India at 60

"Where there is righteousness in the heart, there is beauty in character. Where there is beauty in the character, there is harmony at home. When there is harmony at home, there is order in the nation"

"Sixty is a confusing age.You are obviously too old to be described as young, you are well past the customary middle age, but you are not ready to knock at the Pearly Gates. It is a nebulous moment. Nevertheless, for relatively young and still fresh democracy, any number is welcome if the looking back and looking ahead involves something more than sentimentality and nostalgia.

Sometimes we forget the path to Independence in the whirl of our lives. We forget that in remote corners of this country, quiet men stood up and called for freedom and poor women made great sacrifices for us - the future generations whom they wanted to gift a different life. If looking back 60 years before, Independence reveals anything, it is how the small actions of ordinary folk shape the destiny of nations.

No other country in this world embraces extraordinary mixture of ethnic groups, the profusion of mutually incomprehensible languages, the varieties of topography and climate, the diversity of religions and cultural practices, and the range of levels of economic development that India does.The singular thing is that you can speak of it only in plural. Everything exists in countless variants. There is no "single" standard, no fixed stereotype, no "one" way. India made a strength out of this seeming weakness.

Three years ago, India saw a Roman Catholic political leader (Sonia Gandhi) making way for a Sikh (Manmohan Singh) to be sworn in athe Prime Minister of India by a Muslim (President Kalam) - in a country where 81% are Hindus.

How will we define our success as a nation?? GDP growth is a vital sign of achievement, but is only a number. Personal wealth and national wealth enables and empowers, but money is only a means. Military might impresses and protects, but ultimately it only destroys.

Creating a new nation entails pursuing all the three things above, but achieving them will only mean nothing if we cannot use them to give all our people a simple yet elusive thing - DIGNITY! It is only when job creation also leads to dignity of labour, when surplus frees us from squabbling over basics, and accomplishments are pursued for the joy of achievement, that we will truly be free"