We may be proud of our glorious past and our glorious future. But we aren’t yet proud of the present, because being proud of the present is tantamount to being proud of the system. We think we are what we are, in spite of the system. We owe nothing to the system. If we have done well, and are relatively rich, we have learnt to manipulate the system, because the system has become malleable. In 2004, President Abdul Kalam delivered a speech reminiscent of John Kennedy. “You say that our government is inefficient. You say that our laws are too old. You say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage. You say that the phones don’t work, the railways are a joke, the airline is the worst in the world, mail never reaches its destination. You say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits. You say, say and say. What do you do about it?” That’s rhetorical, because the answer is — nothing at all. Economic growth alone won’t change matters and make us proud of India. How and when did this decline occur? There is always the danger of falling prey to the GOD (good old days) syndrome. But one suspects that deterioration wasn’t marked till the early 1960s.

The assault on the main organs of state for political ends began in the second half of the 1960s and became even more acute in the 1970s, with these effects gradually spreading everywhere. We didn’t protest collectively then and we don’t know how to reverse the trend now. President Thomas Whitmore said in 1996 — that’s a movie president, in case you are wondering, from a Hollywood blockbuster of that year — “Today we celebrate our Independence Day.” Is that what we really do? Or will pride in India go quietly into the night?

... contd.