Having worn the nation’s sacred olive green uniform for nearly 41 years with undying pride, many thoughts swirl these days around my ageing mind! Mostly happy ones, but certainly a few which also do intensely agitate! Am sure similar thoughts would be raging the consciousness of millions of ordinary Indians who love their country and would be wondering on the futility of actions which slow us down from a deserving seat on the global high table.

India, unquestionably, is on the cusp of becoming, sooner than later, a global power, but why then habitually do we create problems to stifle the march towards our destiny?

When the British rulers left in August 1947, we were virtually penniless, devoid of basic necessities and facilities and with governing structures more or less non-existent. The cataclysmic partition of the country was based on the ill-founded concept of the ‘two nation theory.’ This had left millions of Hindus and Sikhs migrating to India with large numbers of Muslims moving to what then became Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands among this population were mutually butchered and properties of each other burnt and destroyed.

From the ashes of this humungous catastrophe, efforts commenced by the Nehru-led Indian government to establish the structures of governance, restore law and order and commence working towards development. That trend continued with all successive governments thereafter working to put the nation on the path of economic growth despite formidable myriad odds.

And today,........

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