FREEDOM STRUGGLE – THEN & NOW

A section of our media personalities, political leaders, scientists, intellectuals and educationists are the products of foreign universities - USA, UK and for that matter any of the foreign nations. Though educated abroad, each belongs to different schools of thought. Going abroad in pursuit of higher studies, is something great and those who get the opportunities are really lucky. That in anyway does not belittle the significance of getting educated in one’s own country and we have had the luck of producing persons of calibre like our former President and world-renowned scientist A.P.J Abdul Kalam who is anyone’s envy. Indigenous education is also great and in this connection I would like to stress the importance of creating enormous potentials like inviting eminent scientists, professors and scholars in various fields as visiting faculty to India and provide proper coaching to our students who always aspire to scale new heights. So be it.

Let’s categorize our political leaders, media personalities and intellectuals into two sections.

The first category though educated abroad are/were India-centric and their attention always centred on India. Means, India’s development in various fields, science & technology, betterment of infrastructure facilities like irrigation, transport facilities like roads and railways, electricity, health, education etc, and India’s social development particularly the uplift of those at the lower strata of society.

Take for instance, Father of Nation, Gandhiji who went to UK in pursuance of higher studies successfully emerged as a barrister and then went to South Africa where he pursued his career for a while. Meanwhile India was in the midst of freedom struggle seeking freedom from the colonial yoke and upon his arrival he without any hesitation plunged into the struggle and within a short while evolved into the foremost leader of the Indian National Congress and the masses along with other leaders rallied behind him, such was his personal magnetism. He adopted a new path of struggle, that of non-violence and later civil-disobedience. He braved the onslaught of the ruthless British forces and soon turned to be an inspiration for the freedom fighters. “Simple living and noble thoughts” was his mantra and he practiced what he preached.

The rest is history. Though pursued his studies in a foreign university that in no way distracted his attention- his patriotism.

As father of nation, his everlasting advice to each Indian is “whenever you see a poor and helpless person anywhere, your foremost duty is to wipe out his tears”.

Like Gandhi, our first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi’s right-hand man pursued his studies in UK and came out as a barrister. Panditji too upon his arrival in India joined the freedom struggle movement and was always in the forefront of the movement. Though born and brought up in an aristocratic family that background in no way pulled him back from the freedom movement.

Like-wise a number of eminent persons had flown abroad like USA, UK, France, Russia, Germany, Switzerland for undertaking studies came out in flying colours to the pride of our nation some even chose to settle abroad, as attractive careers with bright prospects made them feel at home in a foreign nation. Sadly a few among the lot nursed bitter thoughts towards their country of origin and even went to the extent of berating, belittling and deriding their motherland through words and deeds.

Even a few of our left leaders like Jyoti Basu and Prakash Karat, studied abroad, came back and joined the national mainstream. Though Basu disappeared from the scene, Prakash Karat, an Edinburg product is very much active in left politics and currently he is serving as General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Similarly many political leaders holding diverse political opinions are also active in the political mainstream. Our Prime Minister Dr.ManMohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Home Minister P.Chidambaram, Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy, all had their higher studies abroad.

Apart from politics leading icons in the media world, and in the field of economics, industry, IT et al are products of various universities abroad.

I was prompted to write this piece after going through the weekly column ‘Parallax View’ in Sunday Express of 15th August 2010, our Independence day by Vir Sanghvi. Sanghvi is a great media personality every one knows who had his schooling and University education in Britain. He wrote this column for the newspaper from England.

The title ‘Why the Empire came back to its vassal state’ makes serious and amusing reading at the same time.

Thirty years back while he began his schooling there, Indians were viewed by the British men in derision. India was then in a pathetic condition and according to Sanghvi India’s economic scene was quite dismal. And also famine and hunger at its worst.

Sanghvi’s English writings were looked upon with amazement as his English was that much good and his colleagues used to ask him ‘how come you Johnies write this well?

Gradually their mindset began to undergo tremendous changes. The arrival of Indian professionals from Uganda and South African nations who were forced to flee Uganda due to the ruthless reign of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and for other reasons. These professionals were very adept in their professional skills as also their amazing proficiency in English.

The economic reforms kick-started during the rein of P.V.Narasimha Rao and his Finance Minister ManMohan Singh, Singh currently is our PM and the neo-liberal reforms initiated by him in 1990’s according to Vir Sanghvi, totally transformed Indian economic scene by encouraging Foreign Direct Investments and providing more facilities for industry by loosening controls according to Sanghvi. The conversion of a centralized economy into a decentralized one had its positive effects according to Sanghvi.

He marvels upon the facts that today Britain’s most richest man is L N Mittal, a proud holder of Indian passport.

Sunil Mittal, another Indian also is very much in UK and Sanghvi forgets not to mention that he runs a global empire there and he owns a flat in UK not for making money out of England. The man is a well-known industrial icon in India. Sunil Mittal is believed to be the master-brain behind paving the way for spreading a red carpet welcome to the US multinational retail giant Walmart to India through backdoors to the detriment of small-scale retail chains in India.

He mentions some other groups also like Hindujas, all quite nice – simply put. India’s ‘quantum jump’ in growth, Britain looks upon with amazement and according to Sanghvi the recent visit of British PM David Cameroon with a group of businessmen was primarily intended at eyeing India’s commercial market. Put it mildly more than a bonhomie Britain has found a dumping ground in India for their products. This is not Sanghvi’s opinion but treat it as this reader’s opinion.
Centuries back Britain in the guise of East India Company landed in India with their cohorts befriended the local heads and regional satraps and slowly, very slowly began to swallow our nation bit by bit adopting the wily policy of ‘divide and rule’. Means, pitting brother against brother and forcing them to engage in a bitter fight and after the prolonged fight when two sides get tired force them to hand over the reins to the East India Company heads under the control of Britain. In the end India got converted into a vassal State ruled for centuries by Britain squeezing the essence of an entire ‘nation’. That paved the way for freedom movement lasting for centuries forcing them to flee. That also is history.

Yes, India has undergone tremendous progress, look at our GDP growth rate, booming economy, sky-rocketing share-market, progress on the industrial front, IT scene, all music to our ears.

But a few always prefer to look from above, concentrate on the top of the pyramid, not the bottom. At the bottom level what all Vir Sanghvi witnessed thirty years ago remains the same. Poverty, hunger, malnourishment, starvation and agriculture scene still in shambles, yes remains same.
A major section of students hailing from elite families right from their childhood days join elite schools and under the hard and severe coaching of teaching faculty and with the care and encouragement of their parents join universities abroad and successfully come out. They are the most wanted in various government departments and private firms and with not much difficulty get absorbed in the aforesaid departments and firms earning lucrative salaries. What they ought to learn first in their school days, sympathy for the downtrodden unfortunately get ignored and they always remain out of touch with Indian reality ie. the total neglect of the masses. I don’t cast aspersions on all such fellows but majority of them remain out of touch with contemporary Indian problems.

Britain too prefers not to care the bottom of the pyramid, they like any other developed country need an ideal dumping yard and India fits into that category. Along with the changing times the modus operandi too changes be it that of US, UK or any other developed nation. Today as an eminent writer put it, ‘a remote control’ device is enough to colonize a developing country like India and fortunately for some it works well. So what? Even our rulers have no protests or objections. I don’t think they are aware of the dangers lurking behind. Here lies the significance of another freedom struggle.