Capt Eddie Viegas
This has reference to the article “Congress preserved democracy because of which Modi could become PM” (Herald Feb 7). Gratefulness is certainly not one of our strong points of character within the ambit of Indian politics. It was Cicero who said “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
Indeed if we look back to the period of the 1970’s and earlier, which is just about 40 years ago, India was in a state where we had not enough to eat. Food grains were imported from abroad. The rice that was supplied in the fair price shops was full of stones and other materials. Every family had to spend a lot of time and effort to clean this rice before being cooked. Items like scooters and cars were not within the reach of the common man. One had to pay the full price of the vehicles and wait for a few years for the Vespa, Ambassador or Fiat which were the only items available in the market. Telephone was a status symbol and even if one had a telephone it was mostly a piece of decoration. The common term was “My telephone is dead”. Some people had the good sense of humour to conduct funeral ceremonies for the dead telephones. A lightening call from Goa to Bombay took more than 6 hours to get connected if you were lucky. Often the call had to be cancelled. If at all you got a chance to talk or rather shout into the phone, the cost was a massive Rs 180 for three minutes which was an equivalent of a weeks salary for a common man.
Despite the various allegations of corruption and feudalism pressed against the Congress in the last few years, there is no doubt that it was the vision of Indira Gandhi and later Rajiv Gandhi that got India to the present state of advancement. While going cashless and digitisation are given a lot of thrust today, it was “roti, kapda aur makan” that not only made India self-sufficient in food but we are in a position to export food grains to other countries today.
Rajiv Gandhi’s thrust towards modernisation saw the transformation in the automobile, telecommunications and the computerisation of India. While a distance of about 180 km between Goa and Belgaum used to take us 8-10 hrs of travelling time, due to the improvement in roads and vehicles we can cover this distance within 3 hrs by privately owned vehicles today. Today every labourer, housewife or student owns a mobile and one can talk to any part of the world for almost no or little cost.
