“Since Independence, there has been significant progress in India: women and Dalits are less exploited and less discriminated against than at any time in the past 5,000 years. Political democracy, economic growth, development and urbanisation have slowly and steadily chipped away these inequalities,” said historian and author Ramachandra Guha here on Friday.
Delivering a talk ‘India at 70: a Historian’s Report Card’ as part of the [former Madras Christian College principal] Dr. Chandran D.S. Devanesan Endowment Lecture on the MCC campus, Mr. Guha said that cities had witnessed more changes since Independence. “Cities have seen more progress in this regard: young people today can find jobs independent of their caste and loosening of connection between family and marriage, which has resulted in women finding romantic partners of their own,” said Mr. Guha.
‘Immense contribution’
Pointing out that the non-cooperation movement was the first mass movement that included people of all castes, class, communities, linguistic backgrounds and religions in India, he said, “The movement cut across several boundaries. Workers and peasants, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis all took part. It also made an independent India possible.”
“It is here that leaders of non-cooperation defined what Swaraj could mean. Gandhi laid out four pillars: non-violence, abolition of un-touchability, Hindu-Muslim harmony and economic self-reliance.”
Addressing the gathering, N. Ram, Chairman, Kasturi and Sons Ltd, underlined the contribution of Christian institutions in India. “The role of Christian institutions is mightily important and we must underline their disproportionate contribution to public health and education,” he said.
“It is hard to pigeonhole Dr. Chandran D. S. Devanesan into a specific ideological position as he absorbed various streams of human thought, such as socialism and Marxism also,” Mr. Ram added.
CPI (M) Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat reminisced his student days at the college when Dr. Devanesan was the principal. “When I was editor of the college magazine, he never asked me not to publish something despite being well aware of my Leftist ideological bent. He had openness to all ideologies,” Mr. Karat said.
Speaking about the influence of Christianity and touching upon the contents of ‘Making of Gandhi,’ written by Dr. Devanesan, former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi said, “At the larger level of ideology, Gandhiji’s experience in South Africa made him realise that Christianity was different from colonialism and imperialism.
