A NEW INDIA

A NEW INDIA Creative Mindset A FTER 1962, India and China became hostile to each other. But now, the equation between these two enemies has completely changed, albeit without the issuance of any formal communiqué to that effect. Now, in reality, India and China have become business partners, not rivals. This is on a parallel with the equation between the Muslims and Hindus of India. After partition, Hindus and Muslims in effect became not just each other’s rivals but each other’s enemies. One sign of this phenomenon was the communal riots that, after partition, were rampant all across India. But now, riots of this kind no longer appear in the headlines of our national dailies. They are no longer a burning issue. It was the demolition of the Babri Masjid that changed the minds of both communities, leading to the development of a positive relationship between Hindus and Muslims, who had both ultimately come to the conclusion that the demolition of the Babri Masjid had actually led to the decimation of the Indian economy. The Hindu community had ultimately to acknowledge that the Muslims, rather than being their rivals, were indeed their customers. And vice versa. After this discovery, the thinking of both Hindus and Muslims underwent a total sea change and they performed a complete about–turn. They started applying to each other that wellknown maxim: “The customer is always right.” One sign of this change is that the Hindu community has bought up prominent Urdu newspapers as Muslims bought up certain English newspapers after independence. After partition, because the Muslim community regarded the Hindus as antagonists and rivals, they allowed their own development in all fields to come to a standstill and, as a community in India, they became directionless. But now, mostly under compulsion, Muslims have performed a U-turn, without any declaration of a specific policy. Indeed, Muslims have accepted Hindus as their brother community rather than as their rivals. Muslims have emerged as a selfaware community of India, whereas prior to this, they had been lacking in any appropriate sense of their own value to the country.