My maternal grandfather was a freedom fighter who fought in
his home town of Karur. He was called as Gandhi in his home town. My paternal
grandfather was selected for National Defense Academy but he couldn’t join it
due to some family constraint. So it is no surprise on why I love my country so
much but pained by its present situation. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime
minister wanted India to be a socialist republic where state had control over
the industries. The constitution also describes India as a Socialist
country. He instituted some of the
biggest projects of his time for which we are reaping benefits even now. He believed
in Science and was a visionary in his days. Unlike other Prime Ministers, he
enjoyed people’s support right until his death. He continued the legacy of
Congress after the death of Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel and other great
leaders. His vision for the country was
authentic and growth oriented but what he could not able to foresee was the
issue of corruption. He followed the British system of civil servants who were
supposed to serve the ordinary citizens of this country. But they turned out to
be the masters of the people and corruption seeped in to his cabinet as
well. His finance minister was forced to
resign on the Mundhra Scandal. There were also reports of extreme corruption in
procuring Army jeeps. Following the death of Nehru, Lal Bahdur Shastri was
sworn in as the next prime minister. His
term did not last long enough as he died in a mystical circumstance at Tashkent
in the then USSR. Later Nehru’s daughter Indra Gandhi sworn in as the Prime
Minister of India. Corruption was a major issue during her tenure because of
which she was disqualified by the Allahabad High Court on accounts of election
malpractice. Citing law and order issue, she declared a state of emergency
across India in 1975. Once the emergency was lifted after 2 years, she was
defeated by the Janata Dal under the leadership of Morarji Desai. But the
government did not last long and Indra Gandhi came in to power for the 4th
time. During her tenure there were large scale corruption and undue favours
were given to her son Sanjay Gandhi in setting up the Maruti Manufacturing
plant. In 1984, she was killed by her own sikh body guards in retaliation to
operation blue star. Following the trend set by Indra Gandhi, her son Rajiv was
sworn in as Prime Minister of India. He too was seen as the visionary and clean
and initiated several projects in Telecom and IT sector. But corruption got in
to his government too in procuring the Bofors Gun from Sweden. When the finance minister Vishwanath Pratap
Singh exposed the large scale corruption involved, he was expelled from the
government.
After Rajiv’s death, congress once again came to power and P.V.Narasimha
Rao was chosen to become the Prime Minister of India. He is the first congress
PM from non-Nehru family. This term changed the face of India among the world
after the historic budget speech by Manmohan Singh. India is now a free economy
and lots of investments poured in. With the investments, the magnitude of
corruption also increased when the prime minister was charge sheeted. The next
government under A.B.Vajpayee didn’t last long for unable to prove majority.
This was a turbulent period for India as elections happened almost every 15
months. H.D.Deve Gowda became the prime minister under the United Front
government. Born in to a small farming family, he is now a millionaire. It is
still a mystery for me on how he earned so much being in political life. Inder
Kumar Gujral was made the next prime minister of India following some issue
with the current PM Deve Gowda. This government too did not last long and then came
the BJP government. The government lasted for only 13 months and elections were
conducted again. This time the NDA under the able leadership of Atal Bihari
Vajpayee formed the government for the 3rd time. Similar to other
Prime Ministers there were some developments and so as corruption. Bangaru
Lakshmanan, BJP’s president was caught on camera by Tehelka accepting bribes
for a defence deal. Few would know that what is going to follow is the mother
of all corruption. In 2004, after the UPA government formed the government
Manmohan Singh was made the Prime Minister for the first time. This government was
credited to bring in lots of welfare schemes which helped poor. This government
is also credit for some of the biggest scandals ever to happen in India.
Dayanidhi Maran forced Aircel to sell it to Astro Network of Malaysia in return
for investment in Sun Network owned by his brother Kalanidhi. T.R.Baalu was
credited with some big corruption in some of the shipping and highway projects.
Madhu Khoda, Jahrkand’s chief minister was arrested for high level corruption. Due
to some family feud, Dayanidhi Maran was replaced by Andimuthu Raja as telecom
and IT minister. He went on to become the big daddy of corrupt ministers when
he sold 2G spectrum to ineligible players in 2008 at 2001 price. This happened even after
there was an agreement in auctioning the spectrum. CAG report calculated the
loss to government to tune of 1.7 lakh crore rupees. Suresh Kalmadi was
involved in large scale corruption during the 2010 commonwealth games, which
tarnished the image of India across the globe. Coal blocks were given to
private players at below market price, Rs 14 crore as bribe for the Army chief for
the purchase of Tetra-Vectra trucks for the Army, illegal mining scam in
Karnataka the list continues.
Had the legacy of creating world class institutions of
Nehruvian era continued, India too would have had its own Harvard and Stanford,
had the legacy of creating a second green revolution of Shastri era continued
we would not have had a single person without food. Had the legacy of creating
world class IT and telecom infrastructure of Rajiv era continued we would have
had our own Microsoft and Google, but what we followed is the legacy of
Mundhra, Bofors, Hawala and Tehelka which is ruining this great country.
The country which gave this world its first university, the
country which showed this world to move beyond 9, the country which showed this
world to perform surgery is currently in shambles. Unfortunately, the country
which showed the world the likes of Rama, Yudishtra, Harischandra is battling
with the likes of Rajas and Kalmadis.
The legacy follows but it pains me to know that it is
following a wrong legacy.
