It’s nice to see how India’s march towards global dominance was unrestricted over the past 12 months
Rescue officials pose after successfully evacuating 41 workers from the Silkyara tunnel, in Uttarkashi, on November 28. Pic/PTI
The rescue of 41 workers trapped in the under-construction Silkyara tunnel for more than 16 days was the icing on a very large cake. There will probably be a one-off episode of Mann ki Baat dedicated to this in the coming year but, until that happens, I wanted to mention it because of how it capped another amazing year for India. It was another year in which we did more things, and built more things and won more things than most other countries combined. I don’t want to get into specifics, but I hope you get the picture.
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In fact, while writing this last column of 2023, I was overwhelmed with a strange sensation of how ordinary it now feels: to document this unending list of successes we have begun taking for granted. I also realised how boastful it was starting to sound, to proclaim time and again that India is now undeniably the world’s most successful country. I wonder when the rest of the world will tire of losing.
There were a few questions raised about the tunnel rescue that dampened my mood a little, but that is only to be expected in any nation that is doing so well. Critics wanted to know why and how those workers were trapped in the first place. They had questions about the company responsible for building the tunnel, why norms were allegedly flouted time and again, and why it took 16 days for a rescue. I’m glad the media did its job and focused only on what mattered, such as the meal served to workers after they were pulled out. It reminded me that we now have robust systems in place to ensure that all Indians are trained to look at every glass as half-full, even if the glass in question is completely empty.
I think this attitude has come down to us from countries that have practised it for decades. Take America, for instance, and how it has conned so many for so long into assuming it is the greatest nation on Earth. The recent death of one of its biggest criminals, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, only proved how much we can still learn from them about the art of putting lipstick on a pig. This is why the much-televised victory parade for rescued miners seemed like such a step in the right direction. We are, slowly but surely, beginning to recognise that missing the wood for the trees is the only way forward for a country as progressive as ours.
To try and list the good things that happened in the country over this past year would take up more space than an entire newspaper, let alone a single column. It makes more sense for me to cherry-pick a few off the top of my head. There was the fact that we have eliminated hunger, for instance, as one of our ministers pointed us a few months ago. We also reiterated our commitment to human rights by keeping only a small number of journalists and activists in jail. Then there was the cricket world cup, which we almost won and should probably take credit for anyway because this was the first time in history that we came so close to winning. There are other achievements related to poverty, corruption, infrastructure and healthcare, but I will leave those for another day because there is such a thing as too much good news for one column to handle.
If India continues down this path, who is to say what the next decade will bring us all? We are already scheduled to receive lakhs in our accounts any day now, and the benefits of demonetisation are also supposed to kick in soon, which may see our colourful rupee replace the dollar as the global currency standard by as early as 2026. There are also signs that we may have the same political leaders for the next decade or so, thanks to the steady dismantling of pesky and outdated concepts related to bureaucracy and democracy, all of which makes the future seem brighter than ever.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs, 225,620 Indians gave up their citizenship in 2022 but only 87,000 had given it up by June this year, which is another sign that the number of believers in the Great Bharat Dream 2.0 is on the rise. Here’s to another 12 months of good news, and nothing but good news. I wish you a happy new year.
When he isn’t ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper
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