The Republic’s journey so far, the journey ahead
The Republic of India at 75 is a nation to be proud of and to work for. But it is also a human society that needs urgent medicament, for its body and its soul
When 75 years ago this day, India became a Republic, our first Prime Minister (PM) Jawaharlal Nehru invited Indonesia’s first President Sukarno to come as an honoured guest. Just one year into his office, Sukarno was the only head of State from another country to have been so invited. A great painting of the swearing-in of India’s first President, Rajendra Prasad, with Sukarno seated beside Nehru, hangs in the corridors of Rashtrapati Bhavan. It is most apposite that on the 75th anniversary of the Republic of India, Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, again just one year into his office, and the eighth in that line, should be the chief guest at the festivities.

Sukarno came expecting to see and did, indeed, see in the new Republic, a yearning for the inauguration of change — social, political and economic. A change seeking to find expression through its democratic institutions and the instruments of constitutional empowerment being established. As legatees of struggle, Sukarno and Nehru used the propulsions of history to seek a new millennium for their people.
President Subianto and his host, India’s 15th President, the noble and by virtue of her tribal origins, a trailblazer, Droupadi Murmu were born after Indonesia and India became Republics. So, for that matter, has India’s wholly self-made and unprivileged PM Narendra Modi. Both leaders, Subianto and Modi, owe their positions not to their nations’ freedom struggles — India’s from the British and Indonesia’s from the Dutch. They owe them to the fresh political intelligence of a people belonging to a new century, a new generation, a new ethos. The past is there for them, like a backdrop, to be generally aware of; the present is what they are possessed by, as a launching pad for the future that beckons on land, sea and now tantalisingly, in outer space. A great tool has placed itself in their hands and is like God himself has been described; an entity existing beyond the five senses, beyond even intuition that used to be called the sixth sense, a seventh sense, something utterly new and mysterious — Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its ambient field, cyberia.
So, President Subianto will also look for in his host country, intimations of change. But this time, not those that come through the processes of democratic institutions and constitutional empowerment as much as through techno-commercial agency that seeks to produce energy and capital through a vigorous, even aggressive exploitation of resources, which will confer on the Indian Republic the sinews of superpower-hood and the ability, again through focused attention to security concerns, the strength to repulse any designs on its territorial integrity by other States and, no less importantly, by non-State players, to call terrorists by a polite name. And deploy for this, the new tools available now through AI.
Our honoured guest is, in reality, a metaphor for the leaders of the countries of the world, be they republics or monarchies, democracies or autocracies. The world will see these two aims of the Indian Republic — sinews for strength and security — in its 75th year, as legitimate, honourable and admirable. And it will see with admiration and, when not smitten by peer envy, with awe, India’s intelligent use of its inherent skills with digital solutions and now, with AI, to reach targets of a $10 trillion, $12 trillion, and $30 trillion economy, by 2030, 2032, and 2047 respectively.
The world will see India’s use of outer space to predict foul weather, danger signs and atmospheric erraticism to protect its farmers and fisherfolk, its coastal populations, and the hinterland of all that depends on those for livelihood. It will see in the 75-year-old Republic an ability to be self-sufficient in the major arenas of national life, from agriculture to manufacturing and to medical well-being, as tested through and through in the pandemic.
But will the world not also notice other features of the Republic that do not draw applause? Will these realities of India be hidden from India’s own and the world’s eyes on this iconic date?
Technology blooms, and trust wilts. Political differences in India are now not what they were like in the past. Gone is the mutual respect, gone the language of persuasion, the idiom of civility. Accusations fly on the wings of abuse and reputations are up for slaughter. Utter falsehood and concoctions waft on invisible currents of guile in the hope that they will never be fully or forcefully contradicted.
Democratic institutions and constitutional processes are faced with a new numerical assertiveness that says, ‘We know what is right, good, and proper; we know what is just, fair, and correct and don’t you question us’.
Money is growing in India as never before, but in vaulted silos that are becoming more and more opaque, more and more impenetrable. Corruption is now not about why? but why not?; not about how? but how much?
Elections, India’s pride, are still India’s pride but with a whole expertise of manipulations of voters’ minds taking the place of the old skills of arduous personal campaigning. Persuasion requires effort. India is living in times when striving seems the habit of the innocent.
India’s physical or natural environment is being trodden under, be it in the Himalaya, its forests or in its littoral and island tracts like the Great Nicobar, in the name of development. Whose development and at what social and environmental cost? Few ask that, fewer deign to answer.
Violence! How that has grown, diversified and become elusive — against women, against the weak and the politically underrepresented.
The Republic of India at 75 is a nation to be proud of, to love and work for. But the Republic is also a human society that needs urgent medicament and ministration, for its traumatised body and its tormented soul. This the world will not fail to see. Nor will we, the people of India that is Bharat, as we salute in pride and hope the great flag, our tiranga, fluttering in all its glory today.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi, a former administrator, is a student of modern Indian history.The views expressed are personal
