Amitabh Sharma, Features Coordinator

Sixty years ago, on this day, the subcontinent saw the birth of independent India, ending over two and a half centuries of the 'Raj' or the rule of the British Empire. The English left a land mass scarred, carving two nations, India and Pakistan, the walls of religion dividing them.

Crawling out of the birth pangs and plagued by numerous problems left behind by the British, India began its journey, led by the 'founding fathers' of the nation. Sixty years on, Indians have done well.

The country has since transformed from a socialist state-run model to the fastest-growing economy in the world. The Indian 'elephant' is certainly rocking.

Patriotism among Indians is soaring with 89 per cent of the respondents wishing to be reborn as an Indian if they were given a choice, according to The Nielsen Company online survey.

The respondents felt that there was improvement in business and commerce, science and technology and education. But while India is perceived to have made progress as a country, Indians feel that it is not translating into better quality of life with only 15 per cent feeling their quality of life has improved.

Areas in need of progress

India's progress is balanced out by the areas which need to progress in order for overall development of the country. Among the list of 'least progressed' fields over the past decades of independence, politics makes it to the top. While 82 per cent of respondents feel that corruption needs to be eradicated to improve politics, and about half feel that uneducated politicians are the main reason for the dismal condition of Indian politics.

Poverty eradication is the most important step to drive India's development in the future according to 65 per cent of the Indians surveyed.

"India needs to remove the poverty of 220 million people if it has to be a developed country by 2020," wrote APJ Abdul Kalam, former president of India and one of the nation's most respected scientists.

Globalisation is a much-debated topic for many developing countries. Sixty-three per cent of the respondents to the Neilson survey are of the opinion that globalisation has been beneficial.

"All the talk of attaining 'economic superpower' status may be premature and pompous but it is a boost to the country's self-confidence and self-esteem," observes Vinod Mehta, editor-in-chief of English weekly Outlook in his column.

"The middle-class native can roam the world head held up high," Mehta adds, "even though it may still be necessary to line up like the shivering boat people at international airports."

But Mehta reminds that self-congratulation needs a dose of realism; In India 75 per cent of 1.1 billion citizens live on less than $2 a day, out of which 30 per cent live on less than $1 a day.

Fifty per cent of India's children get no school education; 25 per cent of victims of commercial sexual exploitation are below 18; 1.2 million children under the age of five die of malnutrition every year.

But though all this paints a dismal picture for a country as diverse and complex as India, its achievements cannot be ignored. According to Mehta, optimism is justified, the deniers are few and far between.

amitabh.sharma@gleanerjm.com