Anniversaries are a time to reflect on achievements, especially when national independence is being commemorated. India and Pakistan are 50 years old today and have much to celebrate. India has remained united as the world's largest democracy, with an effective constitution and a largely independent judiciary. It has exerted a powerful influence in regional and world affairs and has managed to live peacefully with most of its neighbours despite a number of issues in dispute. Most important, the sub-continent has for the last generation been more or less self-sufficient in food; and for over a decade its economic performance and growth have been steady and sustained, creating a large and sophisticated middle class that will play a more important role in its development over the next 50 years.
The two states were partitioned by the departing British government, following prolonged clashes between Hindus and Muslims and large-scale movements of peoples. Although these problems have continued to bedevil their relations, coming close to all-out war on several occasions and with a running sore in the disputed territory of Kashmir, recent efforts to improve relations by the Indian prime minister, Mr Inder Gujral, have brought them probably to their best state ever. His efforts are to be applauded and will, it is to be hoped, be encouraged further by this anniversary. In comparative terms India has fared better than Pakistan, where the military has remained preponderant, economic development has been more uneven and the civil war that led to independence for Bangladesh sapped morale. There are negative aspects to India's development as well, of which poverty and inequalities among its vast population are the most serious. That population stands at up to 850 million and is increasing rapidly. It puts great strains on India's resources, especially in education and health. Inequality remains endemic through the caste and communal systems, despite heroic efforts to overcome them. The country is famed for its bureaucratic inertia and has recently been suffering major controversies over corruption. But such generalisations are made difficult both by India's vast scale and diversity and by the unevenness between its most developed and most traditional regions. They have been held together by a federal system that has worked tolerably well and which could be exemplary for other large states.
Relations between Ireland and India have been many and varied during the centuries of British rule and the 50 years of independence. Nehru said once that "Ireland led the way" for his country, which is an important truth. Many were the voices in imperial Britain who warned about letting Ireland set an example that would lead to the disintegration of the empire - and indeed it would be possible to write a plausible history of that institution along precisely those lines. But colonial administrators, military personnel and missionaries from Ireland are part of the story too. And within such a perspective it is perhaps surprising that relations between Ireland and India have not developed more comprehensively and closely over the last fifty years. They are set to do so now, particularly in economic and business affairs, which is a very welcome way to mark this anniversary.