studies reveal a country whose forest cover is rapidly declining, wildlife is disappearing and cities are choked by pollution.
While the puja celebrations and temple openings give the impression of a deeply religious society which has maintained its traditions for centuries, the TV news shows inter-religious hatred and rows of saffron men burning down mosques.
Land of contradictions
These contradictions are the reality of post-independence India. Economic liberalisation may liberate the Indian middle class from hard labour and poverty, but it sends the rest spiralling into even more desperate circumstances than before.
The countryside, where the vast majority of Indians live, is the best example of this. Under the liberalisation policies, the government spent a lot of money on the "green revolution", providing technology and inputs for the agriculturally rich areas. This has continued with the provision through the World Bank of fertilisers and agricultural technology for cash cropping and production for the world market.
Big farmers who have access to irrigation and labour can significantly increase their profits by producing much more cheaply. For the peasants in these areas, however, it often means having to sell their land and work for the big farmers, or continue to operate small holdings growing cash crops to survive and being unable to produce even subsistence supplies.
In other areas, where there is no agricultural investment, peasants are forced to migrate to the urban centres to supplement a declining agricultural income.
In urban areas, the migrant peasants and urban masses are used in the new industries that liberalisation spawned — clothing and footwear, food production and steel manufacturing. As the number of available workers increases, companies can reduce wages, workplace rights and conditions, replacing workers who resist with one of the thousands of people desperate for a job.
Massive development projects such as the Enron power project and the Narmada Dam are cited as the paths to progress for India, bringing power to every home. The reality is that while such projects generate a lot of income for a few individuals, they also displace hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and livelihoods.
India is deeply divided by caste and class. The sight of cars housed in large concrete enclosures while next door people live in shacks made out of movie poster advertisements emphasises the yawning gulf between rich and the poor — a gulf that is widening.
The impact on India of increasing international economic competition is increasing, especially since India can no longer rely on the Soviet Union for trade.
As institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund tie the Indian economy into an international order through loans and debt, domestic political and economic control becomes more concentrated in the hands of these institutions.
Against this background, the mass of powerless, discontented and angry people are drawn into large political movements based on the agendas of parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party, which fuel and direct their discontent into religious hatred and fundamentalism.
Change
The tools do exist to start tackling the problems of unemployment, poverty and hunger that plague India.
Agricultural schemes and subsidies focused on domestic food needs rather than supplying the world market would go a long way to addressing hunger. Similarly, factories that produced goods for the large urban populations, rather than for consumers in London and Paris, would raise the living standards of millions of urban poor.
Rather than big power projects and dams, environmentally sustainable projects aimed at meeting local people's requirements would benefit many at the bottom of society.
But change must also come from the developed world. Since most of the decisions affecting the lives of the majority of people in the Third World are made by elites in First World countries, ordinary people in the First World must put pressure on their governments to change their exploitative policies towards the Third World populations.
To pretend that the benefits of post-independence India accruing to the middle class will trickle down to the poor is a betrayal of the dreams of those who fought for India's independence and freedom in 1947. To recognise that reality and work for real change is the best way to "celebrate" 50 years of independence from colonisation.