The Hindu Business Line : Changing India

Indians cannot change India by writing grievance letters to editorial sections. One industrialist cannot change India just because he is expanding his group’s horizons to every nook and corner of the country.

Neither can another change the rules for the country by making cell phones so cheap that people from every strata of society, from rickshawallas to BPO staff, can afford it.

Educational institutions that have produced many an able mind cannot alter the India we have, just by producing managers who know how to handle an office but not how to run a country.

The efforts of people like Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad might have been wasted when they gave the whole of their lives to see future generations breathing in a free India, and living with dignity and respect.

They did not see the India where some people have cars, plastic money and Blackberries. And some do not even have a pair of chappals to walk in the scorching heat to earn Rs 2. Is this the freedom Panditji had dreamt of for us?

We are chained to corruption, immorality, red-tapism, money, technology and junk-food. Is this the way we are planning to live the rest of our lives? Clinging to local trains for dear life, hoping to reach office in time to earn the income the indebted family desperately needs. So what does India need?

More MacDonalds at every street-corner? More MBAs? More credit cards per person? More ipods? More ATMs? More cola? Just what do we want to make India a better place to live in?

Priya Rathi e-mail