India: A Country or a Continent?
India: A Country or a Continent?
A country is generally defined by the presence of homogenous elements like region, culture, religion, ethnicities etc. On the other hand, a continent is marked by vast size, diversities of all kinds such as regional, cultural, ethnic, religious.
India competes both as a country and as a continent. Country because of broad cultural unity and regional continuity; and, continent because of diversity of various types- cultural, regional, religious, ethnic, and economic.
There is hardly a major religion that is without its followers in India, with three religions that have their birthplace in India: Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism. This is in addition to Hinduism that is technically not a religion because of absence of a Holy Book or Prophet. However, it has almost 80 per cent of the population as its followers. Hinduism is defined as a way of life marked by a set of duties (dharma) that every faithful has to fulfill towards his family, fellowmen, society and the world. Add to this, that India is home to about a dozen races from around the world such as Dravidians, Negros, Aryans, Huns, Sakas, Abhirs, Austric, Mogoloid, Turks, and Pathans.
It may be surprising to note here that possibly before Europe had its first Christian, India already had in 56 AD with the arrival of St. Thomas on its western coast. Similarly, much before India came under Muslim rule in the 13th century, Islam had reached the western coast of Malabar in 7th century with the Arab traders. The Persians took refuse here to protect their life and faith from the Arabian invaders in the 7th century.
India of today has more than 50,000 registered newspapers in than 18 standard languages most of which are descendents of the Indo-European family of which Finnish is also a member along with Greek, modern European and north Indian languages. Add to this about 4,000 dialects spoken by 1.3 billion people divided into 7,000 castes/sub-castes that represent a system of social hierarchy unique to India in particular, and Pakistan & Bangladesh ( erstwhile parts of the undivided India till July 1947), in general. It was the time when India was bordered by the Middle-East on its western and South-East Asia on the eastern borders. On the north, it boasts of The Great Himalays and the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea surrounding the Indian peninsula on three sides. Interestingly, it is the only nation after which an ocean, i.e., Indian Ocean, is named because of its strategic location for international trade for over two thousand years. No wonder, all the European Imperial powers vied with each other to colonize India to gain control over the International trade.
Keeping all this in mind, India presents a picture of stark contrasts in every domain of life: with the size of its middle class population equal to that of the US population, India has the maximum number of people below the poverty line in the world; with the third largest pool of technical and skilled man power, it has the highest number of illiterates in the world; with the record of almost never invading a country and having the most inclusive Dharma, the country has witnessed a large of killings in the name of religion, ethnicity, regional identity, etc.; of 34 states and UT’s, the undivided state of UP ranked 8th in population ( or size?) in the UN list and , the population of some of the metros such as Delhi & Mumbai are equal to that of some nations like Australia & New Zealand; with NRIs spread all over the world, there is hardly a major country without them in the decision-making capacity—from President, Prime Minister to Corporator in local bodies, India also has the highest number of people( more than 100 million) suffering from one or the other kind of disability.
To cap it all, most of the problems that we see today have their origin traceable to the British rule. Except for the reign of Aurangzeb, all the Mughal rulers were liberal towards other faiths. In fact, the majority of Hindus had accepted the descendents of invading Muslims as part of their life and so did the latter. This is evident from the fact that a good number of Bhakti Movement leaders came from the Muslim community: Kabir, Jayasi, Raskhan, Taj. The origin of the modern Hindi is traced to Amir Khusro, a saint poet during medieval period.
The challenge before India is to develop tools of solving its current problems that are unique to its history, size, population, diversities and economic circumstances. The Indian elite till recently had been glossing this over. Over the last decade or so, India has
opened its economy to embrace liberalization and globalization and has benefited from it by way of InfoTech business and back office support operations by way of BPOs. It has also reaped the benefits of not being fully integrated with the global financial system, as is apparent from the limited effects of the economic depression that is engulfing the developed world. This proves beyond doubt that other models can just supplement the Indian model of development, not supplant it. Fore example, the models in currency in the USA, China, Singapore or Russia can just be instructive, not prescriptive for India.
On the political front, India can safely be said to be largest functioning democracy with all its limitations of caste and regional disparities. Almost all its neighbours and many other Asian and African countries that gained independence from the foreign rule about the same time as India, have had one or the other kind of dictatorship during the last six decades.
The Indian genius is at its best in acquiring and imparting education on the one hand, and, steering clear of myriad social and cultural problems on the other. Acceptance of others as one of them is in their DNA if the dominant pattern of inclusive thinking is not challenged. This has worked like a vitamin in the education sector as well. Here the students with arts background have excelled in IT.
The other important factor is absence of adequate opportunities in the public institutions. There the competition being tough, many able and desirous students can’t get admissions. It is here that the private universities have to play a very important role. In the recent years the number of universities in the private sector has shot up. This has reduced the burden of the public sector institutions in a big way. Here the major challenge is to balance the private profit with public interest without compromising on quality parameters. Indian business culture, particularly in education, is yet to pick up the best practices. It may be hoped that pressures of liberalization and globalization will act like correcting agents in this field as well.
However, what is to be kept in mind is that India’s opportunities and problems both are continental in nature because of its size (geography& population, ) , location, links with the rest of the world for over 25 hundred years, presence of PIOs & NRIs in over 80 countries, diversities of all kinds; and a very amenable and intelligent working force. But this is not enough. The Indian character of inclusiveness and the spirit of rising above the things that are only material pervade every aspect of its life. (Inspired by a talk with Col.(R) V K Gaur, Executive Director, MREI)
A country is generally defined by the presence of homogenous elements like region, culture, religion, ethnicities etc. On the other hand, a continent is marked by vast size, diversities of all kinds such as regional, cultural, ethnic, religious.
India competes both as a country and as a continent. Country because of broad cultural unity and regional continuity; and, continent because of diversity of various types- cultural, regional, religious, ethnic, and economic.
There is hardly a major religion that is without its followers in India, with three religions that have their birthplace in India: Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism. This is in addition to Hinduism that is technically not a religion because of absence of a Holy Book or Prophet. However, it has almost 80 per cent of the population as its followers. Hinduism is defined as a way of life marked by a set of duties (dharma) that every faithful has to fulfill towards his family, fellowmen, society and the world. Add to this, that India is home to about a dozen races from around the world such as Dravidians, Negros, Aryans, Huns, Sakas, Abhirs, Austric, Mogoloid, Turks, and Pathans.
It may be surprising to note here that possibly before Europe had its first Christian, India already had in 56 AD with the arrival of St. Thomas on its western coast. Similarly, much before India came under Muslim rule in the 13th century, Islam had reached the western coast of Malabar in 7th century with the Arab traders. The Persians took refuse here to protect their life and faith from the Arabian invaders in the 7th century.
India of today has more than 50,000 registered newspapers in than 18 standard languages most of which are descendents of the Indo-European family of which Finnish is also a member along with Greek, modern European and north Indian languages. Add to this about 4,000 dialects spoken by 1.3 billion people divided into 7,000 castes/sub-castes that represent a system of social hierarchy unique to India in particular, and Pakistan & Bangladesh ( erstwhile parts of the undivided India till July 1947), in general. It was the time when India was bordered by the Middle-East on its western and South-East Asia on the eastern borders. On the north, it boasts of The Great Himalays and the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea surrounding the Indian peninsula on three sides. Interestingly, it is the only nation after which an ocean, i.e., Indian Ocean, is named because of its strategic location for international trade for over two thousand years. No wonder, all the European Imperial powers vied with each other to colonize India to gain control over the International trade.
Keeping all this in mind, India presents a picture of stark contrasts in every domain of life: with the size of its middle class population equal to that of the US population, India has the maximum number of people below the poverty line in the world; with the third largest pool of technical and skilled man power, it has the highest number of illiterates in the world; with the record of almost never invading a country and having the most inclusive Dharma, the country has witnessed a large of killings in the name of religion, ethnicity, regional identity, etc.; of 34 states and UT’s, the undivided state of UP ranked 8th in population ( or size?) in the UN list and , the population of some of the metros such as Delhi & Mumbai are equal to that of some nations like Australia & New Zealand; with NRIs spread all over the world, there is hardly a major country without them in the decision-making capacity—from President, Prime Minister to Corporator in local bodies, India also has the highest number of people( more than 100 million) suffering from one or the other kind of disability.
To cap it all, most of the problems that we see today have their origin traceable to the British rule. Except for the reign of Aurangzeb, all the Mughal rulers were liberal towards other faiths. In fact, the majority of Hindus had accepted the descendents of invading Muslims as part of their life and so did the latter. This is evident from the fact that a good number of Bhakti Movement leaders came from the Muslim community: Kabir, Jayasi, Raskhan, Taj. The origin of the modern Hindi is traced to Amir Khusro, a saint poet during medieval period.
The challenge before India is to develop tools of solving its current problems that are unique to its history, size, population, diversities and economic circumstances. The Indian elite till recently had been glossing this over. Over the last decade or so, India has
opened its economy to embrace liberalization and globalization and has benefited from it by way of InfoTech business and back office support operations by way of BPOs. It has also reaped the benefits of not being fully integrated with the global financial system, as is apparent from the limited effects of the economic depression that is engulfing the developed world. This proves beyond doubt that other models can just supplement the Indian model of development, not supplant it. Fore example, the models in currency in the USA, China, Singapore or Russia can just be instructive, not prescriptive for India.
On the political front, India can safely be said to be largest functioning democracy with all its limitations of caste and regional disparities. Almost all its neighbours and many other Asian and African countries that gained independence from the foreign rule about the same time as India, have had one or the other kind of dictatorship during the last six decades.
The Indian genius is at its best in acquiring and imparting education on the one hand, and, steering clear of myriad social and cultural problems on the other. Acceptance of others as one of them is in their DNA if the dominant pattern of inclusive thinking is not challenged. This has worked like a vitamin in the education sector as well. Here the students with arts background have excelled in IT.
The other important factor is absence of adequate opportunities in the public institutions. There the competition being tough, many able and desirous students can’t get admissions. It is here that the private universities have to play a very important role. In the recent years the number of universities in the private sector has shot up. This has reduced the burden of the public sector institutions in a big way. Here the major challenge is to balance the private profit with public interest without compromising on quality parameters. Indian business culture, particularly in education, is yet to pick up the best practices. It may be hoped that pressures of liberalization and globalization will act like correcting agents in this field as well.
However, what is to be kept in mind is that India’s opportunities and problems both are continental in nature because of its size (geography& population, ) , location, links with the rest of the world for over 25 hundred years, presence of PIOs & NRIs in over 80 countries, diversities of all kinds; and a very amenable and intelligent working force. But this is not enough. The Indian character of inclusiveness and the spirit of rising above the things that are only material pervade every aspect of its life. (Inspired by a talk with Col.(R) V K Gaur, Executive Director, MREI)
posted by U&Me | 10:28 AM
2 Comments:
A very informative write-up done so in a very eye-catching manner.. I would especially like to lay emphasis on one line that you wrote, "others models can only supplement the Indian model of development, and not supplant it; they can be 'instructive' and not 'prescriptive'" I could not agree more with you here Sir, and I truly believe that this and this alone is the biggest weakness of India and its constitution; I think that a constitution should be made not on the basis of the success of another in another country but on the NEEDS of its own country!
Having half of U.S.A and half of U.K. and nothing of itself has made a big mess out of Indian Constitution.
However in reference to the title of the article I would like to point out that the difference in a Continent and a Country lies not just in the the religious and ethnic diversity but mainly on the GEOGRAPHIC POSITIONING OF THE LAND. Take for example Australia which despite being a country, is also a Continent owing to its large size and it being surrounded by oceans on all sides of the country. Whereas India, despite being decently massive is surrounded by water on only two of its 4 sides and thus gets the status of a country. The same is with China and all other countries. IT may be noted that all the continents irrespective of their size are termed as Continents only as the majority portion of their borders touches some kind of water body.
Kindly OMIT the grammatical mistakes in my comment above. I realized them only after I posted them and could not edit them then.
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