The three hallmarks of the modern world are (1) online connectivity, (2) the consumption-driven pursuit of happiness, and (3) the rise of nationalistic feelings. Those who are not into these three, whether individuals, communities or countries, are considered outside the mainstream and are left out. The new thing about New India is that an increasing number of Indian people are joining the new world and our politicians are forced to adapt their ways and update their ideologies. 

China, as a neighbor, is indeed a tough fate for India. In the last thirty years, and especially after transforming itself as the factory of the world, China amassed immense wealth and with it has come formidable military might, so much so, that even the United States sees it as a rival out to change the American-dominated world order. Indian markets are ruled by Chinese products and we import USD 50 billion worth of goods every year in excess of what we export to China. But this is not considered when China supports anti-Indian endeavors of Pakistan in every possible way. 

In a recent book Fateful Triangle, Tanvi Madan analyzed how India and the United States could never become allies, bringing out the brutal fact that international relations are indeed based on national interests. While China and Pakistan were more than eager to   counterbalance Soviet Russia, India had little to offer to the US in a tangible sense. Further, as neither country posed a threat to the other, Indo-US bilateral relations remained superficially cordial and hollow of substance. 

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, largely due to implosion and aided and abetted by President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004), Deng’s China was seen as the next goose to be caught for dinner. The American big business community – called Fortune 500 that functioned out of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – made it clear—first to President Bill Clinton (b. 1946) and then to his successor, George W. Bush (b. 1946)—that trade with China was its highest priority. 

The ideological hangover of the Tiananmen Square, where a pro-democracy demonstration was brutally crushed in 1989 by Deng, was quickly shed away. And by the time the new millennium arrived, China was a PNTR (permanently normalized trade relations) country for the United States of America. With no fear of China’s favorable access to the U.S. market ever being revoked, the Fortune 500 opened their coffers as floodgates of investment, working hand in glove with Beijing to create new, China-centric supply chains. 

In 2012, when Xi Jinping (b. 1953) arrived on the scene, he rolled out the Made in China 2025 plan, without any pretense, to make China dominate key growth industries in the world. The Chinese government under Xi Jinping, unleashed Chinese bureaucracy demanding never-ending regulatory compliances and technology transfers on one hand and conducting blatant violation of intellectual property on the other. With a mix of idealism of President Barack Obama (b. 1961) and the unwillingness of the Fortune 500 in calling a spade by its name, China started considering itself not only as an equal to the U.S., but also an adversary for the top slot in world trade.

Now, for the first time, the U.S. is seeing China as a threat. The role of Pakistan in Afghanistan is almost over. The unplugging of China from the great American economic machine is imminent. Can the corollary of this decoupling be an India-US alliance? With business-friendly President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the helms, there can hardly be second thoughts on this. In the last few years, a great distance has been covered by both countries towards each other and when President Trump came to India last week and made a historical defence deal with the promise to make a ‘very big trade deal’ soon, it was not a new start but the conclusion of a thought process going on for a while. 

History is a great theater of ‘what ifs’. Nothing in history is predetermined and that extends to national political trajectories too. What if, Prithviraj Chauhan had killed Muhammad Ghori when he attacked the first time and had not allowed him to return? What would have happened if the British had never come to India, or say, by 1810 or so, a loose confederacy of Sikh, Maratha and the Deccan rulers had managed to kick out the British, the French and the Portuguese? What would have happened had Mir Jafar, the commander-in-chief of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army not betrayed his nawab? Or, had Cyril John Radcliffe applied mind and method and not divided Bengal and Punjab in five weeks? Or, had Prime Minister Nehru accepted President John F Kennedy’s offer of helping India detonate a nuclear device much before China did in 1964?

In 2020, another ‘what if’ is staring at us. The U.S. and China are locked in a tussle for the commercial control of the South China Sea, which serves as a passage for annual trade worth USD 3.5 trillion. Can India partner with Japan and Australia as U.S. allies to keep China at bay? Or, do we bury our head in the sand, and keep debating over citizenship even after seven decades of our nationhood? 

The outbreak of the Coronavirus in China has just highlighted how the best of man’s plans can go astray without any warning. Not only is the biggest factory of the world closed, but China is also on a total war footing. The longer the curbs on work and travel persist, the greater will be the global economic shock. No one country apparently has a solution to this problem and working together is the only way forward. When Prime Minister Modi wrote to President Xi offering assistance to deal with the Coronavirus outbreak, it was seen as “India’s acts of goodwill fully demonstrating its friendship with China.” 

President Donald J. Trump is the seventh United States’ president to visit India. President Dwight D. Eisenhower visited India in 1959, President Richard Nixon (1969), President Jimmy Carter (1978), President Bill Clinton (2000), President George W. Bush (2006), and President Barack Obama (2010 and 2015). In fact, thanks to President Kalam, I met President Bush and also dined with him. Earlier U.S. Presidents used to club India and Pakistan trips together, but not anymore.  

The three powerful leaders of our times indeed have a great opportunity to make Planet Earth a better place to live for humanity. It is important, however, to be clear about the limits of engagement between India and the United States against China, their common adversary, and to remember the admonition of Lord Palmerston (1784–1865), who dominated British foreign policy during the height of its imperial power and who is considered the best Prime Minister under Queen Victoria. He stated that in international relations, there are no permanent friends, or permanent enemies, but only permanent interests!

Indians are innately boisterous. Celebration and gaiety are in our blood. We find occasions to celebrate and make a great show of routine and small matters. From passing an exam, to celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, there is a show on display galore. People even take loans to celebrate occasions. Your clothes may be tattered, but your face must be smiling– that is the spirit.  

Nowhere in the world, does the government budget make for such an event as in India. Earlier, there used to be a separate Railway Budget, but now it has been merged with the Union Budget. The media start hyping the budget right from the beginning of the new year and depending on the ownership of the TV channel or the newspaper, a propaganda is launched about what the budget should contain. A halwa ceremony takes place in the Ministry of Finance at the commencement of the budget writing. 

This year, India faced an economic slowdown along with the rest of the world. It was touted as the coming of an apocalypse and clamour started about the liberalization of control over businesses and unleashing more money into the market by whatever means that could fuel the consumption and increase the GDP. Our political parties have long stopped debating on the basis of reason. They simply follow the trend of ‘opposition must oppose’, regarding whatever the government of the day is doing and forgetting the similar things they did in their own days in power. 

Finally, the budget is presented. The Finance Minister becomes the star of the day. The length of his/her speech matters and even the number of times water is sipped is counted. Then a loud cacophony is created about what was expected and not fulfilled. No one indeed asks for the rationale of expectations expressed in the media and why these expectations must be met. Most of the noise is made by narrow vested interests. The huge government machinery concerned with managing the finances of the country is always in place and operates all 365 days. It is not as if the annual budget is the only occasion where policies are changed. Yet the ritual continues.

The simple fact is that the income of the government has risen from 320 billion USD three years ago to 350 billion last year and 380 billion this year. The expenditure is also rising– from 370 to 430 to 480 in the last three years respectively. The problem that needs to be handled is the shortfall of 100 billion dollars. Taxes can’t be raised, loss-making industries can’t be closed down or sold, and there are limits on borrowing from the RBI; so how the government will manage this is unclear. 

The Finance Minister did not succumb to media pressure about the market looking for stimulus. People were so sure about themselves that they opened the stock market on a Saturday so that moolah could be made, but instead, the Sensex tanked by a thousand points! It, however, recovered all that was lost in the next few days and even exceeded expectations. The prophecy of the Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee that the Indian economic recession would be “big and long” is turning out to be untrue. 

Another pitch was about pushing up consumption. I personally disagree with raging consumption habits and follow the old school of saving whatever possible, no matter how little the income and of living a frugal life. I consider consumption-based growth a fallacy and bad for the economy. The doubling of tariff on imported furniture is a good decision. A celebrated European multinational furniture company sells mostly Chinese products in India. It is high time we make Chinese products dearer and promote Indian products, especially consumables.

The real issue India faces is infrastructure deficit and unemployment. With time, government share in both has declined and the private sector has emerged as the provider in both areas. In a good economy, 40 percent of the GDP must be invested back. Actually, China invests back 50 per cent of its GDP, which is four times ours. So, the creation of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is good news. The IPO of LIC is overdue. LIC invests more than USD 1 billion in the stock market every year, in a closely guarded manner. The public listing of LIC will lead to more disclosures of investment and transparency. Obviously, the beneficiaries of the status quo will protest.

Finance management of an economy in the current globalized world is an ongoing activity, like flying an airplane. The pilot takes off on a designated route following a strict protocol and then keeps adjusting the aircraft in response to the real-time disturbances in the air. 

India needs to bring down the hoopla and rhetoric in its public life and learn to conduct its business with calm and based on what is good for the poor of this country as well as for the owners of corporations and the lobbies they finance. The parliament proceedings are now telecast live, which are filled with cynicism galore. There is opposition for the sake of opposing. If a step taken by the government is wrong, the critic must also propose an alternative and why it is better. 

A line spoken by the character of actor Ranbir Kapoor in the film ‘Tamasha’ comes to mind – ‘Ek din mujhe pata chala ki Santa Claus nahin hota. Bahut bura laga tha. Par kya karein, hota nahin hai.’ (One day I came to know that there is no Santa Claus. I felt very bad. But what can one do? There is no Santa Claus.). Some words are sweet but unprofitable! True words are bitter but important. Some leaders may win elections by promising freebies but in reality, there are no freebies; you are just shifting money that needs to be invested in creating services and jobs. Also, it is a sad reflection on the quality of people that though 30 million Indians travelled abroad in 2019, only 15 million paid income tax. What kind of budget is this?  If we make a tamasha of our country, it would become so.

Seeing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro as the Chief Guest on this Republic Day brought back memories of my meeting with Brazilian President Lula da Silva when he had visited India in 2004 as the chief guest on the Republic Day. President Kalam told President da Silva about my work in making medical consumables affordable as technology spinoffs. President da Silva held my hand for a long two minutes with a grip of affection and admiration, not commonly seen in people holding high offices. I could feel the absent little finger on his left hand that he had lost while working in a factory when he was 19 years old. The picture is posted in the Journal on my blog.

President Kalam was a big fan of President Lula. Earlier in 2002, he presented to President Lula, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award and talked about him to me many times. He was particularly impressed with Embraer, a Brazilian company that had developed a passenger aircraft right from the design, development, manufacture, sale and after-sales support for the aircraft. There are over 5000 Embraer aircraft operating in 80 countries including India. We can never make a civilian aircraft, Dr Kalam would lament. 

On the verge of starting his candidacy for the 2018 election, which he was favored to win, Lula da Silva was arrested and sentenced to 12 years in prison, convicted of ‘passive corruption’, something that could never have happened in India. President Jair Bolsonaro defeated Lula’s replacement in the election. A Right-wing politician, Jair Bolsonaro won on the slogan, ‘Brazil above everything, God above everyone’ (Brasil acima de tudo, Deus acima de todos). 

Many comparisons come to mind. Both India and Brazil are large countries. They both have been colonized – India by the British and Brazil by the Portuguese. However, after Brazil became independent, first a monarchy and then the Military ruled over it with democracy stepping in and out for brief periods. Brazil is a stable democracy since 1985. At the economy level, both countries are abundant in natural resources as well as human resources. India and Brazil are part of BRICS, with Russia, China and South Africa as an alternative to the West-dominated world order.  Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Jair Bolsonaro are good friends of President Donald Trump; the BJP does not pretend about its ‘India first and God above everyone’ stance; and both have to strike a fine balance between the United States and China as their two largest trading partners. Interest rates are high in both economies and inflation has been a continuous threat. However, due to less population, in spite of being a smaller economy than India, Brazil enjoys four times the per capita income of India. 

The signs of both India and Brazil leaning towards the United States are apparent. More will depend on the result of the U.S. Presidential elections later in November this year. If President Donald Trump returns, we can see consolidation of the current trend. India, Brazil and the U.S. can be a formidable force in the new economic order to compete with China and thereby contain it, should any imperialistic ambition arise there. 

It is high time India got out of its dependency on Chinese imports. We import 50 billion dollars’ worth of goods from China every year and export hardly 10 billion dollars’ worth of mostly raw material. Our once famous pharmaceutical industry is precariously dependent on Chinese intermediate molecules and bulk drugs. Our solar energy is primarily based on Chinese solar panels. 

China continues to browbeat India. Neither is the resolution of our border dispute anywhere in sight, nor has China shown any slackness in supporting Pakistan by all means. It has not budged even slightly from its anti-India stance. Should India decide to correct its trade deficit with China, which it should in order to become a 5-trillion-dollar economy, China will surely rake up conflicts forever kept alive to be brought up and used at the right time. We therefore need to be strong in military, economy and a harmonious civil society, which we are currently not, and it is time to get serious about these matters. 

There are three goals new India has rightly set out for itself: a house for every family with tapped drinking water; doubling farmers’ incomes; and making the Indian economy a 5-trillion one, in a manner such that it solves the unemployment problem. All political parties should work together for these goals instead of creating confusion and confrontation over imaginary issues. India has seen and suffered due to the hollowness of certain policies and spells of inept governance. Something different is definitely needed now. 

Let all political parties calling hoarse that democracy is unsafe in India, ensure internal party elections. If the purpose of the opposition is to create only noise and confusion about whatever an elected government is doing in its term, then this is a misplaced notion of democracy. It should be clear that Indian citizenship comes with certain responsibility. India has to fight the powerful forces of globalization, a hostile neighborhood, and keep growing its economy, not at around 5%, but at around 10%. This is what Indian people seek from its leaders, and not the rhetoric of saving the poor, the constitution and the country from the so-called threat to democracy. ‘India above everything, God above everyone’ is indeed a wonderful idea.

There is widespread dissatisfaction about the service sector. Complaints about bad plumbing, shoddy repairs, incompetence and rudeness of workmen are commonplace. Coaching centres and competitive exams make up the new education model. In hospitals, treatment is structured around packages. Skills are evaporating from work and courtesies, from social life. It is all about doing a job and being paid, buying and selling, zero-sum game, this is what I got, this is what I can give. In a civilization that talked about excellence in skill as a way to reach God – योग: कर्मसुकौशलम् (Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, 2.50), the fall is phenomenal. 

When I look back to my childhood, I recollect the respect that people commanded for their skills. Their skills gave them a status. Teachers were guardians. Workmanship was honoured. If the right workmen were not available, work was halted, or even postponed. Even a product like curd had made a shop famous. People were connoisseurs of fine taste. Everyone who was a vendor was addressed by a relation – uncle, brother etc. depending upon his age. The fabric of society was rugged as well as crafted – every yarn was well woven and in a pattern. 

Then middlemen started arriving – first in government services, then in business, in finding houses on rent, and finally in the services. Now, when you go to salon for a haircut, an employee attends to you. You don’t even ask his name. Neither is there a personal touch to his services, nor the sharing of experiences as he works. In condominiums, there is a clubhouse where you occasionally meet your neighbours – no one has time for personal exchanges because everyone is either watching TV or online. Food is more ‘ordered’ than ‘cooked’. Supply chains have become so long that you can’t see from where they start. We eat fruits coming from New Zealand and no one sheds a tear when one more guava orchard is cleared to build another suburb.

When I visited China in 2002, my host Ji Ping, who later translated Wings of Fire into Chinese, told me that Beijing is truly a great city. I asked him what makes it so and he shared with me a profound truth. He said, a city is great if these five are accessible by walking – provision store, barber shop, doctor, school and park. Beijing may have a population of 2 crores, but these five services are still available at walking distances. How many of our cities provide this ‘luxury’? UKG-LKG children riding school buses is the new order. There are no more family doctors taking care of fevers and bowel irritation. For everything, there is a specialist. Even Cardiology has multiple super-specialties within itself.  

So, instead of coming together, as I was imagining in my first blog post in the new year in a good mood, we are indeed fragmenting ourselves. Joint families have long broken down into nuclear families. Now the model is – individuals living together. Because reality is biting, we are living more in the virtual – a world where there are only ‘likes’, chat rooms which are more of echo chambers, and we hear back only what we say – I am OK? You are OK! I love you! I love you too! We watch only those channels that talk about our political tastes. No one cares about the truth anyway! We go by opinion polls. If a greater number of people talk about something, it must be really good! How do I know? I am not even sure if I can think properly. 

Where have we lost track? It is a very serious question which ought to be asked because if not asked and answered now, fixing it later will not be possible. 

First, we degraded our poor people. The rich have coolly withdrawn from social welfare. No more charitable colleges, hospitals and hostels have been set up off late. Then crafts were gone. Our darjees our halwais are all replaced by brands. Then we degraded our teachers. This led to the degradation of what was being taught in schools. An education app has become the ubiquitous teacher and the mobile phone – a part of the human soul. Every emotion has become a smiley – you don’t even have to feel fully; just choose one from the list. 

The cost of this is going to be enormous. What goes out, returns. Most of us will not be allowed to even die properly. Life will be extended somehow every time you fall sick. What if your life savings go to the hospitals? Every chronic disease will be treated up to 100 years or more, further adding up the treatment of the side effects of the medicines. Our minds seem to be hacked and our bodies are commoditized, and the worse part of it is that we seem to be fine with this. 

So, we really need to take a pause. Let us switch off the TV and mobile phones one evening and cook together, sit together and eat together with the entire family, and make everyone speak for 10 minutes – tell a joke, a story, recite a poem, sing a song or narrate an experience. Let us have just one session to know what is going on in the lives of our loved ones. 

We came into this world through our parents. They did the best for us in their conditions. We also did what we could to raise our children well. The problem is the increasing loss of control. Our children are losing control over the way they raise their children. Invisible forces are raising herds, folks, zombies, little consumption machines, whose preferences are being defined like ice-cream flavors, so that things are mass-produced and sold online. The education that is being sold to our children will neither help them get jobs, nor make them good citizens, nor even make them smart. The healthcare that is being sold to us is to extend our life somehow so that we remain customers of pharmacy and diagnostic labs and not to make us healthy. 

So what can one do? Let us inculcate some basics. Ensure that you sleep for eight hours every day, come what may. There should not be any electronic gadget in your bedroom. Eat only the food for which you can see the starting point of the supply chain. Go for alternative medicine for treating chronic diseases. Live where the five things told by my Chinese friend are available within walking distance. Spend time with your family and meet your friends in person and not through social media. Look more into the mirror on your wall and not into the dark mirror of your computer, TV or mobile phone. Your life is your biggest asset. Your soul is your real identity. Serve your soul and the world around you will change for good. 

Year 2020 is bringing with it a feeling of déjà vu. In the 1990s, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was writing a book on how India could become a developed country and how long it would take. We estimated a time frame of about 25 years. When I took him to L. V. Prasad Eye Institute for an ophthalmic examination, while testing his eyes, Dr. Taraprasad Das shared with Dr Kalam ‘20/20’ as the term used to describe perfect sight. “If you have 20/20 vision, you can see clearly at 20 feet what should normally be seen at that distance,” he said. And sitting there, Dr Kalam decided to name his book India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium. The book became a bestseller and today, when 2020 has finally arrived, I am reminded of this great visionary.

What I learned under the tutelage of Dr Kalam is that waiting for conditions around you to change is a futile exercise, a real waste of life. The challenge is not to change the outer conditions, but the inner conditions; not the society, but the community; not even the community, but family; and in the family, your own self, your day to day experience. This is where everything begins. Dr Kalam was very fond of a saying of Chinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 BCE) and made it very popular through his speeches. 

If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. 
If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. 
If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nations. 
When there is order in the nations, there will be peace in the world.

If you are paying attention to the God essence, living, ticking inside you, you will be able to make sense of all that is happening around you. Nothing is random, unnecessary and irrelevant. Every single experience, especially the unpleasant ones are there to be experienced and done away with. Running away from them, avoiding them, and reacting to them are wrong choices. We must respond to whatever life brings before us, every moment. It starts with sunrise – everyone must be out of bed before the sun appears on the horizon and welcome the source of all life on our planet. Procrastination is the original sin; all the muck gets build up around that. As you humbly attend to what a day brings, you grow and evolve every day. 

I see cognitive surplus as the biggest problem mankind is facing today. In the name of information, garbage has been littered everywhere, defiling even the purest and youngest minds. Through electronic media, people are being turned into desire machines – hungry ghosts, to use a Buddhist term. Unsatiated desires are making people angry. Angry people resort to violence – both inwardly as depression and self-inflicting addictions and outwardly as rage. Violence creates suffering – both for the doer and the victim. Modern society has accepted violence: films are glorifying gory fights and killings, sports involving violence like boxing and wrestling have become popular. Stored already in the unconscious mind, violence, then gets expressed at the most insignificant stimuli and trivial provocation.  

So, what could be the 20/20 vision of your life? See yourself as a fragment of the Supreme Consciousness that runs this universe. Your thoughts are the way to operate upon this consciousness, to tap into the energy of the cosmos and bring it into your life. Everything is on the move, changing every moment, especially your inner being. With every breath, with every heartbeat, your life is extended. With every thought, you are creating your future and, in that manner, assuming responsibility and liability for your decisions. 

Also, let me share with you the 20/20 vision of God. God is not out there, but inside us. We are all living in God. We are all guided every moment of our lives. Our problem is our insensitivity towards receiving the guidance. The distractions, a little too many off late, due to Internet-driven mobile phones among other things, shield us from this guidance. The purpose of life is to experience life, to respond to it openly as it presents itself, and put our best efforts into making it meaningful not only for ourselves, but also for the whole of mankind. 

I consider the 47th Shloka of the 2nd chapter of the Bhagavad Gita as the ultimate code of life.

कर्मण्ये वाधिकारस्ते, माफलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफल हेतुर्भू, माते सङ्गोऽस्त्व कर्मणि।।

There are four operative statements embedded here: (1) Attend to what life presents before you, perform; (2) Don’t worry about results, they depend on something beyond your comprehension most of the time; (3) Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities; and (4) Inaction is not an option. 

Your health is first and foremost. Eat healthy food, get enough exercise, think good thoughts and keep your body and mind clean. Feel and express your emotions; never repress them – cry, laugh, jump, shout, sing, dance, whatever, do not hold back. Attend to your duties, towards your own self, your family members, colleagues, and all those people, even strangers, who cross your path in life. Never worry about results, gains and losses. What is yours can never be withheld by any power on earth; what is not yours, even if you do get it somehow, will be lost. Oneness is not a characteristic of life. Life is the characteristic of Oneness.