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Take, for example, Gandhi's native India, where he is considered the father of the nation. Today this country, which obtained its freedom through non-violent means, is infested with violence and intolerance. Unity and peace in India are under threat from violent forces that oppose each other in principle and in spirit. A country that once stood united against Britain, the colonial power that dominated its people, is alarmingly becoming divided and fragmented.
Fragmentation is happening on the basis of religion, ethnicity, caste, political affiliation and economic status. Even though India is the largest democracy in the world, the concept of democracy has a completely different meaning in India. Democracy, as practiced in India, is by no means the mandate of the majority but rather the wishes and dictates of the powerful. The political parties in India have reduced democracy to a drama that is enacted repeatedly with the script tailor made to fit the major political parties in the country. India today is under the grip of short-term political equations, forged to better suit the political parties and their myopic vision and not the people of the country.
This myopia is reflected in India's foreign policy as well. Although it is a country with an important role to play as a regional powerhouse within Asia, its approach toward its own neighbors is not that promising. India's recent policies concerning its neighbors can in no way be considered as promoting, protecting or fulfilling democratic values.
India's relationships with Myanmar and Sri Lanka are two typical examples. In the past few years, India has sold advanced attack helicopters to Myanmar's military junta and an extensive array of arms and materiel to Sri Lanka. Both countries are now in the midst of violent repression where the regimes in these countries are choking the life out of the ordinary people. While past experience keeps India at a distance from Sri Lanka and the dirty politics of that country, its foreign policy concerning Myanmar is blinded by India's petro-war with China over energy resources to fuel its economy.
At the same time, India is acquiring military and defense equipment worth billions of U.S. dollars from the international arms supermarket. In 2006, India signed arms purchase contracts for an estimated US$3.5 billion. The 2006 defense budget for procurements, to be directly made by the defense forces, was US$20.11 billion. While the defense of the country must be a priority issue, such a procurement budget is too high for a country where an estimated 70 percent of its population live in appalling conditions due to poverty, unemployment and malnourishment.
Today's polity is influenced not just by national sentiments. A government and its polices are influenced by external as well as internal pressures. The government of India in recent days is showing an increasing trend of adjusting its policies to suit the interests of external actors, particularly those from Western countries. If these policies would help the people within the country and the region, there would be nothing wrong in making structural adjustments to policies to suit a better world order.
When more than 70 percent of the population lives in poverty 60 years after independence, however, there must be something terribly wrong with the government's policies. Although the Indian government today is not at the unconditional disposal of any particular foreign power, what it lacks is the will and determination to implement policies that are beneficial to its own people and tolerant of the requirements of its populace.
The U.N. declaration proclaiming Oct. 2 as an International Day of Non-Violence requires its member states to observe the day as a remembrance of the state's commitment to promote non-violence, tolerance, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, democracy, development and mutual understanding and to recognize diversity as being interlinked and reinforcing.
These virtues are not strange and foreign to Indians. The preamble of the basic document that unites the country and declares it as a democratic and socialist republic -- the Constitution of India -- proclaims these values as the guiding principles for the country. But in India these virtues are forgotten. The period from 1947 to 2007 has seen the gradual erosion of these values, and the erosion now is at an alarmingly fast pace.
The result is a fragmented India that is internally being divided into various forms. While India and its people have little to emulate from their neighbors, it is time for Indians to reflect and look deeper into their own community, a community that forms a unique country. A deeper perspective and better understanding of his or her own country might not generate high esteem for the average Indian. Those opposed to this reality do not have to search for volumes of glossy articles written about the "shining India." They just have to look out their windows, a view that shows not only painful pictures of poverty and starvation but also violence and intolerance resulting in a loss of life that is omnipresent in the country.
Issues in India that often result in violence, such as caste-based discrimination, poverty, religious intolerance and ethnic conflicts, cannot be sorted out in a vacuum. These issues must be placed at the center of any government that is interested in promoting India as a rapidly developing nation. For these issues to become the focal point of a political agenda, the government of India must honestly seek to create an atmosphere of tolerance and understanding, two basic values that promote non-violence. It is only a country that promotes non-violence within its boundaries that can advocate the same beyond its borders.
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(Bijo Francis is a human rights lawyer currently working with the Asian Legal Resource Center in Hong Kong. He is responsible for the South Asia desk at the center. Mr. Francis has practiced law for more than a decade and holds an advanced master's degree in human rights law.)
