What is the happy reality of our generation?
12.06.2025 05:34
I know that some will cavil that I am ignoring I. K. Gujral, Chandrasekhar, Deve Gowda, Morarji Desai, even the redoubtable A.B. Vajpayee’s stint as PM. But bear with me, for the moment. This is done on purpose and to make comparisons simpler.
1964- 1984–1991 ( Roughly Indira/ Rajeev Gandhi)
> Leaders such as Nehru, Rajaji, Morarji Desai etc. were held to the highest standard and they fulfilled that expectation. The idea that they were corrupt was unthinkable, any more than the thought that one’s parents had sex with each other. It was an age, in retrospect, of “innocence” and not just at the level of us kids.
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I’m going to attempt to taxonomy “Generations” in India as below.
The first flush of aaya rams and gaya rams were creeping into the body politic of our legislature and that is when I left for the USA and that was almost 50 yrs. ago.
Everything is available today without any delay. You have the money, you got it in today’s India.
Boys and Girls these days are not afraid to be friends to each other (My opinion overall a good thing)
As far as the vast majority of Indians, who lived from hand to mouth, there was hope and relief in a plethora of laws passed.
The big Cities have gotten bigger and is almost unlivable now, traffic wise.
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> Indian Political leaders, for the most part, were all men and some women of the highest educational and moral Calibre at all levels.
Now of course,Today Secularism to many is a dirty word and so is Socialism;
1991- 2014 ( P.V. Narasimha Rao/ MMS)
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> Idealism reigned supreme, about the Govt. and it people and why not?
I will also assume that this question is posed vis a vis my generation and compare that to conditions faced by generations today.
Young Kids have a lot of money these days and are getting married much later.
> River Dams, Public Sector undertakings, Five year Plans galore, HMT, HAL, ITI etc. gave us the aam aami the euphoric feeling that we were on the right track to our deserved place as a great power in the comity of nations.
Study of Law (so important in my Dad’s generation gave way to Engineering and Medicine)
Newspapers also heavily censored themselves- clashes were referred to as “communal disturbances” between two communities. No details.
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Foreign goods, forget about it, mostly sold in black markets.
Now folks on Quora have undoubtably heard the so-called term “Boomer Generation” used in the US. Interestingly enough these time periods dovetail quite nicely with “Indian Conditions” as well.
>Both Central and State. Most of the Leaders were educated in the finest traditions of liberalism, often at Oxford and Cambridge and they had sacrificed their ‘cushy futures” for the cause of independence. When country’s rule passed into their hands, what would one expect?. Little if any corruption at the highest levels, or at least the perception of it.
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The Airports have gotten better and nicer.
> India’s population was around 365 million.
Your parents chose your career path and also your profession. Aptitude be damned.
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5 Star hotels are dime a dozen.
> “Secularism” was dinned into our ears until it became “second nature”, to most of us anyway.
Even though inflation was rising, there was a semblance of stability in the daily routine of everybody. The institutions and arms of the Govt. worked for the most part. Judiciary, Police, Govt bureaucracy etc.
Hospitals everywhere in India, with excellent care offered.
On a personal level.
Computers were just creeping in and opposed by the Labor Unions.
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Love marriages were all to be ‘gasped at’ so rare were they at that time.
Women in India seem to have more freedom, even as they feel more afraid of the general environment.
> The horrors of Partition meant that the Govt would make sincere efforts to put all that behind us and accommodate all faiths.
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Govt. careers, such as IAS, IPS etc. very quickly gave way to Engineering /Medical degrees in the newly developing India (At least in the South).
Live in relationship; Divorce (almost unheard of in my youth) don’t raise an eyebrow.
Bank Jobs were highly sought after.
The first flush of enthusiasm of the Nehruvian age soon turned into despondency as Public Sector Industry after Public Sector Industry were all running in losses.
And then we did not have Google, Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram.
IIT’s had just been established.
Live-in, LGBTQ, none of these made the headlines.
South Indian Films have now gained an All India Traction and seems to be edging out Bollywood, as it portrays less of a fake India than Bollywood.
We had to wait for everything. Cars, Scooters, you name it. Nehru’s socialism meant that like the Soviet Union that he admired: There was a wait list for everything.
Medical Insurance have proliferated along with US style expensive Doctor Bills.
2014- Present ( Modi).
People got married the old fashioned way (mostly).
There are Engineering Colleges in almost every street corner, it seems.
Import Substitution was the mantra.
Nehruvian: I belong to the Nehruvian Generation.
2014- Present
There was no TV… Doordarshan of very poor quality only reserved for New Delhi.
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1947–1964 ( Post Independence Generation). (Roughly Nehruvian)
Hindi Cinema had some great songs and tunes, even if many of us in the South especially didn’t understand such words as Ishq, Waqt, Zulf in the Hindi songs.
It was very very hard for the general category people to get seats in the few Engineering and Medical Colleges in the State, let alone the IIT’s.
> We grew up basking in the first flush of the pleasant prospect of an “Independent” resurgent India.
The middle class was small, but not that stressed from inflation etc.
Education has gotten so much more expensive.
Redefined
South Indian Cinema had great actors and story lines that we could relate.
I will first attempt to use the nomenclature used to distinguish “generations” -albeit from a Desi Slant.
Indian Media is being controlled by a few business houses and the news especially foreign news is presented in a slanted way to suit the way, the Govt. would like it to be seen or not seen at all.
Also, the Indian Economy while growing fast, is not able to provide jobs for sizable number of young men in the nation and that is a problem.
Foreign Exchange were so hard to come by in case you had to go abroad.
Boys and Girls were strictly segregated.
Very few boys strayed and even fewer girls.
There is a general atmosphere of intolerance towards minorities, with people unafraid to say things that would’ve been unthinkable in my day.
There are also proliferation of IT cells that offer an altered reality of the world, as they would like to see it and not as it really is.
Many Indian Journalists have now been co opted so that they too are now in the money making business and currying favor with the powers that be. So how objective can their writings be?
Pluses:
Life went on in essentially as a late 19th/early 20th century mold.
Five Star Hotels were not as ubiquitous as today.
Ministers etc. were the only ones to have the Indian Flag on their bonnets. (Don’t know why?)
Indian industry started to make cars and other goods.
Schools were fewer. Universities even fewer.
It was to me, anyway, a relatively chaste period.
Growing up in this decade.