All of us talk of India and all of us demand many benefits from India. What do we give her in return? ?India will be what we are. Our thoughts and actions will shape her. Born of her fruitful womb we are children of her?s, little bits of the India today, and yet we are also the parents of the India of tomorrow. If we are big, so will India be, and if we grow little-minded and narrow in outlook, so also will India be.? This is what Jawaharlal Nehru said on August 15, 1948. Today, looking back on the last 60 years of Independence, the political administration has betrayed India. But, in contrast, the entrepreneurship of dedicated and committed professionals has made us a nation on the verge of taking off to join the best and the brightest anywhere in the world.

In the ?40s and ?50s, our ?heroes?, men and women to emulate and learn from, were either in politics, the administrative services, or in social service. They had emerged from the struggle led by Gandhiji. They were astute culturally and intellectually. They had experimented with Satyagraha and succeeded in ejecting a coloniser. They had, however, in their impatience to attain freedom, agreed to a mindless division of an ancient and tolerant, diverse and plural cultural entity, an ancient civilisation that was alive and contemporary.

Today, the marksheet of our rulers and administrators is dismal and embarrassing. They have allowed and condoned the corrosion of our intrinsic strengths, reducing us to social anarchy, bestowing on us a defective infrastructure that has managed to exclude the majority and also isolate the privileged few from reality and truth. In contrast, the people of India have creatively worked by moving in and out of the many incomprehensible horrors, survived, grown and excelled. Private sector India is rocking, but the ?rulers? have failed at all levels, leading to rampant, unchecked anarchy and violent, intolerant chaos. The blame and responsibility rests squarely with that isolated class that has exploited and betrayed this young nation.

However, there are endless self-made men and women, new ?heroes? who are setting new precedents, employing and empowering people across all socio-economic strata. This week, Apollo Hospitals celebrated its 25th anniversary and

Dr Pratap Reddy, his 75th birthday. A young 75-year-old, he continues to dream, continues to engage with the changing needs and realities of India, continues to reach out to spaces in the rural countryside and small towns hitherto deprived of basic healthcare, continues to operate an inclusive ship, and is not bogged down by bad state infrastructure and unthinking government policies that have constrained the rapid development of India, rural and urban. He has empowered professionals and celebrated them. Counter this description with the bureaucracy and with ageing, insecure politicians whose policies, restrictions, mismanagement, corrupt practices, nepotism and endorsement of all that is sub-standard have wreaked such havoc.

There is still hope. Reduce government intervention, and let India move at her true pace. Remove the chains, and even the poor will be able to follow their dreams. The nonsense we have to hear about ?rich and poor? is the rhetoric of those who are holding India to ransom, having failed to deliver the basic tools that dignify life and living. To separate the rich and the poor is akin to partitioning India yet again. Instead, the state must pledge to do its job honestly and selflessly, provide a strong and functioning infrastructure, make sure that all municipal needs are met, and then leave entrepreneurial India to generate inclusive wealth.

The knowledge-based traditional legacy industries of this subcontinent must be protected first and developed with vigour, because they are the skills that validate the bedrock of our changing and growing civilisation for future achievements. Nehru was right and we need to right ourselves.

Read Next