Atlanta, Georgia: In 1997 it was the 50th anniversary of India’s Independence. Now we completed the sixth decade, past the traditional Shashthi Poorti. You know, we have a cycle of sixty years and that’s our natural ‘millennium.’ It’s so heartening to remember all that was said about ten years ago!

Ah! Then, so much was written by journalists, economists, pundits and wiseacres. Some were cliché-ridden adulations, and some were officious rhetoric. Each one had identified the “problems” of India and offered a Cambridge-Harvard-flavored, made-in-Washington solutions! Problems! Problems!! It was castes, it was illiteracy and it was the innumerable gods and religion that eulogized the other-worldliness, resignation against all the societal injustices! Sounds like the fable, where four blind men tried to describe a regal elephant!

I was in grade school on August 15, 1947, and have very faint memories of the First Independence Day! We were asked by a big mustachioed teacher to fall in line two-file, were given a small tri-color each, and we paraded the streets shouting ebullient ‘victory’ slogans! The best part was that an obese fellow in white khaadis gave us lots of sweets, toffees, and chocolate in shiny wrappers! We were told there would be no school that afternoon! Wow!! Sweet were those memories and sweet chocolate melted in the hands and as the slimy sweet stuff reached the mouth; it coated the faces too; - that’s all I remember!

The sweet taste of chocolate still on my tongue lingering........

Tons of tomes were written about India. Some have written India off, and some have even suggested as drastic as triage-type solutions to India’s economic woes and population explosion.

Yes. India still continues to have thousands of castes and sub-castes; its politics are deplorably caste ridden! But, it has never occurred to these mavens that it is these innumerable castes, with no one single caste having the absolute majority in numbers is the key to the continued survival, and success of the only democracy in South Asia! It should be familiar politics now, even in America that unless one makes friends, with several castes, sub-castes and/or groups, one has a tough time getting elected and re-elected.

Yes. India has religious strife! The Hindu religion being the single largest, a few fundamentalist miscreant political groups keep teasing and fomenting troubles. But, one soon quickly realizes that it won’t work all the time. They have to make amends to their clumsy divisive detestably vile fundamentalist postures. Both the majority and the minority religions! They have to concede and come to terms with several small ethnic groups, develop an egalitarian philosophy if they want to continue to be counted!

Yes. The gods & the religion! What a misconception!! First of all, the word ‘Hindu’ is an artificially concocted term that broadly encompasses several hues of theological persuasions, and multifarious gods, their heads changing at the whims of some crazy, nutty, god-man! Hinduism is not a religion in the strict sense as the westerner would like to caricature. It is a way of life, to each his own. Actually, there is no equivalent for the word ‘religion’ in any Indian language. The closest word really means ‘method.’ I, as a ‘Hindu,’ have successfully framed a dozen gods and hung them on the walls. So did my close friend; but the gods she has framed and hung are different! When we pray, we pray totally different gods and in different languages! We, who call ourselves Hindus deified many saffron clad god-men, dead and alive, glossified them as colorful calendar figures and hung their portraits on the walls ! If any one tries to classify us under one religion, or unify us with one good ‘book,’ when there are so many contradicting and complementing each another, it doesn’ work. It never did! After all, that is our strength; not a weakness. And, probably that’s why the present democracy survives and continues to succeed in India! And, there is never a doubt that it won’t succeed!

Yes. We speak different tongues! We have twenty or more tongues that are constitutionally recognized national languages, a few thousand dialects, and a million different kinds of food habits to boot! Go just fifty miles in any direction from any point, you have a different dialect and a varied cuisine! Local politicians quickly learned to respect all dialects and taste all cuisines! The multifariousness of languages and dialects is again our great strength; not a weakness. Imagine one single language group dominating as the absolute majority group; we would have had an autocratic Fascist rule long time ago! Since, each language group, each ethnic group has to be appeased; it ain’t a cake walk for any political party! That’s why with all the linguistic troubles, real and imagined alike, democracy survives and succeeds! We all communicate; and communicate so well! Sometimes much better than in the advanced Western democracies!

Yes. About half of the population is not literate in the Western sense; not fit to rule themselves ‘they say’,- because they don’t understand the implied responsibilities that come with democracy! I say hog wash! It never occurred to any of these critics that why over 85% of the electorate in India do exercise their franchise with all the panoply unlike in many highly literate countries! They have defeated the untrustworthy big wigs and the fly-by-night small fry, almost like waving a magic wand!

Indian ethos has been compared to a tapestry; Indian culture has been identified as a mosaic of colorful ceramic pieces! It is neither. Because, either one of them could have been easily shattered and broken. It hasn’t happened, since the times of Alexander!

Indian culture, its ethos, its castes, its religions, its everything is woven into a strong huge fish net. A fish net with thousands and thousands of knots, Gordian Knots if you wish, each connecting and interconnecting! You can cut a few but you can’t completely destroy them! Small vain fish pass through the holes and think India is nothing but all holes! Larger fish that come to visit, get trapped in the net and will be amazed at the puissance of the knots and remain incessantly obeisant!

After all, India has made its tryst with destiny. There was an economic model the father of the Nation, The Mahatma, has painstakingly developed. Had we followed his path, the human relationships might have remained, probably better in tact! But, we forgot it even before we got independence! We have played with our brand of socialism; it didn’t deliver. Now, we are playing with capitalism and consumerism; favoring the fancies of less than 15% of the population; who knows, it might fail us too! Yet, as the largest democratic nation in the world, we are inching along in the pursuit of progress; but, please don’t measure our progress with your yardstick!

Since 1997, a decade passed by! Here comes Friedman’s and – the - like, who worried the Western world to death with their alarming warnings: ‘The Earth is Flat’! What a change! India will take over the West soon, control the world’s economy, its destiny if the West doesn’t wake up soon! Really? It sounds incredible, doesn’t it? I wish it would happen sooner than later! No. It is not wishful thinking!

It is said that “Ekam sat, vipraa bahudhaa vadanti.” There is one truth; but many interpretations. There is only one India with a billion + reasons to celebrate!

And, when my great grandchildren celebrate the centenary of India’s independence with all the pomp and panoply in the year 2047, and treat their children with sweets, toffees and chocolate; believe me, I’ll be there to taste the toffees and smell the sweet scents caramel!

 Sri Venkateswara Rao Veluri is the resident of Atlanta, Georgia. He is well known literati in USA. He is a frequent speaker on language and culture in seminars and conferences. He is associated with the India Literacy Project, (ILP), founded in 1990 in the USA. Now he is active mobilizing the community to set up of the Telugu department at Emory University, Atlanta.