WINDS OF CHANGE

This is then the sketch, in rather swift and broad strokes, of the political strategy and its achievements and failures in the fifties and the sixties. Some of the failures flowed from the strategy we adopted but many of which were due to an insufficient appreciation of the social and economic environment we had to deal with. Thus, although we had started by saying that from many points of view the question of a strategy for the seventies would appear irrelevant because we do not visualise any change in the goals of the republic, rapid survey of the fifties and the sixties shows that, far from being irrelevant, the question of a new strategy for the seventies needs to be squarely faced if we are not to depart substantially from the goals we have set before ourselves. The reason is simple. The strategy for the last two decades was geared to the necessity of providing a firm base for rapid industrial and technological advance and to that of the growth of an open competitive political system which would combine effective governance with the freedom of dissent. The infrastructure for rapid economic growth is now available and only a new strategy can combine rapid growth with a more even distribution of its benefits. Similarly, a new political strategy is necessary to articulate more effectively the aspirations of the under-privileged and the neglected sections of the national com­munity. Not only is it necessary to give them a sense of partici­pation in the shaping of national policies, but it is also important that politics of the seventies give them dignity, individually and collectively. We have sought to raise them from their low social and economic condition; we should seek to create a sense of pride among them as part of the national community which they did not have throughout these centuries of their existence. In other words, economic betterment without real social equality and social dignity, will not succeed in giving to the political system the strength and the stability which it needs to cope with the manifold and challenging tasks of the closing decades of the twentieth century. Similarly, a new strategy is called for to deal with the divisive forces in our society, whether such forces base themselves on caste or religion or region. In this case too, the hope that steadily increasing material goods will of themselves produce situation in which different communities live in peace and harmony with each other has been shown to be illusory. We need a much closer analysis of the functioning of our political and social organisations to diagnose who and what puts up the barricades of misunderstanding and distrust across which only blind violence speaks. And lastly, looking ahead into the seventies, one cannot visualise any trends which will render the task of guarding national security less onerous than it is today. However, in this field too, a certain flexibility of approach has to be combined with unceasing preparations to build up our armed strength so that we can take advantage of the new configuration of forces in world politics. Let us now try a brief analysis of each of these three propositions.