Thanks to my profession, I go around the world. I have visited all the continents and many countries ranging from the places every one dreams to visit and also some places  most get nightmares even hearing about it. I had the opportunity to visit wide ranging people from Head of state to common man. As normal psychology (Probably) I always compared the visied country with my country India.

We have heard so much of criticism about our political set up, bad leadership, lost opportunities, comparison with the First world and of course comparison with Japan and South East Asia. So I don’t need add more to it. But we forget to see the other side. Whenever I visited many of the countries, my admiration and gratitude to the political leaders at the time of the birth of Independent India grows multifold. It also taught me some basic principles of organization building.

What makes India different from the other “Failed” countries? The most important thing, “Strong Institution building”.  I attribute it to the leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar and many more. First it is the Indian constitution. Though it appears complicated, believe me, it is sturdy and has withstood onslaughts of all the storms on democracy. We are able to keep democracy intact except for a short period of Emergency. I know many of my friends and naïve people talk of goodness of Emergency and also Military type of rule to make the society to be a disciplined one. It is like finding simplistic solutions and playing to gallery. This weakness of Crowd psychology has been misused and being misused in most of the “Failed” countries including our neighbors. We don’t need great research to see the effect. Let us see some points that made India different from many Failed countries:

1. Very strong constitution.
2. Clearly defined rights and duties of institutions which are basic pillars of Democratic country. Parliament, Judiciary, Administration and Military.
3. Strong determined beginning by removing Princely states.
4. Clearly stated role and lowering of protocol status of Military without hurting them.
5. Removal of feudal land lord system
6. Making equal opportunity to every one as constitutional right.
7. Set of great leader bringing the great move to bring in scientific temper and carry the goodness of British legacy.
8. Determined efforts to adopt tough path to “Grow” from own strength
9. Green revolution
10. Cooperative movement

Let me give some examples Failed countries I visited.

Ivory Coast/ Cote d’ Ivore: It was a French colony. It flourished to the level of European level till 1991. Thanks to its late president. With all his goodness, extraordinary hold on the political power Country flourished to highest level. But he missed to institutionalize it. I am not sure what made him to avoid building institution. President died in 1993. Today the Country is in shambles. It has all the natural resources to be a prosperous country. Now all it has is remnants of the past and Guns all round. I had chance to meet the Ministers, Administration people, common man of the relatively peaceful side of the nation. They all talk about past glory and feel sad. They have no hope of early revival.

Chad: When I was asked to visit this country, I had to open the map to locate it. It is a central African country. Country is gifted with all the nature’s bounty. From the day of liberalization it is ruled by single family and marred by civil war. It is all gun culture and utter poverty. Everything is decided by President and his family members. When we met the president and his son (the extra constitutional power center), they were hardly interested in understanding the benefits of the project to their country. Believe me, I must have remembered all our great leaders at every step. I remembered Kurien when I saw the poverty despite the nature’s bounty.

List goes on. Congo, Angola, Middle East countries, Latin American countries and of course our neighbor Pakistan …

My salute to those great souls who built strong basement of India and made the smooth transition to be a truly free, democratic, secular and responsible nation.

At last in lighter tone. During my recent visit to Pakistan everyone interacted with us is in friendly way. One young man told “ Aap Indians bahut chalu hai”. I asked him “Why?” with a shock.

“Jab azaadi hua, aap sab achche neta ko apne paas rak liya, aur sab bachaa hua netaon ko hamko de diya. Dekho abhi tak jhel rahe hai hum” young man replied with a smile.