INDIA : AN INTRODUCTION

1.

India's Struggle for Independence

2.

The Land and the People

3.

The Economy : Industry and Agriculture

4.

Education, Science & Technology, and Health

5.

Democracy in Action : Watchdog Institutions in Indian Society

6.

The Arts in India : Faces and Voices

7.

A Land for All Seasons

INDIA'S STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE The common perception is that India's quest for independence began only in the first quarter of the 20 century, when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, soon revered as the Mahatma (Great Soul), returned to India from South Africa and assumed the leadership of the Indian National Congress. Mahatma Gandhi, one of the most remarkable and charismatic leader of the 20th century and indeed of history, was undoubtedly the catalyst for the full mobilisation of the Indian masses into an invincible force for freedom. He had won his political spurs organising the Indian community in South Africa against the vicious apartheid system, using the novel techniques of ahimsa (non-violence) and satyagraha (literally, truth force; in practice, moral domination through non-violent resistance to unjust laws). Being heir to the ancient Indian traditions of Gautama Buddha, Mahavira Jain and the Emperor Ashoka, he practised and preached a total moral philosophy of tolerance, the brotherhood of all religions, ahimsa, and simple living. Here was a man of whom Albert Einstein once said "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked this earth". His technique of satyagraha and his moral philosophy were to make the successful Indian independence movement a model for many other struggles for freedom and justice the world over, including the antiapartheid movement in South Africa under great leaders like Albert Luthuli and Nelson Mandela, and the civil rights movement in the United States under Dr. Martin Luther King. th

But the yearning of the people of India for freedom from foreign rule had gathered strength much earlier. As far back as 1857, a century of accumulated grievances erupted in what is now called the First Indian War of Independence (earlier referred to as the sepoy Mutiny). The princely rulers, the landed aristocracy and the peasantry rallied against the British and around the person of the last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah (the Mughal empire had lasted from the early 16th century, ruling most of India from the capital in Agra and, later, Delhi). The uprising was, however, eventually brutally suppressed. During the decades that followed, Indian thinkers and social reformers such as Raja Rammohan Roy, Bankimchandra Chatterjee and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar took over the leadership of the freedom movement. In 1885, this phase crystallised with the formation of the Indian National Congress of which the first President, interestingly, was an Englishman, Allan Octavian Hume. By the turn of the century, the freedom movement had reached out to the common, unsophisticated Indian through the launching of the Swadeshi (indigenous) movement. It had leaders like the fiery Bal Gangadhar Tilak, also known as the Lokmanya (revered by the people), who declared "Swaraj (self rule) is my birthright and I will have it", and the mystic philosopher and, initially, revolutionary Aurobindo Ghose. But it was when Gandhi appeared on the scene that these different strands were drawn together into a strong, coherent strategy, and the country was galvanised by the almost miraculous power of this frail little man to, as an American admirer put it, "draw millions into a circle with him". Under Gandhi's leadership, the Congress launched a series of mass movements - the Non Cooperation Movement of 1912-22, and the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930. The latter was triggered by the famous Salt March, when he captured the imagination of the nation by leading a band of followers from his Ashram at Sabarmati on a 200 mile trek to the remote village of Dandi on the west coast, there to prepare salt from the sea in symbolic violation of the British Salt Law. These were genuine mass movements, in which Indians from all classes and from all parts of the country participated with great fervour. The women too, drawn by Gandhi's moral stature, left the cloistered security of traditional Indian homes and plunged into the vortex of the struggle. They marched in the streets, staged peaceful demonstrations, got beaten up, often severely, by the police, and went to jail in great numbers. There were many famous women - the poetess Sarojini Naidu, Aruna Asaf Ali, and Bhikaji Cama who fought India's campaign for independence even in foreign countries, to name but a few. But there were many nameless heroines, including a grandmother and three grand daughters who were all in jail together. The struggle reached a climax with the Quit India Movement, launched at the Bombay Session of the Indian National Congress in August 1942. World War II was raging, and while Gandhi and the Indian leaders abhorred Nazi tyranny, they were insistent that only a free India could devote all its

energies to and focus all its will on fighting it successfully. They thus called on the British to quit India and give it its freedom. The British of course saw things differently. There were mass arrests and brutal repression against non-violent satyagrahis. But it soon became evident that the British could maintain their Indian empire, the jewel in the crown, only at enormous cost. By the end of World War II, they saw the writing on the wall and initiated a number of constitutional moves to transfer power to the sovereign State of India. For the first and perhaps the only time in history, the power of a mighty global empire "on which the sun never set" had been challenged and overcome by the moral might of a people armed only with ideals and courage. India became independent at midnight on August 14-15, 1947. The first Prime Minister of independent India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, voiced the sentiments of millions of his countrymen and women when he said in his famous speech on this occasion "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we will redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance…We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again." The progress and triumph of the Indian freedom movement was one of the most significant historical processes of the 20th century. Its repercussions extended far beyond its immediate political consequences. Within India, it initiated the reordering of political, social and economic power. In the international context, it initiated the world wide anti-colonial struggle that was soon to change the political face of the globe. Throughout history, India has absorbed the best elements from all the civilisations with which it has come into contact, and modified them to suit its needs. Independent India once again demonstrated the maturity and wisdom of its ancient traditions, and the truth of its claim that it was opposed, not to the people or the civilisation of Britain and the West, but only to British imperial domination. It chose to remain within the Commonwealth, adopted the British system of parliamentary democracy, and retained the judicial, administrative, defence and educational institutions set up by the British. Finally, when India adopted its own Constitution on January 26, 1950 and became a Republic, "We, the people of India" pledged to secure to all its citizens "Justice, social, economic and political; Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; Equality of status and opportunity; and to promote among them all Fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation." Nobler words were rarely spoken, and they truly reflected the spirit of India's struggle for independence and the ethos of its ancient civilisation.

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THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE India, they say, is not just a country, it is a state of mind. From the mesmerising snowclad Himayalan heights to be confluence of three seas at the southern tip at Kanyakumari, there are “no full stops in India”, as a celebrated journalist wrote recently. Enormous though its territory is – 3,200 kilometres from north to south and 2,900 from east to west, with a land frontier of more than 15,000 kilometres and over 7,500 kilometres of coastline, making it bigger than the whole of Europe without Russia – the enduring allure of India is something that mere physicality cannot encompass. India is something like magic, more than mystery, but always paradoxical, always enthralling, always on the move. It showcases a mindblowing welter of synergies, a fascinating synthesis of contrasts, proving the continued relevance of ancient systems in a contemporary context. Poised to take off into the next century, the country exults in its rich heritage while simultaneously fine tuning itself for the fresh challengers of the new millennium. The heart of India is inextricably linked to her ancient soil. For the Indian mind, the benediction of the land permeates the very fabric of everyday life. The influence of the habitat over lifestyle is seen in varied ways – from dress and customs to art and crafts. The country has been blessed with sunlight and waters, bringing fertility and abundance. The mighty Himalayas in the north, the loftiest mountains on earth, act as barriers to the sharp, chilly Central Asian winds, and also hold in the life-giving monsoons. The deserts of Rajasthan in the west produce extremes of temperatures, but even these stark areas have been brought to life and colour by the creativity of Indian culture. At the other end of the spectrum, the rain forests of Arunachal Pradesh shelter a fascinating variety of wildlife, the alpine meadows of Kashmir fringe the tranquil Dal Lake, there are richly forest-clad tropical islands in the Andaman & Nicobar archipelago and, in the sparkling coastal waterways of Kerala, dancing dolphins skim the surf. Mighty rivers – the Ganges, the Indus and the Brahmaputra – rush down from the Himalayas, and great civilisations have sprung up on their banks over several thousand years. Other empires have been watered by the many other rivers that cascade more gently through the south of the country. The thrill of the monsoon in India has inspired poets for centuries; it brings new life to the land after the searing heat of summer and also, alas, floods of despair. The Indian people are a mixture of races that have intermingled for millennia. It is not possible now to identify them by racial stock, even when they follow different faiths or speak different languages, or indeed “look different”. Many of the great religions of the world originated in India, and others found a ready home here, for one of the core values of Indian civilisation is not merely tolerance but acceptance. While 80% of Indians are Hindus, there are more Muslims in India today (15 %) than in any other country except Indonesia. Heterogenous tribes with different histories and cultures live in all regions of the country. The blood and genes of the Indian of today include the racial inheritance of all these peoples, beginning with the inhabitants of the Indus valley, who had a grand, urban civilisation 6,000 years ago, 2,000 years before the arrival of the Aryans in India. While the Indus valley and the Aryan age were full scale civilisations, with the former pre-dating any comparable system in world history, cave paintings in India provide evidence of pre-historic man going back many more thousand years. Over the millennia, Indian contributions to art, science and thought, documented by scholars worldwide as being monumental, were accompanied by evolution in the forms of governance. The democratic tradition in India has been traced back to 600 B.C. Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism hold all creation as sacred, reflecting a belief in the inter-dependence of all life forms. Nature, in the Hindu mind, is the embodiment of the

Godhead in all its different manifestations, and the conservation of plant and animal life is universally acknowledged to have originated in India, being one of the key tenets of Indian life and philosophy. Today, major government campaigns like Project Tiger and Project Elephant are aimed at protecting the country’s wildlife from poachers and preserving the gene pool of these splendid animals. Modern India has 15 principal, finely developed languages, some of them highly nuanced and many with roots back to antiquity, besides hundreds of spoken dialects. Many of these, including Hindi, the national language, have strong links with Sanskrit, the language of the Aryan tribes who invaded India about 4,000 years ago. In the south, there are four distinct languages, of which Tamil, with roots going back even further than Sanskrit, has a rich classical heritage. Several north Indian languages have also been influenced by Persian. The is in line with the cardinal principle of life in India for thousands of years, synthesis and “live and let live”, respecting each other’s customs and mores and often being influenced by them. As India moves forward in the new millennium, what is it that her people seek ? India’s vision for the future was perhaps best expressed by one of her greatest sons, the poet and visionary Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Prize winner for literature, who put it thus: “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; ……. Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; ……. Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”

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THE ECONOMY : INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE The IMF and the World Bank rate the Indian economy as the 4th largest in the world, with a GDP of over US$ 1 trillion in PPP (purchasing power parity) terms, behind only the US, Japan and China. The Goldman Sachs Report of 1 October, 2003 “Dreaming with BRICs: The path to 2050” predicts that India’s GDP will reach $ 1 trillion by 2011, and $ 27 trillion by 2050, making it the third largest economy in the world after USA and China. The Indian economy has thus come a long way since 1947, when it was entirely colonial in nature, with barely 1300 mw of power. Though agriculture supplied practically all the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 3 million died in the crippling Great Bengal Famine of 1943. The Indian economy today is much more diversified, with 25% of the GDP coming from industry and another more than 45% from services; the share of agriculture has dropped from nearly 90% in 1947 to around 30% now. However, India is still, as it always was, a largely agricultural country, with nearly 60% of population working on the land. The rulers of ancient and medieval India were actively involved in large-scale efforts to increase agricultural production, and built a huge network of canals across the country meant to make Indian agriculture less dependent on the monsoons. After independence, the new Government too, predictably, focussed first on agriculture. The Green Revolution of 1960s and 70s provided better seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, farm equipment and so on, and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and a network of agricultural universities provided the necessary S & T input. The wide dissemination of this knowledge to the farming community through a solid grassroots agricultural extension system, plus improved rural transport, credit facilities and support prices, foodgrain production has gone up 4 times to 200 million tonnes (wheat production is 10 times the 1947 figure) and acute food shortages are a distant nightmare. India is now not only self-sufficient in foodgrains - though the population has gone up three times since 1947 to a billion - but is also a foodgrain exporter, though in a modest way. In 1996, she overtook the United States as the world's leading milk producer with 70 million tonnes of milk, up from barely 21 million tonnes at independence. This is largely thanks to an extremely successful dairying cooperative movement, especially in the west Indian state of Gujarat involving 8.1 million farm families, being duplicated elsewhere in the country. It is thus no wonder that Time carried, some time back, an article about Indian agriculture entitled "Problems of Plenty", referring to the 26 million tonnes of foodgrain reserves, insurance against bad years, that were creating problems of storage ! Indian agriculture is now reaching out beyond self-sufficiency in food to horticulture, agricultural cash crops, and agro-processing. Private sector investment in agriculture is rapidly increasing, especially in the export of processed food products. In fact, the well known US consultancy firm, McKinsey, predicted as early as 1997 that the Indian food processing industry would reach US$ 140 billion by 2005 AD, double the present level, making India the top global producer in this sector. Agricultural income in India is completely tax free, something that has boosted investment in agriculture as a tax shelter. Till a few years back, Indian industry, though highly advanced in many sectors, was sheltered by protective tariff and non-tariff barriers. This was necessary for a good part of time since 1947, for without it India would have ended as a largely CKD (completely knocked down) assembly economy, with little indigenous manufacturing capability. Before 1947 even safety pins were imported, but today there is nothing that India does not or cannot make indigenously. In the industrial sector, which is state-of-the-art in many areas such as software, India produces everything from equipment for the second largest rail network in the world (107,839 track kilometres), road vehicles of all kinds, ships including frigates and third generation machine tools to the full range of drugs and pharmaceuticals, turn-key plants for textiles, chemicals, fertilizers and all kinds of consumer goods, electronics and sophisticated computer hardware and software. From barely 1300 mw in 1947, India today has nearly 87,000 mw of installed power capacity, and the ability to manufacture a full range of power generation and transmission equipment. Indian industrial majors work in dozens of countries across the world executing major projects in these and other sectors.

After 1991, India has been undergoing striking and wide-ranging economic reforms that have eliminated most of the earlier constraints and opened up the economy to foreign investment and technical cooperation. The aim was to make the Indian economy not merely more efficient but also globally competitive, to fit in with the current international economic trends in the post Cold War period. These reforms, based on a political consensus that is, in turn, rooted in a public consensus that has transcended changes of Government, are continuing apace. They have also been distinctly successful. India has, thanks to the reforms and to careful management of borrowings, succeeded so far in avoiding the economic crisis that has devastated so many of its neighbours, especially in South East and East Asia. India's GDP growth rate has been 6-7% through most of the 1990s, up from a low of 1.2% in 1991, and the projected rate of growth for 2003-2004 is 7%. This has been achieved while curbing inflation, which has been kept at 5% or less, and avoiding the dangerous social disruptions that could have been triggered by mass lay-offs in the interests of maximum profitability. India's foreign exchange reserves, that plummeted to less than 2 weeks coverage or barely US$ 1 billion in 1990, have now reached US$ 103 billion (January 2004). Sharply stepped up expenditure on rural development and special programmes for the poor and for women and children have cushioned the most vulnerable sections of the population from the impact of the free market reforms. Apart from the high-tech sector and heavy and large industry, India also has a flourishing small and medium industry sector which perhaps contributes more to employment and industrial exports than heavy industry. Some of these units are in the unrecognised sector, including cottage industries rooted in the rich handicraft traditions of the country, with their products being sold through Government intermediaries to ensure that the families or individual worker get a fair deal. Others are in the very sophisticated sector, including customised software and small machine tool units. Till about 10 years ago, the public sector was extensive, controlling not only the core areas such as iron and steel, coal, oil etc. but also consumer goods and the services. But deregulation and liberalisation, and the consequent flow of foreign investment into India have shifted the balance away from the public to the private sector. This, without question, is the trend of the future in India. No account of Indian industry, however brief, would be complete without a mention of IT, and computer software. This is one of its star sectors, with over 60% per year growth rate for the past several years. Today, over 60% of Indian software exports, of around US$ 10 billion a year, go to the most demanding market in the world, that of the United States, and a further 23% to the European Union. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, visiting India in 1997 and again in 2000 and in 2002, declared that as a software country and an investment destination for Microsoft, he rated India ahead of China. It is no wonder that Microsoft's second software development centre, the first outside Seattle on the Pacific coast of the US, has been set up in Hyderabad in South India. IBM already had a global software research centre in Bangalore, India's software capital in the south-west, which will design the next generation of "killer applications" for the 21st century. Indian firms provide off-shore and on-site software for over 130 of the Fortune 500 companies in the US. And Indian computer engineers and software specialists, numbering over 1.4 million, are rated among the best in the world. They are in fact assiduously sought by countries ranging from the US, the UK, Germany and Italy to Australia, Singapore and even Japan. The current downturn in the IT industry in the US and elsewhere is in fact expected to expand opportunities for Indian IT firms, as the US and European majors relocate part of their work in order to cut costs in an increasingly and harshly competitive environment. BPO or business process outsourcing, and IT-enabled services (ITES) are growing at annual rates of 65% and more. It is thus not surprising that the prestigious US financial affairs weekly, BusinessWeek, recently carried a very detailed cover story, The Rise of India, that highlighted the tremendous growth, and growth potential, of BPO to India from the US, in areas ranging from the simplest tech support to cutting edge engineering R& D. Such services from India help foreign economies, including that of the U.S. by enabling it to remain competitive even in the midst of the global economic downturn and global business is now actively exploring these possibilities. In Canada, in particular, one interesting aspect is that major IT companies from India have invested substantial amounts in this country and have set up successful operations providing specialised IT services to their Canadian customers.

EDUCATION - SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - HEALTH Indians, as a people, attach tremendous importance to education. The average Indian would scrimp and save to ensure the best possible education for his children. These days, thanks to a renewed emphasis on universal primary education, the traditional focus on education for boys, with girls being pulled out of school earlier, especially in the rural areas, to help at home, is rapidly being eroded. Free and compulsory education for every child till 14 is in fact part of the Directive Principles of the Indian Constitution. But concentration on higher education, especially scientific and technical education, in the first few decades after independence created a skewing of the educational profile that needs correction. Within this programme, funded by a near doubling of expenditure on education to 6 % of the GDP, education for girls will have priority, with flexible class hours, scholarships, free uniforms, mid-day meals and other such incentives. Government planners and sociologists alike know that education for women is an investment in the future. There is a direct co-relation between rising literacy rates for women and improvement in social indicators like maternal and infant mortality, life expectancy and the birth rate (but no such co-relation between these indicators and rising literacy rates for men). But the best possible guarantee that the dropout rate for Indian school girls in the countryside will go down significantly is the kind of determination displayed by a 10-year old tribal girl from Madhya Pradesh in Central India. Asked to stay home to mind the family's goats, she declared bluntly that she intended to go to school and they could, if they wanted, sell the goats ! In higher education, where India is very well equipped, over 200 universities and 1,500 research institutions, many of which, like the Indian Institutes of Technology, are centres of excellence, turn out over 220,000 graduates and higher degree-holders every year, and more than 4,000 Ph.Ds. Indian software engineers alone number over 1.4 million. It is reassuring to note that whether in the sciences or in the liberal arts, women today form 50 % if not more of the average college class in India, and well over 50 % of the honour rolls. India today has perhaps the second largest pool of scientific and technological manpower in the world. There is a historical pattern to India's excellence in science. It ranges from mathematical discoveries, such as that of zero, or the calculation of the diameter of the earth or the value of the mathematical constant pi over two thousand years ago, to the work of Nobel Prize winner for Physics C.V. Raman, the mathematical prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan, "the man who knew infinity", and the celebrated astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar who, with Fred Hoyle, developed theories for the evolution of the universe. In modern times, Indian scientists are joining their foreign counterparts in application oriented hi-tech research - in electronic hardware and software, bio-technology, drug development and aerospace. The Indian space research programme, on the other hand, is a striking example of indigenous R&D, initiative and drive. The prestigious Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, the Bible for this sector, rightly described it as "India's Crown Jewel: Success on a Shoestring". India is one of the just five members of the exclusive space club of countries having the capability to design, fabricate and launch satellite systems, including geo-stationary satellites and Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLV). ISRO's seven centres carry out R&D in and production of equipment for rocketry, satellite communications, remote sensing for natural resource survey and management, environmental monitoring and weather forecasting, and this at well below international costs. ISRO, which is shortly to place its own geo-stationary satellite in orbit using its own launch vehicle, sells its satellite data to the US and other international firms for map-making and resource development. It also undertakes commercial satellite launches for Germany, South Korea and other countries. ISRO's operations also have down to earth applications, for rural development, health, family welfare, agriculture, and education through satellite instructional TV. Indian-built remote sensing satellites help villagers discover new underground water resources, warn authorities of dwindling forest cover and provide data on ocean wealth, hidden mineral and oil sources. The striking success of the Indian software sector, based on a very sound technical education system and on the innate creativity of young Indian professionals, has been detailed in the section of

the Indian economy. In the R&D aspect of computers, a signal achievement was the commissioning, on March 28, 1998, of the Param-10000 supercomputer, with a stupendous 100 gigaflops of computing power, on par with similar machines produced by global giants such as Cray, IBM and Fujitsu. Param-10000, based on parallel computing architecture, was entirely the brainchild of the Indian Centre for Development of Advanced Computers, and will be used for weather forecasting and other applications needing massive number crunching. This has been followed, on April 1, 2003 ( not an April fool joke!) by the commissioning of the Teraflop “Param Padma”, capable of handling one trillion floating pont operations per second, at the Terascale Supercomputing Facility of the CDAC. Other areas on which R&D is now focussed include microelectronics and telematics. In nuclear energy, India's capabilities are well known, with its nuclear power programme, nearly 45 years old, having mastered even the most technically demanding projects like the Fast Breeder Reactor. India's recent underground nuclear tests further confirmed that Indian scientists can handle the full range of nuclear energy applications. Thanks to the several Indian scientific research expeditions to Antarctica since 1981, and the establishment of two permanent Indian research stations there, India acquired consultative membership of the Antarctic Treaty. India is also the only developing country to have qualified for pioneer status at the 1982 UN Conference on the Law of the Sea. India has contributed to the medical sciences from ancient times, as is evident from the over 1,500 years old treatises of famous healers and even surgeons like Charaka and Susruta. Today, Indian medical research has produced various breakthroughs, such as the release of an indigenous recombinant DNA-based Hepatitis-B vaccine which is far cheaper than imported vaccines. India also has a vast pharmaceutical industry, with over 7,000 units of varying sizes and technological capabilities that are the bedrock of the public health system, especially for the poor. Indian medical schools, over 170 of them, produce very good doctors - a large proportion of them women. Massive campaigns against formerly endemic diseases like malaria and small pox have been remarkably successful, pushing up life expectancy significantly for both men and women. There are some top rate hospitals in India, in both the public and the private sector, to which patients flock from India's neighbouring countries. Every kind of treatment, from heart transplants to complex brain surgery, is available within the country. But there is much greater need for resources for and a sharper focus on health care in the public domain. The problems here are compounded by the unfortunate tendency of Indian doctors to prefer the urban areas, which makes the provision of health care for the over 500,000 Indian villages that much more difficult. Attention now is being focussed on this, especially on preventive medicine and on improving sanitation and thus limiting diseases linked to this. India has always had highly regarded traditions of alternative medicine, such as Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha, besides Yoga, which is recognised the world over as the country's major gift to health care. There is also global awareness now about the therapeutic value of herb-based medicine systems that Indians have been practicing for several thousands of years. Medicine in India today seeks to blend respect for this ancient wisdom with a new commitment to harnessing modern techniques to the needs of the whole population.

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DEMOCRACY IN ACTION: WATCHDOG INSTITUTIONS IN INDIAN SOCIETY One of the signal successes of post-independence India is that, overcoming the trauma of a bloody partition, it is managed to build a strong and resilient multi-ethnic, multireligious and multi-lingual nation. It is a determinedly a secular society, with the second largest Muslim population in the world, over 120 million, over 20 million Christians of every possible denomination, not to speak of Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Zoroastrians, Jews etc. besides the majority Hindu population. While it would be untrue to claim that no tensions exist between followers of different religions in India, it is also true that Indian society is one that accepts, rather than merely tolerates every kind of diversity. India is a country where a Muslim Head of State or Chief Justice, or a Christian Chief of Army Staff provokes neither resentment nor even surprise, but is simply taken for granted. Nor does it seem at all strange that in the Vishwanath Temple at Varanasi, one of the holiest of Hindu shrines, the main musician for the past several decades has been Ustad Bismillah Khan, a devout Muslim maestro of the shehnai (a percussion instrument), that Hindus offer prayers at the famous Muslim shrine at Ajmer Sharif in Rajasthan, or that both Muslims and Hindus worship at the Church of Our Lady at Veliankanni in south India. This is surely a tradition of which any country could be proud. India has also, despite many failings, created a nation of laws, with strong, independent watchdog institutions. The Indian media are among the freest and liveliest in the world, and more often than not trenchant critics of the ruling establishment. The Indian judiciary, from the Supreme Court downwards, is today more highly regarded than ever for its fierce independence and activism on behalf of the under-privileged. Then there are the NGOs, more numerous, more committed and more effective than ever, working on grassroots issues across the spectrum from corruption to violence against women to AIDS, which are a key element in keeping the Indian socio-political system on track. Further, despite years of exposure to the most violent forms of terrorism, inspired and aided from outside its borders, India has retained its traditional commitment to human rights for all its citizens. More, it has reinforced this commitment through institutions like the National Human Rights Commission, whose drive and effectiveness have confounded its detractors-in-advance and has won repeated praise even in the US State Department's Annual Reports on the Global Human Rights Situation. India is universally recognised as a rock steady and flourishing democracy. In fact, never before and nowhere else has nearly one-sixth of the human race lived together in freedom as a single political entity. Direct elections based on universal adult franchise are held with exemplary regularity, if at times with unexpected frequency, the only difference being that the electorate gets bigger and bigger. For example, in the 11 th General Elections of May, 1996, over 65 % of the 590 million eligible voters turned up to vote, the women more than the men, a percentage much higher than the average in the advanced countries. This is proof not only of the political maturity of the Indian electorate, but also of its faith in the power of the ballot. And there has never been an instance when the losers in an Indian election did not yield with grace to the victors. The Indian Armed Forces, noted for their professionalism, are equally scrupulous in staying aloof from politics and obeying the elected civilian government, a fundamental requisite for a genuine democracy.

Nearly 12 years ago, in a decision that had far reaching positive implications for democracy in India, nearly a million women, mostly from the rural areas, entered village and municipal councils across the country, occupying the 30% of the council seats reserved for them in 1992. This dramatic advance in the empowerment of Indian women in one of the areas where their participation has lagged - politics, especially local politics – was hailed the world over. It helped ensure that the women of India have a much greater voice than ever before, and often the decisive voice, in how India is governed at the grassroots. It is a fact not often recognised that the women of India gained complete legal equality very soon after independence. That this happened in what was then a traditional and basically patriarchal society was due in no small measure to the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and the stress he laid on women playing a major role both in the Indian independence struggle and in the new, free India of his dreams. Mahatma Gandhi was in truth one of India's first feminists. He was convinced that the women had a natural aptitude for his doctrines of Ahimsa and Satyagraha, and that therefore, they should be in the forefront of the independence struggle. And so they were, marching shoulder to shoulder with men, getting beaten up and going to jail, and thus they gained their right to equality without the need for a suffragette movement. The contrast between this and the acute resentment and contempt displayed towards similar movements in the West in the early 20 th century could not be more marked. Today, the Indian woman can just as well be an architect, an Olympic medal winning weightlifter, a beauty queen like Miss Universe 2000 Lara Dutta or an Indian Air Force pilot like her sister Cheryl. She can be an astronaut, like Kalpana Chawla, an aeronautical engineer from Haryana in North India who died in the tragic Columbia space shuttle disaster, or a CEO like Indira Nooyi from Chennai in the far south of India who is now the President of Pepsico International in New York, handling multibillion dollar mergers. She can be a technician in a village repairing vital water pumps, a lawyer, a doctor, a diplomat, an accountant or a housewife. The same is true, to varying degrees, of other categories of Indians. It is this that is a measure of how far India has come as a modern nation state, building for the new millennium on the bedrock of an ancient culture.

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THE ARTS IN INDIA : FACES AND VOICES In India, art is part of the fabric of daily life, whether in religious ritual, in classical music or dance, in the explosive energy of folk dances that celebrate the rhythms of village existence, in the profusion of sculpture in a 2000 year old Indian temple, in the incredible detail of a miniature Mughal painting, or in the pure simplicity of the lota, the all purpose water bowl or the simplest creations of the village potter. The essence of the Indian arts, classical or folk, has always been spiritual. Great Indian musicians and dancers describe their art as sadhana, a form of worship of the divine spirit. A true artist performs not for the audience alone, nor for personal glory or even fulfilment, but to make the music or dance or painting or sculpture an offering to the Creator. It is this core of spirituality that sets all genuine Indian art apart, and makes it a quest for spiritual rather than merely aesthetic satisfaction. The classical art forms in India are often rooted in a folk or tribal base. You will see spontaneous folk dance and music from different parts of the country that combine acrobatic movements with almost lyrical grace as they celebrate the rhythms of daily life - the change of seasons, harvests, religious festivals, births and marriages. Classical dance forms - from the highly systematised Bharatanatyam, and the more narrative form of Kuchipudi, to the highly stylised dance drama from Kerala, Kathakali - are based on the canons of classical dance laid down in the Natya Shastra, a 2nd century BC text ascribed to the sage Bharata. They all have a complex repertoire of hand gestures, facial and body movements that convey subtle nuances and meanings with precision. Classical Indian music too has evolved from folk melodies. The heart of all Indian classical music, whether of the north Indian or Hindustani or of the south Indian or Carnatic tradition, is the Raga, a Sanskrit term meaning passion or colour. Each Raga has a single colour or mood and its own distinct ethos. It evokes a specific mood, and is sung only at a particular time of the day. The special magic of Indian music lies in the fact that no two performances of the same Raga are alike, for within certain set parameters, the musician is free to innovate. The music is also both melodic and rhythmic, and the rhythmic element is known as Tala (measure of time), with Talas ranging from 3 to more than 100 beats. Classical music in India is learnt at the master's feet, in the guru-shishya (teacher-pupil) tradition, in a close community and through families of musicians. To an extent this also applies to classical dancers. Indian sculptors and painters have immortalised the beauty of the human body in bronze and stone for more than 4000 years. Metallurgical skills and stone-working techniques had been mastered and were being brilliantly practised long before the Aryan invasion. But it was the mainstream of indigenous Indic tradition, beginning with the Indus Valley civilization, that merged with Aryan styles to flower during the golden age of the imperial Guptas in the 4th-6th century AD. South Indian sculptural art was truly spectacular during the entire period from the 4th-17th century AD. Whether it is the 2nd century Buddhist cave paintings at Ajanta, the incredible Kailash temple at Ellora for which nearly 200,000 tonnes of solid rock were removed to create a monolithic sculptured temple, the Chola bronzes from Tamil Nadu or the marbled filigree of the Dilwara Jain temples at Mount Abu Indian sculpture and architecture, rooted in worship, are without peer. 20th century India has seen the development of new styles, with modern Indian art, some of it strongly connected to folk styles, and modern Indian writing coming out strongly

and clearly. Arundhati Roy, the young woman architect who won the prestigious Booker Prize with her first novel, The God of Small Things in 1997 is but one of a whole line of Indian novelists, including several women, who write, many in English, with rare force and felicity and with a genuinely Indian persona and Indian concerns that they have managed to make universalist. Vikram Seth, whose A Suitable Boy became a runaway international bestseller 12 years ago, and commanded a million pound publisher’s advance even then, is now as well known in New York as in New Delhi. But the Indian literary figure who towers above the rest is Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, the first Indian recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature. The same is true of the Indian cinema, which is remarkably prolific even if mostly escapist. Several noted Indian directors, beginning with the late maestro, Satyajit Ray, who ranks with Bergman, Fellini and Kurosawa as one of the all time greats of world cinema, to Shekhar Kapoor, whose 30 million dollar production on Queen Elizabeth I, I Elizabeth, got considerable acclaim at the Venice Film Festival, have put Indian cinema on the world map. Combining acting skills from professional theatre with the clear aim of looking and sounding Indian, the young Indian directors, who delight in technical polish comparable to much that the West has to offer, seek to provide a homespun answer to the Italian neo-realists and the French nouvelle vague. In 2002, a mainstream Bollywood production, Lagaan, was selected by the Oscar jury as one of the 5 contenders for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. A Bollywood musical, Bombay Dreams, produced by the famous Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, was a smash hit in the London West End in 2002-2003, and is now moving to Broadway in New York. Perhaps the most eloquent symbol of the arts in India is the Shiva Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance. Combining in himself creation, preservation and the destruction of evil, he dances eternally in the cosmos, holding the universe in equilibrium. Under his feet, he crushes a small demon symbolising the human ego, which prevents man from recognising his innate spirituality. To destroy this demon, to unify man with the divine, is the goal of all art in India.

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A LAND FOR ALL SEASONS The spectacular diversity of India, a land of contrasts where centuries meet and whisper at the street corners, makes it an ideal destination, whether for seekers of adventure, for aficionados of all that is ancient and beautiful, for sports enthusiasts or for those searching for peace and quiet on a tranquil beach under a coconut palm. Besides its rich cultural, religious and historical attractions, which need no telling, India today is also a modern country where one can indulge every possible taste in tourism. Above all, India a multidimensional experience, a many coloured tapestry of great richness and depth, bewildering, beautiful, subtle and exuberant. Emerging from an Indian holiday, you will sense that this diversity is woven on an underlying canvas of shared experience and collective memory, which gives the whole a unique flavour that is unmistakably "Indian". And you, the visitor, will be drawn, by the warmth and open friendliness of the average Indian, into this living tapestry, which will then forever become a part of your collective memory. India has a way of getting into your system, and a way of staying with you thereafter. In the north, there is the Golden Triangle of Delhi, India's capital founded on the site of seven historic cities, with Old and New Delhi reflecting the contrasts of India, Agra with the incomparable Taj Mahal, and Rajasthan, a quilt of red and ochre dotted with forts, palaces and desert cities, colourful beyond compare. Rajasthan is perhaps best explored on the ultra luxurious Palace on Wheels, a train made up of replicas of the railway coaches of the different Maharajas of the Rajasthani princely states, which takes the visitor on a 10-day magical tour of the Golden Triangle in regal comfort. The north also offers the cool delights of the Himalayan resorts - Kulu, Manali, Simla, Nainital and, for the more adventurous, the lunarscape of Ladakh. There are the holy cities of Varanasi, Hardwar, Rishikesh and Badrinath on the banks of the river Ganga. There is the courtly elegance of Lucknow, a city of gardens famous for its gold and silver brocade. Then there is Srinagar, the fabled capital of Kashmir, with towering mountains, dappled meadows, Mughal gardens and the luxurious houseboats on its lakes. After many years, tourism in Kashmir, described by the Emperor Shahjahan as "Heaven on earth", is reviving. The west offers Mumbai (formerly Bombay), the cosmopolitan Gateway of India, the 2000 year old Buddhist cave paintings at Ajanta and the spectacular rock cut temples at Ellora, one of the noblest monuments of Hindu art, wildlife sanctuaries at Gir and Kanha, the former the sole habitat of the majestic Asian lion, a profusion of the most delicately carved stone temples at Khajuraho, now celebrating its millennium, and the great Buddhist stupa at Sanchi. There are also the romantic 16th century cities of Udaipur and Chittorgarh, monuments to Rajput valour, the former celebrated for its exquisite Lake Palace, a white marble jewel set in the blue waters of Lake Pichola and now a famous hotel. The east, beginning with Calcutta, heir to a remarkable artistic heritage that boasts of a very active cultural life, includes the beautiful cities of Puri and Bhubaneswar in Orissa, with over 100 famous temples, especially the Sun Temple at Konark, and the holy shrine of Lord Jagannath at Puri. Up in the mountains, Darjeeling, the very name of which is redolent of fine tea, is famous for spectacular views of the mighty Kanchenjunga. The Kaziranga Wildlife Sanctuary in Assam is famous for its one-horned rhinoceros, and the Manas sanctuary also has a wide array of wildlife. Bodh Gaya in Bihar, where the Lord Buddha attained Enlightenment, is a hallowed place for Buddhists. The gateway to the south is Chennai (formerly Madras), the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu, which retains a spacious old world charm. Its hinterland is the lush rice bowl of

Thanjavur, and boasts of several spectacular temples, many more than 1200 years old and still active places of worship. Their architecture displays a very interesting evolution over the period from the 6th century to the 18th century AD, and a similar evolution in the classical sculptures with which they are lavishly decorated. The town of Kanchipuram, famous for its rich handwoven saris of silk and gold, alone has more than 108 such temples. Madurai is another famous temple city, and the beach resort of Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram) has 7 th century sea side temples and other spectacular rock carvings. Wildlife abounds in the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, famous for its wild elephants and excellent fishing. Pondicherry, a former French settlement, retains a gallic flavour. Near it is the international city of peace, Auroville, founded by the visionary freedom fighter Aurobindo Ghose and carried on by his disciple, the Frenchwoman Mira Alfassa, known as the Mother. Kodaikanal and Udagamandalam (Ooty) are pleasant hill resorts developed in British times. At the southernmost tip of India, at Kanyakumari, three oceans meet and the lucky visitor can see the sunset and the moonrise bridged by these waters. Kerala, in the far south-west, has a special charm, with tranquil inland waterways and tropical lagoons, besides several resorts on its palm fringed coasts, of which Kovalam is one the best known. Cochin and Thiruvanathapuram retain the flavour of traditional Malayalam culture. North of Kerala lie the gracious princely city of Mysore in Karnataka, and Bangalore, the software capital of India which bridges its past, present and future. The 11th century temple wonders of Belur and Halebid are invitingly near. India also has tremendous shopping possibilities, because of its rich tradition of handicrafts - textiles, jewellery, sandalwood, marble, metalwork, the list is endless. But most important is that wherever you go in India, you will be made to feel welcome. It is this that makes a visit to India an affair to remember.

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