Swecha Bharat

For many hindus Panchatantra is no stranger. But how many know many of the surviving historical manuscripts of Panchatantra are found in Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Iran; Oxford library, Indian Office Library, London (UK); Tibet and Japan, etc.? Its author Vishnu Sarma (200 BCE-300 CE) was blessed with most translations of any Bharatiya vignaan among the Indo-European and Indo-Persian language families.

As many know, "pancha" in Sanskrit means five and "tantra" is an "upaya" or a stratagem. The five being Mitra-bheda (The Loss of Friends), Mitra-lābha (The Acquisition of Friends), Kākolūkīyam (The Crows and the Owls), Labdhapraṇāśam (The Loss of Gains), Aparīkṣitakārakaṃ (The Rash Deeds).

Preceding Panchatantra was Chanakya's (350 BCE) 5 upayas: sama (persuasion), dana (offering), danda (punishment), bheda (isolation) in the art of governance that were largely superseded by the later Panchatantra because of the harshness involved in them. But you still find them among the fraternity of nations. For instance Bharat is in the last two legs vis-a-vis neighbors.

Also, there is a difference between Vishnu Sarma's mitra-bheda that means doing the opposite of Dale Carnegie's advice in his book "How to Win Friends And Influence People", and Chanakya's bheda which means isolation such as the "sanctions regime".

After independence, Bharat used Panchsheel: respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence that were called "non-alignment", later "non-aligned movement" by including more nations. In reality, Bharat favored the former USSR over the USA, the two nations engaged in cold-war.

The "Global South", "BRICS", etc. are later refinements to primarily counter the US Dollar's supremacy. So when the talk of Tariffs was going on, Bharat fell back to Mitra-Labha and the EAM went around scouting for new markets and trading partners. The foreign jaunts of nouveau riche on Bharat's Air Force 1 are reminiscent of American tycoon Carnegie's diplomacy on his yacht to engage primarily China and Bharat. While China acceded to open up trade relations and prospered, Bharat lagged behind.

If there is a stark difference between these two neighbors, it is the lingua franca induced lack of orderliness. Bharat, while proud of its English, had subscribed to sloganeering under the guise of 5-year plans such as "Garibi Hathao" (remove poverty), "Beti Bachao" (save the girl child), etc. neglecting infrastructure and overall hygiene. While the former made leaps and bounds in the recent past despite fiascos like Indigo grounding its planes, the latter never sunk deep into the citizens as they were offered more slogans like "Swacha Bharat", "Vikshit Bharat", "Atma Nirbhar Bharat", etc. instead of investment in practical tools to raise the standards of living.

For instance, whenever the world leaders visited the capital, the likes of Madanpur Khadar and Kathputli Colony, that are collectively called slums, were kept out of sight with make-shift pardahs along the surface routes. At the same time humanitarians like Mother Teresa and Mira Nair were heckled for not providing bathroom tissue to the slum dwellers instead of seeking fame and prizes.

So how to fix? While trickle-down economics by handing over public institutions to the oligarchs might work in the short-term, like Russia the GoI will bog down in unending border skirmishes throwing more "Agni Veers" in harm's way, for which the largely unemployed youth, who are enamored with government jobs that are synonymous with corruption, are to be blamed . The self-employed shouldn't be subsisting on "Pakora Stalls" without knowing nutritional value and basic hygiene, both of which can be fixed, like in China or Singapore, with incentives and repercussions rather than saddling with a GST. In other words, use Chanakya's precepts for internal affairs rather than making speeches in the General Assembly or informal press conferences by the select coterie to show "Swecha Bharat" or an utopian land of freebies from the leaders.

Regards