When India celebrates its 74th Independence Anniversary, it is natural for the people to feel proud of the progress the country has made in various fields. It is also time for making a review of the challenges the nation faces today and reflect on the responses needed to take the nation forward. The preamble of the Indian Constitution has guaranteed to its citizens Secular and Socialist Democracy, Justice, Equality, Liberty and Fraternity that ensures Individual Dignity and Unity of the nation. How far the citizens are able to enjoy what the Constitution has promised? 

Challenges  

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in his Independence Day speech delineated the goals in the following words: “To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman”. The challenges India faces today are very much related to the goal declared by Jawharlal Nehru in his speech. Hence this write up focuses on the challenges related to three aspects: Democracy and Indian Constitution 2) Economic Growth and Inclusive Development of all and 3) Equality and Social Harmony, the characteristics of a progressive nation.  

1.  Challenges to Democracy and Constitution  

The Constitution with provisions for secular democracy, fundamental rights, rights of the minorities, federal structure, independence of judiciary and autonomous media is the greatest gift the Independent India received from the founding fathers. While democracy could not survive in many neighbouring countries, India remained as the largest democracy in the world. 

Indians can be proud of their country remaining as the largest democracy in the world, but there are also very serious threats to democracy and the Constitution, especially since 2014. These threats include: 1) putting in place laws that violate the core constitutional values and provisions and the inordinate delay in the Supreme Court deciding on the constitutional validity of these controversial laws; 2) stifling criticism, protest and dissent by making use of draconian anti-terror laws; 3) rampant violation of Human Rights; 4) reducing Parliament into a rubber stamp; 5) failure of the judiciary to be the guardian of the Constitution and protector of the Fundamental Rights; 6) media with a  few exceptions becoming a propaganda machine of the government and earning the nickname godi media; and 7) an emaciated and disunited opposition. 

The Citizenship Amendment Bill passed in a hurry without enough discussion is discriminatory to the followers of a particular religion and it violates the core constitutional principle of equality. The peaceful and democratic protests were suppressed with the iron hand of the state and hundreds of people were arrested using draconian laws like UAPA, NSA and sedition law, and they were put in jail. In the same way, three controversial farm bills were passed without sufficient discussion with farmers. The way article 370 and 35 A were abrogated and Jammu and Kashmir state was divided into two Union Territories without the consent of the state assembly violates the Constitution. Unfortunately, all the controversial laws are pending in the Supreme Court. 

Rampant use of anti-terrorism laws like Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) National Security Act (NSA) and Sedition Law to quell lawful protests, criticism and dissent is a violation of fundamental rights. Thousands of citizens like social and political activists, academics, lawyers, and intellectuals who are critical of the government are arrested using these draconian laws and incarcerated for months and years in the overcrowded and unhygienic jails without trial or bail. This is nothing but rampant violation of human rights. For example, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, out of the 5,992 people arrested under UAPA during 2016-2019 only 132 (2.2%) were convicted. 

2. Challenges to Inclusive Development  

At the time of independence, India as a starving country had to depend on rich nations like America for its food requirements. Today India is a grain surplus nation, largest producer of milk in the world with 22% of global production and second in food and agricultural products, largest manufacturer of generic medicines and its pharmaceutical sector fulfils over 50% of the global demand for vaccines. Along with the strong foundation laid by Jawaharlal Nehru, the economic reforms initiated in 1991 have made India world’s sixth largest economy. 

Despite the remarkable economic growth India has many short-term and long-term challenges. The main challenges are: 1) persisting poverty and hunger; 2) widening gap between the rich and the poor; 3) alarming rate of increasing unemployment; 4) privatization of public goods and displacement of people in the name of development, leading to their impoverishment; and 5) absence of a roadmap for economic growth with distribution of the benefits of growth among the disadvantaged sections of the society. 

In spite of surplus food production, a large number of people experience hunger. In the Global Hunger Index 2020 India Ranks 94 out 104 countries, much behind Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal. According to the report, 14 per cent of India’s population is undernourished. The second wave of coronavirus exposed the cracking health care system of India. According to the OXFAM inequality report 2021, India has the world’s fourth lowest health budget in terms of its share of government expenditure. It spends only 1.26% of its GDP on health. 

Unemployment is another huge challenge India faces and Covid 19 worsened the situation. The BJP, prior to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, had promised creation of 2 crore jobs every year.  According to a study by National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), unemployment was the highest in 45 years in 2017-18 i.e. 6.1%. Although there was a marginal fall in the unemployment rate in 2019-20, Covid 19 resulted in the loss of jobs for millions of Indians. According to a report published in The Hindu on May 7, 2020, 122 million Indians lost jobs due to the nationwide lockdown. 

3) Challenges to Social Harmony 

Progress of the nation, including economic development, will not be possible without trust and harmony among different sections of Indian society. Since 2014 India has been experiencing not only challenges but also threats to social harmony. The threats include: 1) unprecedented spread of the virus of hatred and mounting violence on the religious minorities; 2) Increasing atrocities and discrimination against Dalits and Tribals; and 3) gender discrimination and violence against women and children. 

The biggest challenge is preserving secularism or pluralism, the millennial heritage of India. Because of the aggressive Hindutva movement, secularism is being given a solemn burial. Even the use of the term secularism is branded as anti-national. According to a recent survey conducted by Pew Research Centre, 64% of Hindus hold the view that in order to be “truly Indian” one has to be a Hindu and 59% of Hindus also believe that being able to speak Hindi is necessary to be an Indian. 

This radical change in the concept of nationalism has happened because of the concerted campaign and brainwashing by the right wing organizations for seven decades. Dr. Meera Nanda in her highly researched book, ‘The God Market’ written in 2009 had concluded that India has already become a Hindu nation. “Use of explicitly Hindu rituals and symbols in the routine affairs of the state and electoral politics has become so commonplace that Hinduism has become the de facto religion of the ‘secular’ Indian state which is constitutionally bound to have no official religion”. The seven-year rule by the BJP under Narendra Modi has almost completed the process of transformation. What is being left is deleting the term “Secularism” from the preamble of Constitution. Muslims and Christians are being made second class citizens as envisaged by M.S. Golwalkar.

Responses to the Challenges

The responses to the challenges can be summarized in three terms: 1) Awareness Building; 2) Transforming Education; 3) Promotion of Spirituality. All the three are inter-related. 

1)  Awareness Building:  Because of the large-scale propaganda by the BJP and the Sangh Parivar, people are in a make-belief world and far away from the realities of what is happening in the country. The economy is in doldrums; democratic institutions are emaciated and corroded, human rights are blatantly violated and the venom of communalism is injected into the veins of Indian society. As enlightened citizens, each one of us has a responsibility to tell the truth to the people with whom we work.  

First of all, bishops, priests, seminarians, consecrated women and men of different congregations and lay groups are to be made aware of the dangerous situation in which India is. Let them read newspapers and news magazines to become aware of what is happening in India and the world. Organize seminars/webinars for priests, religious, seminarians and lay groups on the socio-political situation of India. Time has come for us to change our attitude towards politics. As Shiv Khera says in his video speech, Country First, the water we drink, the air we intake and the medicine we eat are politics because they are all affected by political decisions. But priests and the Religious need not enter into party politics. At the same time, they cannot afford to be politically naïve and indifferent.  

Awareness building has to lead to actions like participation in protests against a) human rights violations both by the state and non-state actors, b) laws that violate the constitutional provisions c) discrimination based on caste and religion d) atrocities on women and other weaker sections of the society and e) policies and actions that lead to the exploitation of the workers, displacement of people without adequate compensation and destruction of environment. 

2) Transforming Education:  Two types of changes have to take place in education. The first change needed is in the educational policy. The root cause of the inequalities in India is the two types of education available to the people: good quality education to the rich who can afford, and poor quality education to the poor mainly through the government schools and poor quality private schools. This situation has to change. People should demand the government to invest at least 6% of the GDP in education and make available the same quality of school education to all citizens. 

The second aspect is emphasis on democratic education and imparting the constitutional values, especially pluralism, to the students. Our political leaders and community leaders miserably failed to educate people on democracy. They failed to make democracy a way of life. As a result the communal and authoritarian forces came to power using the electoral democratic route. 

3) Promotion of Spirituality: Karl Marx said three hundred years ago that religion is opium. History is a witness to the fact that religion can become not only opium but also poison. Hate messages on the social media, hate speech, mob lynching etc, are vivid expressions of religion becoming poison. When religion is divorced from spirituality it is easily commercialized and politicized. When religion is politicized it becomes competitive, revengeful and violent. 

The solution to politicization of religion is promotion of spirituality by focusing on the practice of the core values taught by religions.  Focus on spirituality will be very helpful to build understanding and harmony among the followers of different religions. 

Conclusion: The socio-political situation in India calls for a second Independence Struggle to safeguard pluralistic democracy and the Constitution. Although the Constitution is not radically altered, many policies and actions of the state and non-state actors, who blindly support the government, go against the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Independence Day celebration reminds the people of India to be vigilant and act against the erosion of the Constitutional values and violations of the provisions of the Constitution, particularly the fundamental rights. 

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