To take a look at India at 100, I must try to keep in mind India at 25, India at 50 and India at 75. As I used to be born quickly after Independence, these quarter centuries of free India coincided with important private milestones. These durations of change decided and formed my life as it’s in the present day.

I grew up in Mumbai, an excellent cosmopolitan metropolis of the time. My college and faculty years mirrored an inclusive India. We had shortages and difficulties of many sorts, but it surely was one India. I’ve good reminiscences of the place we lived and the way we celebrated with one another, regardless of our age, gender, or beliefs. I went to the West to review additional however got here residence as I didn’t need to be peripheral to society. One genuinely believed one might make a distinction in lots of lives whereas conserving our price system intact.

The flip of the century introduced out a brand new India, much less remoted. Technology opened the world to us and that led to rising aspirations. In this new India, towers are rising, highways are unfurling, tunnels are being bored, bridges are being erected, and new desires are taking form.

I’ve three desires for India at 100.

The first: A big building web site. India is constructing houses for its 1.5 billion individuals. The architect is a lady, however so are also most of the building labourers. They are welding, tying the re-bars and supervising the final labour power. At night time they return to their labour camp which has electrical energy, water, and clear bogs with bathing areas. On their method residence, they choose up their youngsters from the positioning creche and the positioning college and acquire their every day wages which can be no totally different from that of males.

This will strengthen our workforce, and improve creativity and productiveness. After all, the motivation for inclusion shouldn’t solely come from the will to create a simply society but in addition as a result of it results in higher and more practical processes and options.

The second: The Mexican poet and diplomat Octavio Paz as soon as mentioned, “the past is not past, it is still passing by…”, that is true of India. The modern structure of India in the present day is the constructed expression of an interplay between our wealthy previous and our current international tradition. We must be guardians of our constructed and unbuilt surroundings. I consider that if we would like our future generations to really feel a hyperlink with their cultural and historic roots, we should protect the bodily heritage of the previous. If that hyperlink is misplaced, individuals will lose their sense of identification, nationwide pleasure, and eventually their shallowness.

We should additionally restore, retrofit, restore, and guarantee adaptive reuse of our present buildings to protect their embodied power. The building business globally contributes to 38 per cent of the entire carbon emissions and is the only largest unorganised sector within the nation. This dream is to make sure a sustainable future for India.

The third: We all know that we would like India, each its city and rural areas, to be self-sufficient in housing, medical care, schooling, energy, and water. I additionally need each Indian to have dignity. They must have price past their usefulness and talents. Like structure requires rhythm, concord, and steadiness in design, India wants power, heroic initiative, and assertive excellence in its individuals. These are among the qualities that I consider make a society civilised and therefore dignified.

I do know we have now many great sayings and ideas by Indians, however I wish to finish with one by former US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

This is the India that all of us consider in. India at 100!

Somaya is an architect and concrete conservationist. This article is a part of an ongoing collection, which started on August 15, by ladies who’ve made a mark, throughout sectors