Where do we point? Why miss the point?

The Newspaper somewhat disquiets at occasions, I went through a project on one of the terminus of the New Delhi airport, a huge structure one of the most distinguished in the world, will be a symbol of modern India in the coming days and no more will we listen to jarring painful jokes about the capital’s International airport. The growth figures for the last quarter were released yesterday and they were startling and good, the nation seems to be developing and developing real well.

Yet I sat down this time to argue and question the country’s projection. The urban middle class is buoyed by the gush in prosperity and the media inspired by the glistening malls that surround there offices in some metropolis. The young educated youth sees opportunities and money floating around him. The nation senses optimism, a country that not so long back was sullen and cash ridden, where babudome dictated who could by a car is unhindered, and is relishing the new found profligacy. Listen to those voices acknowledging this turn around in unison.

The days of our soviet infatuation, when socialist dreams took eerie directions are safely distant. The irony is that not many seem to be ready to leave them behind. Unless we do so the prognosis is gloomy, with our inkling to take cues from pre 1990’s India we have rushed into consumerism and open markets, we are blinding our way from being a predominantly restricted economy to what may be a far too liberated market for a principally poor nation. The ghosts of the soviet ally India though a fleshless, impotent visage is forcing a brakeless drive towards unrestricted capitalism.

The nation has seen tremendous progress since the Manmohan dream budget, but what must not be lost sight of is the fact that this country is a welfare state in which many still vie for some fundamental services. The government as it has to cater to the people and go back to them every term end has kept a strict eye upon this aspect or at least it has pretended to do so. But the so active, the so noisy and often unrelenting watchdogs that work ceaselessly and unrestricted in the minutest scandal in metros are nowhere to monitor these efforts even within 100 miles from the capital. It was left for a Rahul Gandhi to bring the plight of Bundelkhand to the national media.The entire focus of our newspapers, of those thinking beings in the newspapers and the television media is restricted to number juggling, the national development in the psyche of many has been reduced to development around a few centers. The IPL is a measure of our progress for some, for some it’s the cold Mittal, some dare step down to mention airport terminals and others sporadically speak of the metro train. Talking of things below these strata is already out of fashion.

Our concept of economic development for the going decade remained anomalous.

Now that may sound a lot like the leftist craving on capitalism and inequity, it may seem like the articulation of all that’s not good in a world dominated by the United States. But then contemplating, reading, weighing and justifying over and again, I am here venting all that ire upon the blog. If it jingles like music for the likes of Karats and Yechuries, its unintended and no praises desired from that band either. More on that…

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