Welcoming 2024: How India is experiencing a silent ‘Triveni’ revolution in politics, science and civilisation

Revolutions are mostly bloody and abrupt. There is a seething undercurrent in the people and when a man of the hour appears, not generally by design but through a confluence of coincidences and circumstances, he sets off cataclysmic changes that overturn many, if not most, of the instrumentalities of the ancien régime. Modern history, and by that I mean the period over the last 500 years, has witnessed many such violent changes that fundamentally changed the lives of common people. Typical examples are the French, American and Russian Revolutions. Other political changes in the last century that have not been given this ‘revolution’ epithet would certainly qualify for it, for example the regime changes in Turkey, China, Iran, Afghanistan and the USSR. Other revolutions are more silent but their effects are as momentous. These, for the most part, are somewhat apolitical—the Industrial Revolution and the Silicon Revolution being the most important ones in recent times. The independence of India was a political event of course but it was relatively bloodless except for the fallout of the partition. Its significance lay in that it triggered a chain reaction in Asia and Africa that resulted in the dismantling of Europe’s 500 year colonial enterprise, leading eventually to its ongoing economic collapse. In post-independence India we have associated colours like green, white, pink and blue with various revolutions that have had transformational economic impacts and improved the quality of life for countless millions.

A ‘Triveni’ moment India is witnessing another silent revolution today, and one that may be more accurately termed a triple revolution, a Triveni moment as it were. Political, economic and civilisational streams of thought and action have intertwined such that India is becoming Bharat—a new, more confident and self-assured nation, which is preparing for its Amrit Kaal moment by, let us say, 2047. India’s present spurt in economic growth is an outcome of many facilitating financial and fiscal systems being overhauled and reimagined, laying the foundation for sustained increases in prosperity. Digital payments, in which we are clearly the world leader, and the digital India initiative which has seen its moment in the G20 declaration, are clearly moves made by a country that can project itself confidently to be the author of the next generation of global digital public architecture and become the world’s third largest economy by say, 2030. Politically, we have matured considerably since 2014, as the merits of our constitution have begun to sink in because a single party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has had a simple majority in the Lok Sabha for nearly a decade now. The confusing coalition era, where sleazy compromises between coalition partners were mistakenly, even deliberately, conflated with an idea that finds no mention in our constitution—federalism—is an easily forgotten nightmare. A majority-driven parliamentary democracy, which is what the makers of our constitution envisaged for us, has finally taken root in our country, even as we will surely witness the political consolidation of a national alternative to the BJP and the decline and disappearance of small, hereditary, regional parties which have hitherto enjoyed undeserved power and pelf through their suffocating control of small caste and sectarian groups in a corruption-ridden pseudo-socialist scarcity economy. An unexpected focussing of the Triveni of ideas and actions was witnessed in 2023, in the area of science, technology and engineering, with the successful completion of the Chandrayaan-3 mission to the moon, and the Aditya L-1 mission for the observation of the solar corona. These endeavours have seen a long and laborious gestation, not uncommon in big scientific ventures, but what is unique here is that Bharat has sought and won a place for itself at the high table of the strategically critical area of space research. Revolutions that are silent sometimes reveal themselves in a single non sequitur happening, and when our moonlander safely placed itself on the hitherto unexplored South Pole of the moon, the whole country sensed and knew that its moment had arrived. The successful placement of the Aditya capsule in the Lagrange point for solar corona observation a few weeks later showed that these scientific efforts were not fluke events. A country that is economically and politically finding its feet will, sooner or later, begin to show itself in the world of science. This happened in Europe, America and China. It is now happening in India. Our civilizational values are asserting themselves The whole world has acknowledged the significance of the Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya L-1 missions, and has also realised that with successes of this type, the rise of India within the comity of nations is inevitable. It is no longer a matter of if but when. A similar expedition to the moon by Russia, a few weeks before ours, failed. Shortly after our successful landing, Japan announced its intention to embark on a similar activity. No testimony to our arrival on the world stage is greater, ironically, than the devastating effect that Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya L-1 have wreaked on the psyche of Pakistan. Collectively, the people there have realised the enormous difference between their failing project born of religious contempt and those from whom they seceded, and there is now no chance ever of them, forever jealous and inimical, catching up. The quietest aspects of our silent Triveni revolution have occurred in the civilisational sphere. For too long, an ancient, rich and proud civilisation, confident in its knowledge of the ultimate nature of human reality, was suppressed and crushed under the physical and mental yoke of strange aliens who had no concept of the holistic reality of Bharatavarsha. Perhaps it is this unquenched self-assuredness of Bharatiyas that has led us individually and collectively to a point where our civilizational values are asserting themselves uniquely in synergy with well accepted, contemporary political and economic paradigms. Methodologies for success are common to all countries and cultures. Strategies are not. It is our 5000 year civilisation and only our 5,000 year civilisation that can propel us not just to the third place in the world but even higher. The Sun and the Moon have played a very special role in all civilisations, cultures and countries. The whole world follows either a solar or a lunar calendar (with Bharatiya ones being both simultaneously). These two heavenly bodies have been held in worshipful esteem as controlling our actions and our minds. Astronomy sharpened the scientific instincts of humans from times past. Eclipses were predicted accurately from antiquity. Chemical elements were found spectroscopically in the solar flares before they were isolated on Planet Earth. Even within this spectrum of intellectual thought, Bharat has a very special place, at least in the eyes of the majority of its people. Just as we are children of Bharat Mata, it is instructive to recall the lyrics of the Carnatic music composer Muthuswami Dikshitar who refers to Devi, the supreme mother, as suryāgni chandra mandala madhya vāsini, the one who resides in the orbs of the sun, fire and moon. It is in these celestial orbs that Bharat is seeking its place, as we, its citizens, enter a new year with hope and humility. The author is in the Indian Institute of Science and has authored a book ‘Bharat: India 2.0’. Views expressed here are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._

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