It has been a journey full of surprises and I am certain that more surprises, hopefully pleasant ones, will follow as we head towards 100 years of independence.
Its story began many centuries ago and continues to unfold. This is a nation to be celebrated, to be cherished because it is like no other. But the fabric which these myriad threads have woven has proved to be remarkably sturdy and resilient and a most pleasing blend of colours and textures. Each strand may have its distinctive colour and shade. Several strands may have been weak, ready to fray. Some crises have threatened to sever the threads holding this incredibly diverse nation together. There have been serious setbacks on this journey. India at 75 is a wonder, having defied frequent predictions of the demise of its democracy, the disintegration of its polity and a descent into a Malthusian dystopia of galloping population growth and diminishing food supplies.
Dreamy days in west tokyo chrome cracked#
But after the British cracked down on indigenous banking after 1858, the Lalbhais turned to cotton trading. In the 18th century, the Gujarati family expanded into banking, providing loans to local warlords seeking to control Ahmedabad. The Lalbhai heritage traces to Shantidas Jhaveri, an eminent merchant and chief jeweller to Mughal emperors Jahangir and Shah Jahan. He went on to become one of the most illustrious mill-owners of modern India. But after his father’s death in 1912, the 17-year-old was pulled out of school and summoned to run his family’s fledgling textile factory. What form of welfare will get the work done? Which policies will click better? Who is the right leader? How should a democracy itself be?īut before that, do we even agree on which are the biggest issues India faces? Read moreĪs a boy, Kasturbhai Lalbhai loved nothing more than chasing kites in the gullies of his ancestral neighbourhood Jhaveriwada in Ahmedabad’s old walled city. But on the way lies a confusing melting pot of political, social and economic beliefs that they must contend with to lead India into the future. They hope for, and actively seek, a prosperous future-and are getting confident about it. Read moreĪs independent India turns 75, its citizens are more aspirational than ever before.
From the sharp critiques of colonial economic policy, to the Industrial Conferences that were held in parallel to the annual meetings of the Indian National Congress, to the sustained campaigns for the spread of technical education, to the success in negotiating for some element of fiscal autonomy after 1919, to the setting up of the Reserve Bank of India in 1935 - Indian nationalists had invested a lot of energy in economic issues. Patel was voicing a view that was embedded in Indian nationalism from its earliest days. A newspaper report from that day tells us that after explaining why Partition was painful but necessary, and calling on the princely states to join the new Union, Patel told the audience that ‘the main task ahead was the economic regeneration of India’. Happy Independence Day!Ī few days before that momentous midnight hour in August 1947, Vallabhbhai Patel addressed a public meeting. She is young, aspirational, and unafraid of breaking the rules. This issue also includes the findings from the latest round of the YouGov-Mint-CPR survey (p6-7), which offer us a portrait of the evolving Indian. These are some of the questions the issue attempts to answer.