60 Years of the Indian Republic: Challenges and Achievements
January 25, 2010
High rise modern buildings glittering in the sunshine, shopping malls with latest collections of Gucci, Prada or Dior and showrooms full of Mercedes, BMWs and Audis -- India has come a long way since 1950. Its economy has recorded an average growth rate of 9 percent in recent years.
However, this impressive growth rate does not seem to have trickled down to people living in rural areas. India may have become a giant in the IT and telecommunication sectors, but the fact is that two thirds of its population remain fully dependent on agriculture.
Socio-economic challenges
Christian Wagner, an expert on India at the Berlin based German Institute for International and Security Affairs sees the increasing gap between rich and poor as one of the biggest challenges for the New Delhi government:
“India has definitely made economic progress in the past 60 years. But we should also see that in India, as per the international statistics, nearly 40 per cent of the population lives on less than one dollar a day. This means that the structures for the redistribution of wealth have not developed in a way they should in a democracy.”
Sociologist Yogendra Yadav agrees. However he believes that these social problems can only be tackled so long as people’s trust in the system is maintained.
“Republic means the rule of the people. In India, this is still a dream. And it will take a long time till this dream is realised, especially in a country, where you have poverty, hunger and where many people don’t really feel close to the government. But yes, there are some achievements of the country which cannot be ignored. For instance, the constitution is respected here till today after sixty years, the democracy is alive and people, more or less, trust the system.”
Security issues
On the other hand the country is also fighting against a huge enemy: terrorism. It faces the challenge not just from Maoist rebels, who have been posing a grave internal security threat in recent years, but also from international terrorism, especially after the attacks on the financial hub of Mumbai in 2008, in which more than 160 people died.
“People are angry,” explains Defence expert Afsar Karim. “For them, there is no guarantee any more that such attacks will not happen again. The Mumbai attacks were a huge emotional and an economic setback. Though the last one year has been peaceful, all the security agencies of the world and also the Americans warn that terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba and Al Qaeda are planning new attacks on India.”
The Mumbai terror attacks have severely affected India’s relations with neighbouring Pakistan. The lone surviving gunman of the attacks Mohammad, Ajmal Kasab, comes from Pakistan and it has been proven that the attacks were planned by militants operating on Pakistani soil. The two rivals have already fought three wars since their independence over six decades ago. Two of them were over Kashmir, an issue that remains unresolved to this day.
Author: Priya Esselborn / Disha Uppal
Editor: Grahame Lucas