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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 9:59:04 pm

Edited Patriotism

Edited Patriotism In its decision to stick to the 1937 resolution and sing only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram at party events, the Congress party has once again exposed its deep discomfort with the vocabulary of Indian nationalism. The Congress Working Committee’s reaffirmation of the 1937 position came even as the Central government moved to accord the National Song a stronger legal status. The uncomfortable question is why Congress remains so eager to preserve a concession made...

Edited Patriotism

Edited Patriotism In its decision to stick to the 1937 resolution and sing only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram at party events, the Congress party has once again exposed its deep discomfort with the vocabulary of Indian nationalism. The Congress Working Committee’s reaffirmation of the 1937 position came even as the Central government moved to accord the National Song a stronger legal status. The uncomfortable question is why Congress remains so eager to preserve a concession made in an era when Muslim League opposition and the politics of communal appeasement exerted enormous influence over the national movement. Vande Mataram was not some obscure religious composition dragged into politics by the BJP. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s hymn is one of the great battle cries of India’s freedom struggle. Generations of freedom fighters embraced it as an expression of devotion to the motherland. Yet Congress leaders chose to dilute its public rendition after objections that references to Hindu deities could be considered objectionable or exclusionary. The present controversy has stripped away the pretence that this is merely about historical precedent. Rahul Gandhi was caught on a hot mic referring to the Congress rendition as “our version” of Vande Mataram. This is a breathtaking assumption. Vande Mataram is not Congress property, neither is it a Gandhi family possession. It is not a party anthem to be edited according to the sensitivities of its political managers. It belongs to the Indian people. What exactly does “our version” mean? Is there a Congress Mother India distinct from the India to which millions of Indians owe their allegiance? The answer lies in the Congress’s larger political ecosystem that has repeatedly treated Hindu cultural expression as something to be negotiated, diluted or apologised for, while accommodating the most regressive forms of identity politics in the name of secularism. The party, throughout its political history, has practiced appeasement dressed up as pluralism. The result has been a grotesque asymmetry where Hindu civilisational symbols were expected to become less Hindu so that nobody else would be offended, while Congress politicians cultivated constituencies through precisely the kind of communal calculations they publicly claimed to oppose. The Vande Mataram controversy is not really about whether Congress sings two stanzas or six. It is about whether the oldest national party can finally shed the political reflex that made Hindu sentiment the easiest currency of compromise. The Congress claims the legacy of the freedom struggle. It should remember that the freedom struggle was not fought to create a nation permanently apologetic about its own civilisation. India does not need Congress’s permission to love its motherland. And Vande Mataram certainly does not need Congress’s edited approval.

The New Independence


 

AI generated image
AI generated image

During the global semiconductor shortage, production of cars worth lakhs of rupees was disrupted because manufacturers could not obtain tiny chips costing a fraction of the vehicle's price. Factories slowed down, deliveries were delayed, and something smaller than a fingernail suddenly became a matter of national economic concern. There is a lesson here that goes far beyond semiconductors.


A country may have the money to buy a technology and still discover that it cannot obtain it. A supply chain can break. A geopolitical conflict can intervene. An exporting country can change its rules. What appeared to be another item of international trade can suddenly become a strategic vulnerability.


This is why Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day address deserves to be read for its larger science and technology message. Semiconductors, artificial intelligence, critical minerals, nuclear energy, quantum technologies, space, robotics, data centres, 6G and defence technologies appeared prominently in his vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat and Viksit Bharat. Together, they point towards a larger question: What does independence mean in an age when nations depend on technologies they may not control?


The answer cannot be to make everything ourselves. No modern country can do that, nor should it try. Science advances through international collaboration, and sophisticated technologies are built through global networks of knowledge, materials and manufacturing. The real issue is not dependence. It is dangerous dependence.


Technological independence does not mean technological self-sufficiency. It means possessing enough knowledge and capability that dependence does not become helplessness. Seen this way, Aatmanirbharta is not about withdrawing from the world. It is about participating in the world from a position of scientific and technological strength.


From Make to Discover

A semiconductor is perhaps the perfect example. India is now building a domestic semiconductor ecosystem. Fabrication plants are one part of a much larger enterprise. The industry also requires design capability, materials, equipment, skilled people, research and supporting industries. Building these capabilities together can transform semiconductor manufacturing into lasting technological strength.


‘Make in India’ provides the foundation on which ‘Design in India’ and ‘Discover in India’ can increasingly grow. ‘Discover in India’ takes us deeper to the foundations of knowledge itself. The science behind tomorrow’s technologies may initially have no obvious application. For instance, quantum mechanics was not developed to build quantum computers. Much of modern biotechnology rests on discoveries in basic biology whose commercial possibilities were not apparent when they were made. This is why fundamental research matters even in a discussion about technological self-reliance. A nation cannot remain a technology creator for long unless it is also a knowledge creator.


Another point is that while technology can be imported, a scientific culture has to be cultivated over decades through curious students, strong universities, excellent laboratories and the freedom to ask questions whose answers may have no immediate commercial value. The deepest form of technological self-reliance therefore begins not only in the factory, but also in the classroom and laboratory.


Artificial intelligence presents the same opportunity in a different form. The Prime Minister announced a programme to train one crore young Indians in AI skills within a year. Creating such a large AI-literate population could become a remarkable national asset. It can also provide the foundation for the next step, moving from widespread use of AI towards deeper capability in creating it.


India needs people who can use AI effectively, as well as researchers and engineers who develop models, computing systems and applications addressing Indian and global problems. India need not reinvent everything. But in technologies critical to our economy, security and future, scientific depth gives us the ability to understand what we use, improve it for our needs and create new solutions.


The Prime Minister placed technology and innovation among the seven Sapt Dhara for Viksit Bharat. Yet science now runs through virtually every development sector, from agriculture and manufacturing to defence, energy and the blue economy. Science is no longer one sector of development. It is becoming the operating system of development.


And every operating system needs power. AI systems require enormous computing resources. Data centres consume electricity continuously. Semiconductor fabrication is energy intensive. An advanced manufacturing economy needs abundant and reliable power. The emphasis in the Independence Day address on nuclear power, renewable energy, green hydrogen and energy security therefore complements the ambitions in AI, semiconductors and advanced manufacturing. The digital economy, for all its virtual appearance, ultimately runs on very physical electricity.


New Meaning of Swaraj

These connections tell us something important about technological self-reliance. Lasting technological strength comes from ecosystems in which different capabilities reinforce one another. India's space programme shows how such strength is built. It grew through decades of designing, building, testing, learning and strengthening institutions.


Scientific capability grows cumulatively. A semiconductor ecosystem, an advanced jet engine or a new quantum technology draws upon years of knowledge, skilled people, institutions and experience. Sustained national missions therefore have value far beyond their immediate targets. They progressively create scientific and technological capabilities that can serve the country for decades.


Government provides funding, infrastructure, policy, national missions and strategic direction. Their impact is multiplied when the entire innovation ecosystem participates. Scientists discover, engineers design, universities educate, entrepreneurs take risks, industries manufacture and investors provide patient capital. Most importantly, talented young people must believe that creating technology is as exciting and rewarding as using it.


That may be the deeper significance of the technological ambitions expressed from the Red Fort. When India became independent in 1947, Swaraj meant that Indians would determine India’s political destiny. Nearly eight decades later, Swaraj has acquired new dimensions in a technological age. Political independence gave India the freedom to choose its future. Technological independence will increasingly give us the capability to create it.


(The writer is an ANRF Prime Minister Professor at COEP Technological University, Pune, and former Director of the Agharkar Research Institute, Pune. Views personal.)

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