India's most consequential decade

You'd think the decade of 1985-95 is long over. Not really. The issues that erupted in that decade are still shaping Indian conversations

- SHEKHAR GUPTA

The news magazine India Today just turned 50.

It asked me to write on the decade of 1985-95, across which I worked there. The result is this fresh episode in my occasional series First Person Second Draft.

In a republic still young and evolving, decades would naturally compete to be called the "most consequential". Put to that test, 1985-1995 would have the most stories that dominate our democracy and debates today.

At home and around, think terminal decline of the Congress after peaking, the first coalitions, the Bofors scandal, Mandal versus Mandir contestation, insurgencies in Punjab and Kashmir, two Indian military interventions overseas (Sri Lanka and the Maldives), two war-like situations with Pakistan (Brasstacks, 1987; Pakistan's first nuclear blackmail, 1990), a fraught Sumdorong Chustandoff with China (1986-87) and then a thaw with Deng Xiaoping, assassinations of Zia-ul-Haq and Rajiv Gandhi, the globalisation of Islamist (as distinct from Islamic) jihad and its spread to Kashmir, and the freeing of India's economy.

Although it started with rock-like stability with the Congress at 414 in the Lok Sabha, the 10 years saw four Prime Ministers. Isn't that enough for a mere decade?

There's more. Because of economic reform, as a globalising India's stake and stature in the world rose, India Today's pioneering spirit took its readers to the world- from the Afghan war and Tiananmen Square to the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the first Gulf War. The Cold War ended, as did apartheid, India and Israel became friends.