Today, I have completed 75 years of my life. I am exactly a month younger than independent India. It is naturally an occasion to indulge in nostalgic reminiscences of the past and reflections on the future.
When I was born, my father Chaudhry Ranbir Singh, a veteran freedom fighter, was one of the youngest members of the Constituent Assembly of India. Simplicity, honesty and austerity were the core values of his life. I remember, on my juvenile waywardness or extravagance, his gentle admonishment was, “I was born to a farmer, but Bhupi (as he called me) is born to a Member of Parliament.” This was like a hint for me to make amends.
When I was a student, I learnt from my father that on the attainment of Independence, our first Prime Minister Pt Jawaharlal Nehru had set the objective before the nation: “To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, peasants and workers of India, to fight and end poverty, ignorance and diseases and to build a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation.”
The entire nation and all governments started working hard to realise those dreams of the freedom fighters. I have seen my father working incessantly as an MP and later as a minister in Punjab and Haryana to achieve this goal. He used to tour a lot and he would invariably carry rations from home in his car. When the Bhakra Dam project, the lifeline of the farmers, was dedicated to the nation by Pt Nehru on October 22, 1963, I witnessed those precious moments along with my father, who was the Irrigation and Power Minister of Punjab. The target of the leaders of those times was not to win the next elections, but to build the nation for the next generation.
Another incident that stands out for me was one which entirely changed my worldview. I was travelling to Bazpur (Uttarakhand) from Chandigarh when my car was swept away in flash floods in the Peeli river, a tributary of Ganga, near Haridwar. I struggled in ice-cold water in the pitch-dark night to survive. The dawn gave me hope, and subsequently, I received help from locals. That day, I found a new meaning in life. This also gave me greater clarity as to the dedication and diligence with which I have to work for the progress of my home state, Haryana.
I vividly remember the formation of Haryana, a socially, educationally and economically backward sandy tract carved out of Punjab. There was only one medical college (established under my father’s ministership in Punjab), no engineering college, no agriculture or veterinary sciences university, no irrigation facilities, no industry, no roads and no electricity.
Undoubtedly, since its formation, starting from scratch, Haryana has made tremendous progress and has become one of the most prosperous and developed states in the country. Yet, I feel, its full growth potential has not been tapped.I would like to make an observation, to which all in Haryana would agree, that quality education and health services have not received their due priority. I believe that education and health are not political issues, but vital human issues and these should be approached from that angle.
These cannot be a question of income either as these are fundamental human rights. Therefore, when an opportunity came to me to serve the state as Chief Minister, I made sincere attempts to make Haryana an education hub. Rajiv Gandhi Education City and many universities (including medical, engineering and technology, law and veterinary services) were established.
Several medical colleges and institutions of national and international repute such as All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Management, National Institute of Design and National Institute of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship and Management were opened. Several new colleges and schools were started.I am convinced that lack of quality education is intricately and directly related to the increasing rate of unemployment, crime, drug menace and other social problems. If an opportunity comes to us in future, we will dedicate our men, money and minds to a missionary mode to improve the quality of universal education and health, mitigate multidimensional poverty and make a happy and healthy Haryana.
I believe that economic growth does not mean anything if it leaves the poor out. The economy in this ecosystem has to enable human development and happiness; therefore, we ensured that there was no home in Haryana which was not benefited, directly or indirectly, from the welfare schemes of the Congress government headed by me. From pension for senior citizens, widows, differently abled and destitute, scholarships to students belonging to Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes from the date of admission in the school to Class XII, honorarium to nambardars, chowkidars, sarpanches and panches to free plots and water connections and tanks to SCs, stipend to budding sportspersons under the Sports and Physical Aptitude Test (SPAT) scheme and free-of-cost travel for women on Raksha Bandhan, the government ensured that every home was benefited.
I am conscious of the crisis the country is passing through. The times “have changed, changed utterly; a terrible uncertainty is born,” as English poet WB Yeats puts it.What was unimaginable in yesteryear seems a certainty tomorrow. Being a bearer of the glorious legacies of the freedom fighters, I am aware that their dreams remain unfulfilled and the debt of new sacrifices remains unpaid. Therefore, today, I tell myself with renewed faith in the words of poet Robert Frost, “I have miles to go before I sleep.”
