Most humans are blessed to live till 85. However, for nations, 85 is adolescence but then again India is different. Civilisationally, India is ancient, but as a vibrant democracy, India as we know it today, the Republic, is still a baby.
Where do I see India 15 years hence? Well for starters, we will have more people who will be prosperous and less people who will need to fend for food and water. Our population will surge but then so will mortality rates fall. We will be a nation that will continue to hum the verses of our religious texts whilst embracing nano-technologies with adeptness. But what will be certain is we will be far more agile, less judgmental and even less divisive because the economy is what will drive us since it will be the key engine of our growth.
I see education as customised as clothes are today. And at the same time, formal education will slowly give way to the informed informal type. I believe we will be an India, which will migrate from respecting academic degrees to rewarding intrinsic talent. From a nation gasping for sporting glory, we will also see a methodical rise in our sporting talent because parents will become less stereotypical: they will not judge what you do but instead who you are and emotional satisfaction will replace monetary acquisitions.
Our matrimonial advertisements will be sprinkled with people wanting to give their wards’ hands to a liberal arts practitioner rather than a babu or for that matter an MBA.
Fifteen years hence we will have given birth to a plethora of Zuckerbergs: we will swiftly move from the shop of the world to the laboratory of the world. We will replace our zeal for productivity with the desire for ideas and their supremacy in society. In many ways, this nation of shopkeepers will transform into a nation of entrepreneurs who will do business very differently: on the back of values and ethics.
I see us becoming a more inclusive and compassionate society. We will go back to the days that Manu described in Manusmriti when he said that ‘daan’ (charity) should be the kernel of an evolving and respectful society.
But then again, 15 years is too little to change many other things: I don’t believe we will totally eliminate greed and corruption from public life until we rid ourselves of brazen inequality and an impoverishment of opportunities for the less privileged. I don’t think MTV will ever become a channel of English music. Even young people will romance to the gyrations of an older Shahrukh (who would be 66 by then) and to the tunes of Naushad and the songs of Rafi.
Prime Ministers will still make (empty) promises from the ramparts of the Red Fort every August 15 and we will never give up the quintessential desire for our local staple of food. We will continue to look at our politicians with disdain.
But in many ways, the core idea of India will remain unchanged. The lyrics of our national anthem and national song will continue to elicit an unwavering tug at our heart-strings; parental respect will continue to exist as it does today and the Indian family will be seen as family rather than a bunch of consumers.
We will remain the land of charmers without the attendant snakes and the land that believes in an after-life only so that this one is lived with care and compassion.
India@85 will be a nation fraught with paradoxes and in that sense very little will change.
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