We are a nation at cross roads.  The more we imagine ourselves to be very progressive, the more we are back to square one.  Yet, in spite of all political games, in spite of all nonsense of our politicians and atrocious businessmen like Vijay Mallya, we are duty bound to salute our nation on so many counts, and feel proud that this society is something that we should be proud about.

Here is why, and only some aspects are sought to be discussed in this article. 

The first and foremost aspect that we are a big democracy and the most important democracy in the world, as we are always pitched against China, the competitor on the global arena, which is a typical Communist country and does not qualify on even the basic human rights.  In spite of the power of the State to act against dissent, the Courts have mostly upheld the values of democracy and human rights in particular.

So, we need to thank the great people who wrote our Constitution.  They had ensured that our democracy will survive against heavy odds, even if we pay a huge price.

The second aspect of our Indian society is our tolerance, and this can be attributed to the huge reliance and belief in God, and our cultural practices.  For instance, the concept of Karma is sought to be the foundation of most of our religious practices and there are millions who swear by this concept. 

For instance, the TVS group of companies believe in this concept and follow the concept of trusteeship propounded by Mahatma Gandhi, to a large extent.  The organization's group company called Sundaram Finance, holds a record of two thousand rupees in fixed deposits.  The interest money is paid right on the first day of the month, and if the day is a holiday, on the previous working day, and is directly credited to the savings accounts of the fixed deposit holders.  The faith and trust reposed by the depositors, is always symbolic of Trust, the T in the symbol of TVS.

This tolerance finds a huge reflection in the way we react to even the most horrible violence.  Life goes on, and people come together to do all that they could to save lives, to help those who are affected.  In Mumbai or Chennai, the situation is the same.  Riots in Mumbai and floods in Chennai, are two outstanding events where humanity was seen in abundance. The caring and sharing is what keeps our country going on.

The third aspect is the kind of spiritual values that we hold at any point in time.  There are countless number of Gods and Godmen, and spirituality is there for all to see.  This helps everyone to be grounded in reality, and this contributes to the relative peace that obtains in our Indian society.

The fourth aspect is the way we, the middle class Indians in particular, give huge importance to the education of our children.  Countless stories have been recorded of mothers who starve to save that little bit of money to feed and educate their children, even in municipality schools.  In fact, the rags to riches stories are very well recorded and stories of Indians doing so well abroad abound.  All this is possible, only because our educational system still contributes something to our quality of higher education, irrespective of whatever hurdles we may face.  If we do not have some basic merit in it, how is that we have had world-class economists, lawyers, scientists, information technology professionals, and so on?

The fifth aspect of our society is the concept of unity in diversity.  We may make any number of regional noises.  Karnataka may not give water to Tamil Nadu, but thousands of people from Tamil Nadu are employed in so many IT companies in Bangalore.  The South of India is now home to hundreds of thousands of uneducated but skilled or trainable people from the North of India, who are employed in the thousands of hotels, in the construction projects, in the various metro projects in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad and so on.  We learn to appreciate the finer aspects of different cultures, and we somehow manage to tolerate a huge amount of cultural differences, accepting people and their cultural aspects for whatever they are. 

We, as a Nation, owe it to our forefathers who made the villages the nurseries of growth.  For such a huge country, neglecting agriculture is just not too good. Even today, the importance that we give to agriculture has to be seen to be believed, which is our sixth aspect, and the most important one.

So, we have countless stories of Information Technology professionals quitting their regular high paying jobs, buying up a few acres in villages near small towns, and going in for organic farming practices.  This is all for good and will help the cause of food security, in both the short and the long term. 

One really hopes that we have a huge number of professionals showing interest in agriculture.  This will help us to maintain a balance and will go a long way in our going back to nature.

The list goes on.  But what is important is that there is a great inherent strength in our democracy which helps us going from strength to strength, even if there are problems.  For instance, witness the huge self-employment opportunities that have come to even villages, thanks to the cell phone revolution.

We owe it to our own society, the way we have organized ourselves, the way our forefathers have taught us some values.  This hope, which is a very big hope, will simply keep growing stronger and stronger. 

What we need to do is to believe in ourselves, believe in the power of our democracy.  This is the basic belief that will keep us going.

And of course, each of us have to do our bit to keep the spirit going, in our small little ways.  Once we start doing this, we will have done something more important -- we would have grown much larger than caring only for ourselves.