India in Transition - Society & Culture

For over sixty years, in few areas, has the idea of India been more strongly challenged as in the tiny state of Nagaland, located well east of Kolkata (Calcutta). It was here that the first shots for an independent breakaway nation were fired within a decade of India securing independence from Britain in 1947.

Public Interest Litigation (PIL), which aims to use the courts to advance social justice, began in India about thirty years ago when procedures for expanding access to justice were developed. The judiciary, aiming to recapture popular support after its complicity in Indira Gandhi’s declaration of Emergency rule, encouraged litigation concerning the interests of the poor and marginalized.

Although nowhere near as high profile or politically dramatic as the 2008 Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, India’s proposed $10 billion procurement of 126 medium multirole combat aircraft (MRCA) may have a much more profound impact on India’s strategic relations, particularly if a U.S. Platform – either Lockheed’s F-16 E/F or Boeing’s F/A-18 E/F – is selected as the winning bid.

Both economically and socially, Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s largest state, has become the nation’s greatest backwater. At over 170 million people, more than 16 percent of India’s population resides in UP, though it accounts for only 6 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Dalits in India demand more state intervention for improvements in their living conditions. This demand, however, goes completely against the grain. In contemporary thinking, post-structuralist and neo-liberal perspectives, for different reasons, do not put a premium on the state.

Like the Big Ten or the Ivy League in the U.S., there are ten to fifteen engineering institutions of similar excellence in India. These Tier I institutions include the older IITs, such as the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. After that, there are about fifty Tier II colleges, which include most of the National Institutes of Technology (former Regional Engineering Colleges) and some of the older engineering colleges. Tier III includes over a thousand engineering colleges, some of which are government funded, though most of which are private.

A slow but unstoppable change is taking place in India. It will affect everything people do, the very way they live and work. Yet, there does not seem to be much awareness of it, much less any visible action. No, I’m not talking about climate change, but the ongoing urban expansion.

If a broad profile were to be drawn of the common experience of growing up female in Indian society, it would highlight physical restrictions as well as mental or psychological negativity communicated to little girls from birth onwards. A son’s birth is greeted with celebration while a daughter’s birth is at best, endured.