Modern History: Past of the Contemporary India

"On 15th august 1947, when the clock struck midnight and India became independent, history ended and political science and sociology began."

-Ramchandra Guha

 History in the 21st century is been seen as a subject of dates. Whenever something about history is talked, the first thought which comes in an Indian mind is either about the Indus valley or about the mighty Mughals. I wanted to study neither of them, therefore I decided of opting for political science. When I started studying political science I found that this subject has somewhere restricted itself to two of its dimensions. Its either about the ancient and medieval political thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle or it’s about the public administration and international relations.

This reveals one of the biggest drawback of the Indian education system. In the academic structure there is no place given to the contemporary history dating mainly from the years 1948 to 2000. History ends with the end of colonization and historians runs out of the content from then. Therefore it becomes quite necessary to write the history of how a nation managed to keep itself democratic in nature in spite of dealing with external and internal conflict in its vast and diverse population.

In 1947 the Britishers left India with a complementary burden of partition. While the people of country were dealing with the traumatic effects of partition, some scholars in the capital were busy writing the constitution of independent India. Today, constitution is present as a fair and just document, but the story about the formation and it's heroes is yet to be deciphered.

The most underrated subject in the history of independent India is the 'Integration of Princely States'. Before colonisation came to an end the country was divided into 584 native or so called princely states. The process of how Indian leaders such as Sardar Patel managed to bring these states into the Indian territory was quite remarkable, but unfortunately these subjects too were never discovered and discussed much.

While writing the constitution, the leaders of independent India decided to have a democratic form of government elected on the basis of Universal Adult Franchise. For the first time a country with 17 crores of eligible voters of which only 15 percent were literate, was ready to elect its own government. Also for the first time women were there to vote in such a large number. Critics called that as the ' Biggest gamble in the history'. Why it took India two years to prepare for the elections and how India successfully conducted its first general elections is a long story yet to be known by majority of people.

As the British left India in worst of the conditions it was now important for India to cope up both at thedthe and global level. At one place it was the economic and agrarian crisis of the country, at the same time it was the cold war tensions where both the super-powers were pressurising India to become its allies. To fight with the issue of agrarian and economic crisis, prime leaders like Nehru came up with the ideas of Five Year Plan (FYI) and the Bombay Plan which not only started with the new domestic policies but decided the fate of the country for the upcoming years too. India had recently established peace therefore the country was in no mood to indulge in any sort of war again. How Nehru promoted the policy of non-alignment to stay neutral on the global level and signed other beneficial foreign policies with the western and European nations is still pending to be studied by modern day people.

The success of decolonizing from the British doesn’t lasted long as India now started to face border issues with its neighbors like Pakistan and China. At one place it was her harsh partition rival Pakistan whereas at the other place it was her dear friend China, who eventually backstapped her. During these 72 years of independence at various stages India had met in various wars with its neighboring countries. One of the key issues which worried the Indian leaders in all these years was the issue of Kashmir. It has been so many years but the issue remains unsolved due to which the country has faced a lot of economic and humanitarian loss.

While facing exterior issues, India was going through various internal conflicts as well. Being diverse in nature, India was finding it quite hard to maintain its communal harmony. During these years India came across with several disturbing events inform of operation Blue Star, The 1984 Riots, The Emergency, Babri Masjid Demolition and various other issues which completely broke the unity and communal harmony of the nation. In these years India also came across with 'The Great Indian Political Drama'. The existing riots and incidents resulted in the assassination of the prominent leaders. This also marked the end of the dominance of the Congress party where the country experienced the rise of various small and regional parties as well. Split in parties gave birth to the factional groups, the popular Amuls' 'Aya Raam, Gaya Raam' slogan could be experienced now on the regular basis. The story of social and political instability is somewhere hidden in the archives which needs to be narrated on the public stage.

The earlier three decades were a complete package of political and economic drama. But for me it were the last two decades of the 20th century which transformed the country completely. With the hosting of 1982 Asian Games, the country for the first time experienced the television in colour. The transformation from radio to black and white Tv sets and then to colour TV was quite epic. It was this time when the country saw the arrival of daily serials in form of ‘Hum Log’, a story of middle class family which caught the attention of every household. In the same decade the epic mythology of Ramayana and Mahabharata was telecasted which got tremendous success on the national level. During the commercial breaks Nirma and Bajaj jingles completely blew the mind of people. Now every man knew which suit to wear and every women knew which detergent to use. At the same time, the 1983 World Cup victory gave birth to a new religion in India called ‘Cricket’. The upcoming years were tremendous as the country now had a new god to worship, named ‘Sachin’. A especially talented young teenager whose name was on the tongue of every Indian. This decade also marked the transformation in the Indian cinema. The country was introduced to new subjects which was a whole new idea to unite the people of the country. To fight with the economic crisis the country now turned to a whole new approach of ‘Liberalization’ which now opened the doors of India for the foreign market. The arrival of MNCs created new job opportunities for the people of India. The people now had different varieties for a single product.

This also marked the arrival of satellite television in India which now provided people of tuning into numerous channels 24x7. Icing on the cake was the introduction of internet or so called the www.com. During this decade the country also got introduced with the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim During the serial Mumbai blast. The very popular Harshad Mehta scam marked the arrival of individual frauds in the stock market. The end of 20th century gave India key lessons and unforgettable memories.

As FW Maitland quoted- ‘What is now in the past was once in the future’. Many people said India would never be able to maintain its democratic status. With various struggles and successes India did proved its critics wrong. The real success story of India lies not in the domain of economics but in that of politics. History of independent India is a field mainly untilled. So it becomes quite necessary for us to study and take lessons from the rear mirror of past to drive efficiently on the road to success.