Be it medieval era rulers or freedom fighters, past political leaders or places of worship, anything and everything becomes an issue. We are supposed to learn from history as it tends to repeat itself. It should not be used for divisive politics.
Divisive politics using the past as a tool can only yield short term dividends. But in the long run people are going to get tired of this and the establishment has to come back to basics – focus on development.
What happened 200 or 300 years ago is past. We can’t undo that. Today in 21st century, there are different and bigger issues that are being faced by the masses. Due to COVID and some contentious policy decisions like demonetisation, GST the country’s economy has already taken a massive hit. The Ukraine-Russia war has made the matter worse. Unemployment, price rise, crime against women and children, natural disasters caused by extreme weather events is already taking a huge toll on the common man. We need to sort out these problems first rather than look backwards every time.
Situation at the State-level is not any different from what is happening at the national level. Goa’s economy is in doldrums, be it lack of enough job opportunities for youth, lack of enough higher education institutes, constant damage to environment, mining dependents struggling for survival, rampant corruption – there are plethora of problems being faced by the people of Goa.
Despite the COVID exposing our broken health infrastructure, there is no effort seen on ground to set our public health infrastructure in order. Online education for two years meant a large number of students were left out of the formal education system. The lives of these children, who mostly belong to underprivileged sections of the society, have been pegged back by many years.
Farmers’ suicide remains a cause of concern. Along with cross-border terrorism, there is the problem of Naxalism that are bleeding the country internally. These examples are just tip of the iceberg. On top of these, we have a hostile and a volatile neighbourhood. Countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal are struggling, thanks to the Chinese debt trap. China is itself grappling with the resurgence of COVID, which means there are a lot more problems in store for the future. Instead of invoking the past every time, we have to prepare to tackle the challenges of the future, which are enormous and have no ready solutions in sight.
We take pride in our demographic dividend but there is very little action taken on engaging the youth and giving them the ideal ecosystem to grow and succeed. Employment opportunities need to be created at a large scale for not only the technology sector but also the non-technical sector.
The government has to go back to the drawing board and redraw its governance strategy. It has to get its priorities right. We are already seeing that questions are being posed about India’s policies at international platforms.
A country can progress only if the leadership and the citizens are living in the present and having a long-term vision for the future. Be it the rapidly changing geo-political situation around us, the depleting natural resources, and the growing impact of climate change, we need to have a plan of action for tackling these problems in the present situation and find solutions for the future. When the government is moving in the wrong direction, it is the duty of the citizens to remind the political leadership that they are here for the people. The citizens of this country can’t remain mute spectators and lament
Unless we the people assert our voice by voting for the right candidates who have a vision for the future, our growth story will remain stagnant.
