Journey of India to Development At the time of independence, India was struggling in economic, social and political conditions.

India had to develop itself in all fronts to give its citizen a respectful life in all the parameters. Founding fathers of our nation envisaged a future for India for development. Even to some extent they might have thought a target (time frame) for achieving that. In all the respect time frame would not have been more than 50 years. If they were able to see our current progress, they would definitely astoundingly aghast. After almost 70 years of independence, can we say that we are on the path which our founding father might have decided for us to follow? Can we give ourselves any timeline with confidence, in which we can achieve developed status? When we try to give answers to these basic questions, naturally answers for all queries revolve in our mind with big NO. Let us analyze what went wrong with effort in achieving Tryst with Destiny. At the time of independence, India was having many problems social unrest, political instability, wide spread illiteracy, poverty, hunger. To remove all these problems, future plan had to be thought out and path had to set. Our nations founding fathers (Leaders) were very capable, intellectual, and familiar with Indian conditions that they set the right path by taking some of the steps to laid the foundation to remove all the problems:(1) Writing Constitution of India, (2) creating planning commission, (3) accepting mix economic model with capitalism and socialism elements, (4) following non alignment foreign policy. Our Constitution, in the world, is more detailed and well researched, and has good features of other countries Constitutions with modification according to Indian conditions. Indian Constitution had to tackle many problems of India such as caste discrimination, religious discrimination, cultural differences, and gender discrimination. It is able to provide government system for India in which Indians were well versed. It is able to accommodate different cultures as it is having federal structure for government. It also targeted to remove social division of India by prohibiting discrimination on the ground of caste, gender, religion and status, so that society can progress as a whole by developing each individual economically and socially. Planning commission was able to give direction to India for setting its priorities in proper order to meet its economic growth according to countrys resources and its capacity. To achieve proper and efficient use of resources better planning and targets have to be set. Without proper planning, it is not easy to execute big task. In this background it can be said that task of deciding resource utilization of a big country, prioritization of project according to need and condition of country are important to achieve through directed and planned development. Without planning nobody can analyze whether he is moving in right direction, and he cannot think beyond the current time frame. So, it can be said that it was indeed wise move to set planning commission to get rapid and proper growth path.

In accepting mix economic model, India followed its own and suitable economic policy according to its condition, which can give it a fast growth. If, suppose India could have chosen Capitalist economic model that time there would be very minimum control of the state on the resources. Indian society was really divided and most of the citizens were poor and discrimination was prevalent on the basis of caste and religion, then in this conditions growth and advantage of the economic development easily go to the well of society people. People at lower end, which constituted bulk part, would have been put in dark for coming period in the future. If India would have chosen complete social model of economic it is very difficult to say with firmness whether that would be good or bad. But seeing many examples in the world now and analyzing Indian condition at the time of independence when state was having very less resource, it can be inferred that (following socialist economic model) would not have been good option. We have seen in the world many examples where socialist model get failed. In context of Indian condition that time, there were chances of rebellion behavior as state had to take hard steps to implement social model. People who had to lose the control on resources might have indulged in activities against the state and it could have created instability. So, we can say it was a wise decision to choose mix economic model, where state control some of the important resource and private control also had been accommodated to fulfill individual goals which can help directly in progress of county as whole, keeping in mind of India condition that time to achieve fast growth utilizing resources from state as well as individual. By following Non alignment policy, India was able to exert its influence and able to take its sovereign decision without any influence towards its benefit. India did not align itself with one group or other on predefined conditions but was able to make friends according to its need and progress of the economy and strategic conditions. It seems that foreign policy does not directly help in economic progress but if we analyze deeply, can see that to have good growth in economy in long term, state should able to infuse the feeling in its citizen about it independent status and at the same time nation can decide in future anything against any option if it does not suit to its economic and strategic interest. Even after having these positive conditions, India is not able to achieve the status which our country founding fathers thought. They would be ashamed of Indias progress with current status, if they were to see it now. India should have achieved complete development till now. But still India has been put at the bottom in the list of world countries on the certain parameters which are indicator for development such as: - per capita income, health index, infrastructure, etc. Reasons of this dismal performance of India on development front can be attributed to many factors which can be divided broadly as (1) Primary factors such as policy of political

parties, and not following sprit of Constitution; (2) Secondary factors such as corruption, system failure, un education, unemployment, social unrest, public disorder. To gain power, political parties, instead of educating people for their growth and development, started dividing people on the basis of ideological, religious, caste, language and region. In this way, people have been misguided by parties and when these parties came to power they just bother about vote politics. These parties do not care about the development as a whole of India and they get involve in degraded politics to win confidence of people. Indian society still remained a stratified and divided society based on caste, religion, gender, language - despite of being prohibited in the Constitution of India. In other words, people did not accept sprit of the Constitution. It can be said that one of the main reasons - for not accepting the constitution, could be less education but still many educated people did not follow our Constitution in its sprit. Because of caste prejudice, people are not able to support the holistic development of the country and even at some extent against the development of lower caste people which constitute the 20 25 % of the population of India. If that much of population remains poor and undeveloped then it is not possible for society as a whole to progress and hence it will be a hindrance to development. Because of gender prejudice, people are not encouraging education and employment for women. Women constitute 50% of the population. If 50% of the population of a country remains at lower level in employment and education, then it will not be able to contribute towards the economic and social progress of the nation. Primary factors, political parties policy and people mind set, lead to secondary factors. Corruption, one of the biggest issues, is responsible for not achieving any improvement on economic front, public service and people social status. Services for poor people, to empower, do not reach them because of corruption in system and middle man. People are frustrated with public service which is not provided without giving bribe or without any contact in the system. Political parties in power do not bother about reform in system because they have vested interest and equal beneficiaries in corrupted practices. For example, by not implementing police reform, police mentality remains of colonial era. Common man, despite of being getting independence 65 years back, sees and feels police with same attitude as it was before independence. In this way common man in this county are being treated as outsider or third class people by police and it causes a feeling of alien-ness among people. People are not able to connect themselves with the country, hence are not able to utilize their capability with maximum effort to achieve progress of theirs as well as of country. Law and order situation is being handled according to vested interest of political parties. Bad condition of law and order, people do not feel safe in the state and this feeling continue to grow

and become reason of many more law and order problems such as naxalisim, riots. This hinders progress of people. They indulge in fight against state creating more law and order problems. In this way, instead of thinking towards development, people are fighting in the same way as we fought against foreign power before independent. So, it can be infer that India can achieve its destiny by removing primary and secondary factors which are hindering growth of nation. In other words, people of India have to change their mindset by accepting Constitution in sprit. When every Indian will practice values of Constitution, there would be a harmony and brother hood among the citizens. People will be able to select the political party according to values of Constitution. They will reject the parties which spread/follow ideology against the Constitution. In this way political parties will bring changes in their ideology and way of functioning in government when selected. As Primary factors for bad effects lead to secondary factors. Similarly when primary factor will be removed and corrected then it will lead to removal of secondary factors. When parties, with proper ideology aligned with Constitution and nationalism, come to power, they will work in removing all the ills in the system and bring reform in the system (police reform, good governance etc.).When corruption will be removed and system will be reformed, people will be happy and identify themselves with nation. Then, people will able to work towards their growth with full potential, in improved and better environment. Poor people will be properly empowered by corruption free system and later on those empowered poor people will be able to earn their livelihood. Later on, they will be in position to contribute towards national growth. When poor people will be empowered, state would be able to allocate the fund, which it used to allocate for the poor people help, infrastructure development, industry investment, health facility etc thereby creating more opportunity and accelerated growth. When girls are being treated in par with boys, they will get good education and employment. In this way they would be able to contribute in equal terms in the nation building. In this background, it can be said by following suggested remedies along with some other things, India can achieve progress in every front of development be it in per capita income, health, employment, Gender equality, education. In this way, the day will not be far when India will be counted in the developed county list.

Name Anil Kumar Singh References Not used any direct reference as such