On the third day of this new year I was thinking of the positive action that could easily be taken if those responsible for governance were committed to India, her people and her extraordinary, inherent strengths.

Imagine the Parliament and legislative assemblies conducting their mandated business with intelligence, grace and dignity. Think of a Parliament where issues of national import would be debated, solutions found and action initiated instead of the nation being afflicted with the terminal disease of walkouts and adjournments.

We could, virtually overnight, restore the sanity of correct democratic practice and allow ordinary Indians to enjoy the pride that comes from being perceived as concerned, intelligent citizens within the international community.

That would set the stage for a correction of the archaic, colonial laws and policies that continue to demean Indians who are not a part of the ruling and administrative elite. Just think of an administrative and police force that is inclusive, one that embraces the chronic problems that keep a vast majority of our people from participating in the larger excitement of growth and new opportunities.

Our leaders constantly harp on the information technology boom but have been unable to recognize the indigenous information base upon which this civilization rests. Our administrators need to go back to school, for a short and intensive debriefing that will train them to govern a young, dynamic and democratic nation where all are equal in the eyes of the law and where the mind dominates instead of money power. They must be tutored in the realities of India and her untapped legacy industries that could transform this country, offering employment to the majority in fields that they are familiar with, in disciplines that will be crucial for the future of our planet.

Alien impositions

A comprehension of our traditional knowledge and our pride in it could make India a different kind of emerging market — one that sells knowledge first (at premium prices), and its cheap, imitative goods as additional products. Sadly, our economists and policy-makers are limited in their assessment and ideas of what modern India needs desperately — to grow out of poverty.

The alien and simplistic Western models that were superimposed on our resilient, multi-faceted and philosophical polity by policy-makers in the Fifties (who did not bother to delve deep into the realities and values of Bharat, and who governed us pompously without a proper understanding of our extraordinary knowledge base) set India back. This resulted in dwarfing the subcontinent when modern nation states were carved out of it.

A sensitive government, a cabinet decision to endorse the knowledge and legacy industries of this country, an appeal from the prime minister to the chief ministers to join the exercise and to the people of India to respect their skills and intellect, would remedy the corruption of mind and matter that has filled our lives, overwhelmed and suffocated us for decades, reducing our civilization to an inconsequential player on the world stage. India is seen as a region of cheap production, a cheap market — a land that can be economically exploited.

Our greed for the quick buck that comes without much effort has allowed the degradation that has invaded us with this tsunami of neo-colonialism.

Easy to make if understood, this correction is something that a majority of Indians will support. Policy-makers and the government need to be educated and introduced to the India they have been mandated to govern. They need to shed their compulsive imitation of the worst of the Western world.