India's darkest days

Whenever I read about events in India in the late eighties and the early nineties, I am convinced that those were the worst times India has witnessed ever since we gained independence. Given the number of grave problems our country faced, it is nothing short of a miracle that not only did we survive intact, we went on to become one of the world's rising economic stars! This post is intended as a reminder of the tough times we came through - a reminder that at times we must pause to pat our backs for our collective achievements rather than just pointing fingers for whatever faults still remain.

Perhaps it all began with Indira Gandhi's assasination. She had ruled India for more than a decade with an iron hand. Her toughness was legendary, as was her talent for checkmating potential political challengers. Whatever be the goods and bads of her reign, one significant outcome of her over-arching dominance was that there was no leader capable enough to fill up the political vaccum created by her death. Consequently, the country's reins had to be handed over to Rajiv Gandhi who could at best be called a political amateur. Then followed prime ministers VP Singh and Chandrashekar who were also widely percieved to be weak-minded leaders. Such weakness and instability no doubt hampered our ability to respond to crises and emboldened India's enemies to launch attacks against us.

Another most unfortunate side-effect of Indira's assasination were the anti-Sikh riots that followed. Over the centuries, the brave Sikhs have time and again fought off invaders at India's western borders. Inspite of being a relatively small minority, they comprised a significant percentage of the Indian army. A fourth of the sixteen Param Vir Chakras awarded before '84 had been won by Sikhs. Not only as soldiers, Sikh and other Punjabi farmers contributed a handsome amount to India's GDP (Punjab was and is India's richest state). As a nation, we owe so much to the Sikhs. And instead of being grateful, we hunted them down like rabbits! Rajiv Gandhi, in his infamous words, justified the killings saying, "When a mighty tree falls, the earth around is bound to shake". Such insensitivity must have only added fuel to the fires of alienation and disenchantement that the ISI had sparked among the Sikhs. Punjab burned for years thereafter.

In 1986-87 came another tremendous blow to national security when Pakistan covertly turned nuclear. Rajiv Gandhi's advisors advised him to remind Pakistan of our conventional superiority by showcasing India's military might in an army exercise named Operation Brass Tacks. The exercise was held in Rajasthan, a few hundred kilometers from the India-Pak border, deployed 400,000 troops, was bigger than any NATO exercise ever and everything about it smacked of preparation for a future strike into Pakistan. In short, it was a mistake! Pakistan called India's bluff and isssued thinly veiled nuclear threats aimed at us. The tension reached unbearable levels and it was only after a hastily-arranged visit by General Zia-ul-Haq (purportedly for watching a cricket match!) that all-out war was averted. But the subcontinent's nuclear threshold was lowered for all time to come.

Come 1989 and two other major problems were waiting to pounce on a hapless India. Pakistan initiated the insurgency in Kashmir around that time. The first two three years of the Kashmir insurgency saw a brutal and violent campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Kashmir valley when some 600,000 Kashmiri Hindus were forced to flee from their homeland. Such was the scale of the violence in Jammu and Kashmir that President's Rule had to be imposed and the Army deployed to control the situation. The second problem was the youth protests against the Mandal Commission Report which recommended granting reservations to OBCs. Many students found their future jobs snatched away overnight and a number of them took to the streets. Some of them even undertook extreme steps like self-immolation. The youth of a nation is what drives it forward, and India's youth had lost all faith in the system and sat hopelessly dejected.

There was more to come. In 1991 India was plunged into its worst ever financial crisis. Our forex reserves fell below the critical billion dollar mark and the country was dangerously close to becoming bankrupt. While the crisis was precipitated by the rising oil prices during the Gulf War and lack of investor confidence given India's gloomy overall scenario, its roots lay in the faulty economic policies practised over the years by the previous Congress governments. (To the Congress' credit however, it later almost single-handedly lifted India out of its economic morass)

And then there was Ayodhya. Hindus and Muslims clashed in late '92 over the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Widespread riots ensued and left thousands dead. Mutual hatred between Hindus and Muslims peaked to insane levels and the country's population was hopelessly polarized along communal lines. The ISI also played its role to perfection and engineered the worst-ever terrorist attack on Indian soil - the Bombay blasts of 1993, to take revenge for the demolition of the mosque. Almost 250 people were killed within a span of hours and many more injured.

So there you have the full picture. A country caught between two potentially nation-breaking insurgencies, led by ineffective leaders, bordered by a malicious neighbor with an itchy nuclear finger, poor financial conditions, a disenchanted youth and widespread communal tension. A recipe for disaster isn't it? No sir! We overcame most of the troubles that came our way.

Today, Punjab is happily integrated with the rest of India. True, many Sikhs still bear huge suspicions - but would you fault them after what happened in '84?

Today, the situation in Kashmir is as close to normal as I ever recall. We have an elected government in place, tourism is picking up, filmmakers are returning. Even the notorious Special Operations Group which was commissioned to crush the insurgency in Kashmir has been disbanded. Though much still needs to be done to redress the wrongs committed against the Kashmiri Hindus, we can draw solace from the fact that atleast the level of violence in the state has come down markedly.

Today, the Indian economy is booming. Far from being disenchanted, our youth today are excited at the opportunities around them. People all over the world are beginning to get curious about cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad. Public statements nothwithstanding, no finance minister since Dr. Manmohan Singh has reversed the historic course of reforms Dr. Singh initiated. Our forex reserves stood at $118 billion the last time I checked. Our currency is strong. We successfully weathered the Asian meltdown of the late nineties.

In short, today, our country is stronger than it ever was in the last two decades. And we accomplished this in the face of an incessant stream of problems that mercilessly pounded India and its people. As an Indian, this makes me immensely proud. And more than that, this makes me immensely optimistic that given time, we shall overcome the seemingly insurmountable problems of today and become the greatest nation of tomorrow.

Jai Hind!